Virtual drum kit

How to play

Tap a drum or cymbal, click it, or press its key on your computer keyboard. Every hit sounds straight away and rings out on its own, the way a drum does after the stick has left it. Play several at once — two fingers on a phone, or two keys together — for the kick and hi-hat that start most beats. The kit is laid out as you would see it from the drummer’s seat.

The hi-hat is one cymbal with two halves: the top half plays it open, ringing; the bottom half plays it closed, a short “tss”. A closed hit stops an open one, as the drummer’s foot closing the two cymbals does.

Computer keyboard

Your two index fingers rest on F and J, as they do for typing: the left one plays the hi-hat, the right one the snare — the same crossed-hands grip a drummer uses. The thumbs play the kick on the space bar. Keys are matched by position, so the shape is the same on AZERTY and QWERTZ keyboards. Nothing plays while you type in the search box, and shortcuts with Cmd, Ctrl or Alt are left alone.

Without a mouse: Tab reaches each drum and Enter plays the one in focus; each is announced by name. Space is always the kick, wherever you are in the kit, so it never presses a button by accident.

What is a drum kit?

A drum kit — also called a drum set or trap set — is a group of drums and cymbals arranged so that one person can play them all at once: hands with sticks on the drums and cymbals, one foot on a pedal for the bass drum, the other on a pedal that closes the hi-hat. It became the engine of jazz, rock, pop, funk and almost every popular style because one drummer can keep the beat, mark the bar and add colour at the same time.

The parts of a drum kit

• Kick drum (bass drum) — the big drum on the floor, played with a pedal. The lowest sound in the kit; it usually marks the strong beats.
• Snare drum — the drum between the knees, with metal wires (the snares) stretched under it that buzz on every hit. Its sharp crack usually lands on beats 2 and 4.
• Hi-hat — two cymbals on a stand, opened and closed with the left foot. Closed it ticks off the time; open it rings.
• Toms — drums without snares, tuned from high to low. Rack toms sit over the kick; the floor tom stands on its own legs. They are the drums of fills.
• Crash cymbal — a thin cymbal for accents: a loud splash at the start of a section, often with the kick.
• Ride cymbal — a large, heavier cymbal played in a steady pattern, a ringing alternative to the hi-hat.

Kick, snare and hi-hat: the three that make a beat

Most beats are built from these three. The kick is low and round, felt as much as heard; the snare is bright and cracking; the closed hi-hat is short and high. Because they sit in different registers, you can hear all three at once without them blurring. The kick and snare answer each other — low on the strong beats, high on the beats between — while the hi-hat keeps an even pulse over the top, like a clock.

How to play your first drum beat

Choose Rock beat above the kit. It counts “1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &” — eight eighth notes — and the next stroke lights up. Count out loud as you go:

1. Hi-hat on every count, all eight.
2. Add the kick on 1 and 3, together with the hi-hat.
3. Add the snare on 2 and 4, together with the hi-hat.

Hits marked together have to be played together — two fingers or two keys at once. A wrong drum does not move you on; the pattern waits. It checks that you play the right pieces in the right order, not your timing, so take it slowly and then play it again from memory, steadily, in free play. Then try the simple pop beat (hi-hat on the beats only and an extra kick before 3) and the basic fill down the toms to a crash.

How drum rhythms relate to musical meter

A drum beat is a picture of the meter. In 4/4 the bar has four beats; the kick on 1 and 3 and the snare on 2 and 4 make the strong and weak beats audible, and the hi-hat divides each beat into two eighth notes. That is why a drummer can tell a band where “1” is just by playing. The time signatures lesson explains what 4/4, 3/4 and 6/8 mean, and note values shows how quarter and eighth notes are written. To read a rhythm and tap it back with a clock running, try the rhythm decoder; to hear how a meter groups its beats, the time signature player. Want melody too? The virtual piano is next door.

The sound

One real acoustic drum kit, recorded in one room: the Virtuosity Drums library by Versilian Studios and Karoryfer Samples (CC0, public domain), played with sticks by Austin McMahon. Each piece is the library’s own close and overhead microphones mixed to one channel, levelled and compressed for the web — two loud takes that alternate, so repeated hits are not identical, and a softer take for quiet hits. The recordings load once the page is ready; until they have, a simple synthesised kit plays the same hits.

The recorded kit has two toms, a rack tom and a floor tom. The mid tom here is the rack tom played four semitones lower, halfway between them — not a third recorded drum.