Instruments

Drums

Striking a membrane stretched over a cavity is perhaps the world's oldest way of organizing sound, and in many cultures today, drums still have ceremonial uses that Westerners would not consider specifically musical. There are countless variations in shape, construction, and sound. Though nearly universal, drums for centuries played only a minimal role in the Western classical tradition; one seventeenth-century compendium of instruments does not even mention them. The familiar bass drum was imported to Europe in emulation of Turkish military bands. It was in the late eighteenth century that drums began to appear regularly in classical music; Mozart's opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail was among the first works to feature them. Since then, drums and percussion in general have increased in importance within the classical tradition. In the world of popular music, the invariably plural form ("drums") indicates that drums are generally played in sets of more than one. Indeed a pop drummer generally employs a battery of several instruments, some of them not drums at all, to produce a variety of timbres and pitches. There are electric drums that pass percussive sounds through electronic amplifiers and a mixing board in the same manner as with other electric instruments, but they are less commonly used than such pop mainstays as the electric guitar and the electric piano, having been largely supplanted by drum programming.

Artist Highlights

Artist Active Styles
Keith Moon 1960s - 1970s Rock & Roll
Art Blakey 1940s - 1990s Hard Bop, Bop
Ginger Baker 1950s - 2010s Art Rock, Blues-Rock, Fusion, Jazz-Rock, Post-Bop, Album Rock, Hard Rock, Ethnic Fusion
Earl Palmer 1940s - 2000s Bop, New Orleans R&B, Early R&B, Rock & Roll
Max Roach 1940s - 2000s Bop, Hard Bop, Post-Bop, Avant-Garde Jazz, Free Jazz, Modern Free, Modern Creative
Buddy Rich 1920s - 1980s Big Band, Mainstream Jazz, Swing, Bop, Modern Big Band
John Bonham 1960s - 1980s Album Rock, Arena Rock, Blues-Rock, British Blues, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Regional Blues
Charlie Watts 1950s - 2020s Neo-Bop, Modern Big Band, Standards
Jim Keltner 1970s - 2020s Vocal Music
Fred Below 1950s - 1980s Chicago Blues, Regional Blues
Bernard "Pretty" Purdie 1950s - 2020s Soul Jazz, Jazz-Funk, Jazz Blues, Jazz-Pop
Gene Krupa 1920s - 1970s Big Band, Dixieland, Swing, Bop
Kenny Aronoff 1990s Film Score
Hal Blaine 1940s - 2010s Rock & Roll, AM Pop
Jack DeJohnette 1960s - 2020s Free Funk, Fusion, Post-Bop, Straight-Ahead Jazz
Ringo Starr 1950s - 2020s Contemporary Pop/Rock, Rock & Roll, Contemporary Country
Stewart Copeland 1970s - 2020s Instrumental Pop, Original Score, Ethnic Fusion, Worldbeat, Soundtracks, Avant-Garde Music, Film Score
Elvin Jones 1940s - 2000s Avant-Garde Jazz, Hard Bop, Jazz Blues, Post-Bop, Free Jazz, Mainstream Jazz, Modal Music, Progressive Jazz
Louie Bellson 1930s - 2000s Big Band, Bop, Swing, Modern Big Band, Jazz Instrument, Modern Jazz, Piano Jazz