Without the drums the entire band falls apart as they hold the structure of the music together, the drums provide a solid beat for other instruments to build upon and play a supporting role but can still be in your face and attention catching.
The drums can either be acoustic or electric, they are very similar with the main key differences being that you can adjust the electric drum's volume and have different dynamics and feel compared to an acoustic. The electric drums are recommended for beginners as they are much quieter and easier to manage than a loud acoustic drum set. The drums are a very beginner friendly instrument as unlike the guitar where you need very good hand dexterity in order to get a single note or chord out when for the drums you only need to hit a snare or cymbal to get a sound.
Drums are unlike other instruments as they are percussion which means they can't play any harmonies or music notes, instead they use rhythm and dynamics to bring life into music. In order to play drums you need a very good sense of timing in order to hold the other instruments of a band together, you also may be playing repetitive rhythms to set a foundation for the music. Although the drums are mostly a supporting instrument, that doesn't mean that they cant be beautiful and move people emotionally with them being the focus. Drummers such as Neil Peart of Rush, Mario Duplantier of Gojira and Dave Grohl of Nirvana push the boundaries of what the instrument can do and have inspired millions of aspiring drummers around the globe.
General Musicianship Knowledge
It is important to know the names of the different parts of a drum set if you want to refer to them in the future, these are the:
- Ride
- Crash
- Hi-Hat
- High Tom
- Medium Tom
- Low Tom
It is also important to know the names of different note lengths when reading drum notation as you cant play actual music notes, these are:
- Crotchets: Main beat, most of the time 4 in a bar
- Minums: Worth 2 crotchets
- Semibreves: Worth 4 crotchets
- Breves: Worth 8 crotchets
- Quavers: Worth 1/2 of a crotchet
- Semi Quavers: Worth 1/4 of a crotchet
- Demi semi quavers: Worth 1/8 of a crotchet
How Often Should I Practice?
Depending on how much free time or what kind of person you are, the right amount of practice time will vary a lot. An important thing is consistency as it has massive benefits to improving your playing so aim to practice every day even if that just means 5 minutes.
The type of practice you do can be simple stuff such as learning new songs, playing scales or exercises to improve hand dexterity and developing new techniques. But having fun will be the thing that benefits you the most in the long run as you will think of practice as an entertaining activity, so no matter what you practice, make sure you are enjoying it.
It is recommended to play in a band as early as possible in your musical journey as you will learn essential and valuable skills from playing with other musicians. It will also develop a love for music and create valuable memories as you will be socialising, having fun and creating music with other people.