Sticks, Parts & Accessories > >

Showing 1 - 20 of 3778 Results

Drums are one of the oldest and most popular of all musical instruments. The oldest drums are truly prehistoric, stretched skins and gourds lining Neolithic campfires. Even chimpanzees have been witnessed banging their fists along the surface of a hollow log. The drum inspires some of the most basic of human delights, creates some of the most primal of echoing sounds, and almost universally reminds the body of a deep and powerful heartbeat.

The drum is the most basic of percussion instruments, creating music through the vibrations moving over a stretched membrane. The membrane, referred to technically as a ‘head’, stretches over one or both ends of a hollow body referred to as a ‘shell’. The sound made by a drum is created through the vibration of the membrane rather than the vibration of the shell, and important distinction that separates the instrument from others, such as bells and cymbals, that create sound through the vibration of the body. While the materials used to make drums have expanded from skins and dried vegetables to include advanced synthetics, the method and substance of the instrument remains simple and unchanged.

Drum shape and size is as important as drum material in the making of unique and defined sounds. Drums come in several basic shapes, categorized roughly as ‘bowls’ and ‘tubes’. Drums familiar to western music-lovers are often bowls, a popular example being ‘kettle’ drums and symphonic drums. Short, or ‘shallow’ drums have a particularly large number of variations, from the familiar ‘conga’ drum to the ‘tenor’, ‘snare’, and ‘frame’ drums. The most well known sort of frame drum is the tambourine, defined like others of its category by an un-resonating shell.

Drums have the capacity to be tuned through adjustment of the tightness of the membrane of the shell. Most drums in western music do not have this capacity, and are considered ‘nontunable’.

Music made through a drum is often, but not always, through striking the stretched membrane.The hands or fists of the musician are used in number of drum designs, requiring no stick or striking implement. Western music is again the exception here, often requiring a stick or mallet to strike the surface of the drum in order to make sound.

The most familiar instrument for striking a drum is the ‘drumstick’. Traditional drum sticks have been around for decades, are made of wood, and follow a set pattern of design. Sticks are most often made from maple, hickory, or oak (all sturdy grains of wood), or as in recent years, synthetic materials often wrapped around sturdy metal cores. Drumsticks have four defined parts. The ball at the striking end of the stick is called simply the ‘tip’. The tapering end descending from the ball is referred to as the ‘shoulder’. The length of the stick is called the ‘shaft’, and the end pointed away from the drum is called the ‘butt’. Even made from hardy materials, drumsticks break often and require constant replacement. Often the sticks are sold in bundles.

Drums and the sticks used to play them remain popular from rock to world music, played at concerts and on street corners, and will likely continue to resist change for thousands of years to come.