The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. Drums are the world’s oldest and most ubiquitous musical instruments, and the basic design has remained virtually unchanged for thousands of years.
Drums are made of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and hit, either directly with the player’s hands, or with a drum stick, to produce sound. There are other ways to make a sound on a drum such as the thumb roll – you could see how many ways you can make a sound with a drum!
Drums may be played individually, with the player using a single drum, and some drums such as the djembe are almost always played in this way. Others are normally played in a set of two or more, all played by the one player, such as bongo drums and timpani. A number of different drums together with cymbals form the basic modern drum kit.
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