Contents:
General information about percussion:
#1: Drum Kit
Drum Kit
The drum kit is a set of drums that is played by one performer, who sits in front of them on a stool. A standard kit consists of a kick (bass) drum, snare, high-hat, high, mid, low and floor tom-toms, ride and crash cymbal. More instruments can be added to the drum kit for different needs. The performer plays the drum kit with wooden sticks unless specified in the score and part, brushes and soft sticks can also be used.
As the drum kit is played by one person is usually has its own stave in the score and uses the percussion clef. Notation hasn’t really been standardised yet but there are common ways of notating for drum kit. To save any confusion a drum legend can be written out and put at the beginning of the score. This will indicate to the performer exactly what instrument to play from which line.
Image #2 is quite a common way of notating for drum kit. To make certain that nothing is mistaken or to change an instrument in the score and part then label the note above the stave to indicate this to the performer.
#2: Drum Legend
The performer uses their hands and feet to produce sounds from the instruments. Instruments that are played by the feet are the kick drum and the high-hat; the high-hat is also played with the sticks. Everything else is played with sticks.
Kick Drum
The kick drum is the largest of the instruments in the drum kit and provides the bass for the rhythms. They can come in a variety of sizes for different tones and depth of sound.
Snare Drum
The snare pitch is in between the high-hat and kick drum. The snare, which gives the drum its hard, military sound, can be turned on or off to give a more bouncy tone to it. Simply write snare on or off over the stave to notate.
High-hat
The high-hat is a pair of cymbals with one sitting on top of the other and traditionally used to keep time because of its high pitch, which is able to cut through the sound. The high-hat is more commonly played with the sticks although it can be operated by a foot pedal which controls the open and close action determined by the position of the clutch (this holds the upper cymbal in place).
The sound of the high-hat when it’s closed has a dead cymbal sound and doesn’t have any ring to it, the open sound is more of a cymbal-like sound. While the performer is playing the high-hat with sticks it can be opened and closed using the foot pedal to give more variation to its sound. To notate write “
” above the note(s) for open and “
” to close it again. Back to top