The Essentials in Playing Drums: How to Choose Your First Drum Kit

If you are planning to learn how to play the drums, you will need to choose your very first drum kit. This can be a very daunting prospect as you may be imagining having a fully featured kit with different kinds of drums and cymbals just like a professional drummer would have. You need to remember that your first drum kit shouldn’t be like this.

For beginners, your drum kit should be a lot more modest. So, what are the basic kits that you need to have?

Usually, the basic drum kit will consist of a standard 4 piece set up. This kit will have a large 22 inch bass drum, a 14 inch snare drum, 2 tom-toms, a crash cymbal, and a hi-hat. These are the pieces that you need in order for you to start playing drums. With these kits, you will be able to start learning how to play the drums.

Although most bands today will have a more elaborate setup for their drum kit compared to the basic setup, you will find that you really won’t need such an elaborate and expensive drum setup when you are learning how to play the drums. As you start improving your drumming skills, this is the time where you will start buying more drum kit pieces.

Your best option when choosing your first drum kit is to keep it simple. You have to keep in mind that even if you purchase the most expensive and the most elaborate drum kit, you can’t expect to play the drums right away like how the professionals do. It takes years of experience and many professional drummers learned how to play the drums the hard way and most of them also started out learning how to play the drums using the basic drum kit.

You will also ask about the brand of the drumming equipment you should purchase. You may be thinking about Pearl, Ludwig, Pacific, or Mapex to name a few. However, as a beginner drummer, you should keep it cheap and simple. It is highly recommended that you purchase a kit where each of the drum kit components is made by the same manufacturer.

You may encounter incompatibility problems when you have a drum kit where each piece is made by a different manufacturer or company. If you can, you should buy a cheap and simple set that is made by an unknown manufacturer. This is a great drum kit for you to practice on.

Once you improve your skills and you think that you are really ready, you can just upgrade to a better drum setup and purchase additional components in your drum kit.

These are the things that you need to remember when you are choosing your first drum kit. Always remember to keep it as simple as possible. Never purchase an elaborate setup as your first drum kit. Go for the standard setup and you will be able to start practicing and improving your drumming skills. Later on, you can upgrade to a better drum setup and you can also add more components in your kit.