Why does a snare drum have, well, a snare?
When did the standard 4 piece drum kit (snare, base, high tom, floor tom) first appear.
Also, what’s up with the high-hat cymbal?
bump
The snare is to give the drum a sharp, high-pitched tone that can cut through all the loud sounds around it. It originated because of the need for the drummer to signal orders to troops in the heat of battle with specific drumbeats that had to be heard clearly.
It works just as well when you’re surrounded by a rock band as an army.
It’s possible to release the level that holds the snares against the drumhead. When played without snares, it sounds pretty much like another tomtom, although perhaps a bit brighter because of the shell.
If I’m not mistaken, the first musicians to use the traps in that configuration were jazz drummers in the earliest days of jazz. I went to Preservation Hall in the '70s when some of the original New Orleans jazz musicians were still playing despite advanced age. Living fossils.
The traps are a sedentary setup of military marching-band drums and cymbals. Ragtime and jazz bands had originally formed to play John Philip Sousa marches and that kind of stuff. When they took that orchestration and Africanized their playing, ragtime and jazz bands were born. To trace the earliest players of trap drums, I would inquire into the drummers of Buddy Bolden’s and Jellyroll Morton’s bands.
Whoops, I meant to type “It’s possible to release the lever that holds the snares level against the drumhead.”
The origins of the snare drum come from a drum which was used in the 13th and 14th century, the drum had one snare, or many snares and was called a tabour. Its interesting to note that the snares where on the batter head (the side you hit).
Its use was not for military use. it was paired up with a fife and used for dancing,
Johanna is more less on the money with the configuration of the modern drum set, it stems from “traps” percussionists who were basically called upon to play ever bell and whistle (literally) imaginable and had large setups around them. This in combination with the music going on with new Orleans (second line drumming) which would have one player with bass drum and cymbals (picture marching band bass drum with one cymbal attached and the other in the hand which was not holding the bass drum mallet) and another playing snare drum, this also gives you the origin of “hi hat”
See if you can find pictures of Chick Webb, You can see photos of him with the standard bass drum, snare drum, hi hat, cymbals…but in addition temple blocks, tam tam, cow bells and various other percussion instruments…
eventually these other instruments were not needed for the music and the “kit” became smaller.
The drum kit being what it is today stems from the evolution of jazz drumming and then later, rock and roll
I need to stop there because of homework, if you want more info about this, specifically the history of the snare drum. just post
hope this helps!
This picture of King Oliver’s band from the 1920s shows that their drummer had at least a snare and bass, and maybe a floor tom that we can’t see.
This picture of Gene Krupa, undoubtedly less than ten years later, shows him at a kit which undoubtedly includes the high tom, so must be much the same as the basic four-piece kit of today…minus cymbals, that is, of course.
BTW not all rock music has used drums. Elvis’ famed Sun recordings had only his accoustic guitar, Scotty Moore’s electric, and Billy Black’s (?) stand up bass.
percussion’s history of the snare drum’s earliest origins is correct. The tabor used a gut snare across the top and was used for playing medieval dance music. The one-man-band setup was to drum on the tabor with one hand and play the fife with the other hand (obviously this restricted the range of melodic notes). The snare allowed the solo musician to make a bigger racket even when playing for noisy parties.
The shape of the tabor, however, was long and narrow, contrasted with the wider and relatively shallower snare drum as we know it. This latter design came, I believe, from military bands. See the book Planet Drum by Mickey Hart for historical illustrations of these designs. Mickey is a one-man encyclopedia of drum lore. The ride cymbal and hi-hat cymbals are adaptations designed for the sedentary traps, because in marching bands cymbals were played differently.
Here’s Chick Webb and his traps. Although he flourished in the big band era, long after the trap setup had been established and elaborated. The King Oliver picture supplied by Spectre of Pithecanthropus is from the infancy of jazz and the closest to answering the OP about drum kit origins.
Speaking of elaboration, which '70s rock drummer had the most excessively overgrown mountain of drums? Carl Palmer or Neil Peart?
Personally, I’ve never been a trap drummer. Those drums were designed for battlefield conditions and used for European military music circa the 17th and 18th centuries. That’s basically what Gene Krupa, John Bonham, etc. were playing: European military drums. I play hand drums whose heritage is more tribal and mystical: djembé, dumbek, dholak, and several varieties of frame drums like the doira. The frame drum is the oldest design of all and goes back to the Neolithic. See When the Drummers Were Women by Layne Redmond for the ancient history of frame drumming.
Just to add some little details to this already-extensive information…
The drumkit has its roots in the art of “double-drumming”, which was a method of playing both the bass drum and snare drum with the usual drumsticks—this saved on having to pay both a snare drummer and a bass drummer. The bass drum and the snare drum were both tilted at extreme angles to facilitate a sort of wig-waggle motion between the two drums, enabling the playing of a drumroll with quarter notes on the bass drum, if you liked.
The first bass drum pedals came about in the 1890s, but these were relatively ungainly beasts as compared to the one introduced by William Ludwig in 1909, setting a standard that exists to this day. Prior to this, said pedals were often homemade or purchased from other drummers who made them as a sideline. Most were good enough to keep quarters only, and they required a heel-toe rocking action to return the beater—a technique used today for faster bass drum playing. With the introduction of this new spring-loaded Ludwig pedal, things naturally speeded up and allowed the drummer to play the bass drum with much less effort.
The four-piece drumkit as we know it today was introduced by Gene Krupa, who jettisoned such popular-in-their-day traps as temple blocks, Chinese toms, and so forth in favor of a streamlined setup. It’s debated whether he introduced the modern hi-hat cymbal stand as well (instead of Walberg and Auge, so some claim), replacing a shortened version of the hi-hat known as the “low-boy”, which in turn had replaced a contraption known as the Charleston Snowshoe Cymbals. Prior to all of this, the left foot merely sat idle (or jogged in time, perhaps). A “clanger” similar to that which percussion describes was also used on pedaled bass drums before widespread use of the foot-operated cymbals, with a rod mounted on the shaft of the beater striking the cymbal simultaneously with the bass drum—or not, by moving the rod away.
There are some excellent pictures to be had at the Percussive Arts Society’s website. Roy Knapp’s drumset, in particular, encompasses a usual extravagant setup for the 1920s.
I’m sure you’d find that there’s been very widespread use of the drum in non-European warfare as well.
Yeah, but the specific ones I mentioned were not military. Except I think the pagan Arab women from Mecca led by Hind bint ‘Utbah, when they sang naughty songs on the battlefield to taunt the Muslim enemy and to urge on their side, must have been using frame drums.
We are the daughters of the morning star [i.e. the goddess al-‘Uzzá]
If you fight, we will embrace you
If you run, from the bed we will forsake you
Uppity women had real sassy spunk in those days.
Thanks for all the detailed and relevant information, Joe K!