Guide Note

A drum is a musical instrument generally consisting of a membrane stretched over a shell. It is typically designed to produce a single, percussive tone when struck, and to provide rhythm.

Fast Facts

1. Technical classification: Membranophone
2. Played by hand or with sticks
3. Often played as part of a set, or drum kit
4. The tambourine is a hand drum common in Europe and North America

The most basic, and oldest, types of drum are the varieties of hand drum common to cultures around the world, of which the African djembe and Latin American conga are perhaps the most familiar. In Europe and North American music, drums played with sticks are more common, and include the snare drum and bass drum of military origin, and their orchestral versions such as the tympani, or kettle drum.

Since the rise of jazz in the early part of the 20th Century, drums have commonly been arranged in sets (or kits), with a single percussionist using both hands and feet to play a bass drum, snare drum, several differently sized (and pitched) tom-toms, an array of cymbals, and sometimes percussion instruments such as cowbell. Hand drums are also commonly played in sets of two or more, to provide the drummer with a number of different tones.

Beginning in the late 1960s, advances in synthesizer technology led to the increased use of electronically-created percussion sounds in pop music. Non-acoustic drums and drum kits followed (such as the Linn Drum and its derivations), allowing percussionists to generate synthesized percussion sounds using traditional drum techniques.