One practice pad, some sticks and a metronome is all you need to get started. When you are ready for more, here is how to set up for practising at home.
Sticks
5A sticks are lighter and 5B sticks are heavier. Hickory is a good choice. Some hardwood sticks (they tend to be darker coloured) can cause wrist pain because more vibration travels into your bones. Be aware that coloured or painted sticks will leave paint marks on drum heads.
Metronome
Try a metronome that is not an app on your mobile, as it helps you stay focused on practising. Benny Greb's GapClick app is recommended too, as it does things a conventional metronome can't.
Quiet practice
The examination-standard drum set-up is a snare drum, high, mid and low toms, a set of hi-hats, a ride cymbal and a crash cymbal. There are two good ways to get a quiet version of it at home:
- A practice pad kit: pads for the snare, toms and bass drum (including a pedal), with a hi-hat stand, two cymbal stands and low volume cymbals.
- A full acoustic kit with mesh heads and low volume cymbals. This gives you a quiet(ish) kit to practise on, and a full acoustic kit when you would like to go gigging.
Buying drums and saving money
Send us links and we'll happily review them for you.
The cheapest way to get a drum kit is definitely second-hand. You can nearly always find a cheap set of drums on Facebook Marketplace or eBay. We'd recommend going for that and changing to mesh heads.
Well known manufacturers to look out for: Mapex, Ludwig, Premier, Natal, Pearl, DW, Sonor, Yamaha, Gretsch and Tama. If it's got their name on, even their lowest level drums are usually very well made.
80% of a drum's sound actually comes from the heads you put on, so even a beaten up old kit from a reliable manufacturer with new heads will probably sound very good. The quality manufacturers use higher quality steel and fixings that won't warp, bend, crack or strip threads. There are a lot of screws on a drum kit, and poorer quality kits tend to have low quality metalwork that fails, particularly if the kit travels a lot when gigging.
Keeping the neighbours happy
- Drum pedals generate a thud that famously turns downstairs neighbours into your worst enemies.
- Foam matting gives vibration isolation to set your kit on.
- A drum mat stops your kit sliding around on hard floors.
- Some people even build floating platforms with MDF and tennis balls.
Exercise books
- Trinity Graded Drum Books (Initial to Grade 2, Grades 3 to 5, Grades 6 to 8)
- The Best Beginner Drum Book (Drumeo)
- 4-Way Coordination (Dahlgren & Fine)
- Stick Control (George Lawrence Stone)
- Anatomy of Drumming: Move Better, Feel Better, Play Better
There are thousands of books on style-specific drumming, general musicianship, drumming history and more. If you find any good ones, let us know. For a fuller list with practice routines, see The Drummer's Reading List.