Any rock and jazz band that understands their craft will definitely tell you immediately and without hesitation: the drummer is the soul of the band! Without him, even the greatest guitar virtuoso, the loudest bass player and the long-haired singer is not worth a damn. And of course a good drummer needs a good one too Drums , because with a few wooden boxes and pot lids that does not necessarily continue. But what does a good one do? Drums actually out? What should you pay attention to as a beginner? How do you find your playing on this most complex of instruments built on the stages of the world? In the following, we want to give you the most important answers to these questions in a short and understandable way.

Why do you need that? Drums at all?

The electric drums

The first question you have to ask yourself is: In which direction is the music that you are going with the Drums want to play and where do you want her Drums use? If you tend to go in the direction of electronic music and perhaps want to take pictures on your own computer at home, you are well advised to use an electric drum kit. The advantages here: You can play it like a conventional drums, that is, you hit with two sticks on different toms and cymbals, but these are not mechanical, that is through sound volume to acoustic tones, but by digiatle technique. These sounds you can also in a thousand different variants by means of a small regulator through a cable in the computer, the P.A. or on one headphoneto hunt. Especially if you want to practice at home, this is an advantage because there is virtually no noise.

The ‚right‘ drums

With a ‚proper‘ drum kit you would need to record every single drum and every single cymbal with one (expensive) mic in order to record it at a high quality mixermix. You also have to deal with the extreme noise of a drum kit. Practicing in the living room after work is possible in the rarest cases – because of the roommates and neighbors. But for real ‚drummer‘ there is really no question: An electric drum kit is for musicians who want to do some effects on their computer-made pieces themselves, with real drumming has nothing to do. And honestly, it’s only a fraction of the fun to play on a ‚proper‘ drums. So if you want to be a drummer, you need real drums. However, you usually need your own rehearsal room, for example in a halfway soundproofed basement room. In addition, the band must always meet where the drums are, because it is quite annoying to constantly pull from session to session.

How big should it be?

Maybe you have seen these huge drums in music videos or on big stages. There are drummers who have often built over 100 different drums, cymbals, gongs, bells and other things around them. These gigantic drum batteries are mostly found at stadium rock bands. In jazz, on the other hand, there are the purists, who mostly manage with five (or less) different utensils: the snare-drum (that is the bright-sounding drum that stands between the drummer’s legs), the bass-drum (that’s the recumbent one) whose round face is facing forward and the drummer usually plays with a pedal over his right foot), a hang-up (this is a bigger, smaller drum mounted over the bass drum), a cymbal (that is this big, clattering, brass-colored disc, mounted on its own stand to the right of the drummer) and the so-called high-hat (these are the two superimposed cymbals played with the left foot via a pedal and the sticks). For a beginner actually enough this simple variant, because first of all, it is indeed the motor skills and a handful of drums to learn and master. You can still extend your drums with different cymbals, gongs, bells and whatever else you can think of. At the top there is only one limit to the drums: you have to be able to achieve everything without getting out of rhythm. And once you have that arcout, there is hardly a better instrument than the drums.