Before you play a single note, it helps to know what you're looking at. The "5-piece kit" is the industry standard — five drums, three cymbals — and almost every recording you've ever heard rides on some version of this layout. Once you can name the pieces and understand what each one does in a song, every lesson after this gets easier.
The kit divides into three families: drums (snare, bass, toms), cymbals (hi-hat, ride, crash), and pedals (the bass drum pedal under your right foot, the hi-hat pedal under your left). Drums are written as filled dots on the staff; cymbals are written as x noteheads. That visual distinction is the first thing to internalize.
The kit, from the drummer's seat
The same pieces on the staff
The drum key, top of the staff downward
- Crash — x notehead on the added line above the staff
- Hi-hat — x notehead in the space above the top line
- Ride — x notehead on the top line
- High tom — the top space, between the fourth and fifth lines
- Mid tom — the fourth line
- Snare — the middle space, third from the bottom
- Floor tom — the second space from the bottom
- Bass drum — the bottom space, stem down
- Hi-hat foot — x notehead in the space below the staff, stem down
The Five Drums
Snare drum — 14 inches across, sitting between your knees. The wires stretched under the bottom head are what give the snare its sharp, cracking sound. This is the loudest, most expressive drum on the kit and it carries the backbeat — the snap on counts 2 and 4 that defines almost every popular style.
Bass drum (also called the "kick") — the big drum on the floor, played with a foot pedal. On a rock kit it's typically 22 inches in diameter; on a smaller fusion kit, 20 inches. The kick provides the low-end pulse — usually on counts 1 and 3 in a basic rock beat.
Two rack toms — mounted above the bass drum. The smaller (12-inch) is on the left, the larger (13-inch) on the right. They sit at different pitches so you can move around the kit during fills.
Floor tom — 16 inches, standing on three legs to the right of your snare. It's the lowest-pitched of the three toms and often acts as the destination of a fill — the big drum you land on before the next downbeat.
The Three Cymbals
Hi-hat — two 14-inch cymbals stacked on a stand, controlled by a foot pedal. Push the pedal down to clamp them together (closed sound: tight, articulate); let it up to open them (open sound: a long, sizzling "tssss"). The hi-hat plays the steady subdivision in most grooves.
Ride cymbal — a large 20-inch cymbal to your right. It produces a clear, sustained "ping" and is used for steady time in jazz, ballads, and louder rock choruses where the hi-hat would get buried.
Crash cymbal — typically 16 inches, mounted to the left over the small tom. As the name suggests, it's for accents — usually the downbeat after a fill, or the start of a new section of a song.
Rock vs Fusion Sizing
You'll see kits marketed as either "rock" or "fusion" sizes. Rock sizes are bigger and deeper — 22-inch bass, 12 and 13-inch toms, 16-inch floor tom — and produce a thicker, lower-pitched sound suited to loud styles. Fusion sizes are smaller — 20-inch bass, 10 and 12-inch toms, 14-inch floor — with a faster attack and brighter pitch, well-suited to jazz, fusion, and lighter pop. The drums are the same instrument; only the resonance and pitch range differ.
How the Kit is Notated
Drum music is written on a five-line staff with a special "neutral" clef (two short vertical bars) instead of treble or bass. Higher-pitched pieces sit higher on the staff; lower-pitched pieces sit lower. The drum key above spells out every position: the crash rides on an added line over the top of the staff, the bass drum sits in the lowest space, and everything else falls in between. Two details trip up most beginners. The hi-hat is not on the top line, it is in the space just above it; and the mid tom sits on the fourth line rather than in a space. The exercise below plays each piece in turn so you can see and hear the layout at once.