Drum sets are made of mainly drums and some other percussion instruments. One drummer plays all of them. A drum set includes a snare drum, a bass drum, two rack mounted tom toms, one floor tom, hi hat cymbals, one ride cymbal and one crash cymbal.

There is another kind of drum set, which is called a fusion kit. This particular kind of kit is a bit smaller than the normal drum sets and it only has one single rack tom. The pedal and the rack stand are two very important parts of the basic drum sets.

Apart from these, conventional drum sets include some other instruments like, China cymbal, wood block, cowbell and tambourine. Professional drummers use lot many other percussions also. But they are not considered as a part of the drum kit.

The drummer plays the drum with a drumstick. They strike on the top of the drum with the stick and this stroke creates a vibration that gives birth to the sound. To heat the bass drum, the drummer needs to use the pedal. The hi hat is also played by the pedal and it gives a chick kind of sound. Sometimes to get a different sound, some drummer plays the hi hat with the stick.

Different genres of music have different styles of playing and accordingly the constituents of drum sets are decided. For instance, in rock and roll, mainly the hi hat, bass drum, snare drum and ride cymbal stays in use. Sometimes the crash cymbal and the tom toms are used for the fillers. In rock and role, sticks are used to play hi hats.

The jazz music again has a different playing pattern. Here the ride cymbal is the main instrument. The hi hats are played by pedals and the other equipments are used to give support.

Lots of improvisation happens during playing different genres of music. Improvisations even take place in different pieces of same genres of music also.

Previously the drum sets were called traps. This term has become obsolete now. In the early stage, drum rims used to be made of woods. There were no drum stands at that time. Instead of drum stands, there was a metal rack. All the drums were put together on that rack.

The drums were then made of calfskin. But they faced a lot of tuning problems. The cymbals were very small and they were not at all of good quality. They were hung up with curtain cords. But the curtain cords were not able to hold the bid cymbals properly. Finally Gene Krupa invented a cymbal stand.

Today drum sets have got a good and scientific shape. A complete drum set now constitutes of not only various types of drums and cymbals but also different drum hardware like snare stands, cymbal stackers, various types of pedals like one with 2-string or with footboard and array of beaters, etc. producing magical sound beats.