X8 Drums Blog

Despite public opinion, being a drummer isn’t easy, nor is it all fun and games. There are a ton of reasons why people start drumming, and probably more reasons why people stop drumming. We, the drummers, are the unsung heroes of music and the pounding heartbeats of rhythmic divinity. We keep the beat alive even as we take a beating, ourselves. Sometimes, in those moments of pure introspection (usually as we wait for the other instruments to get tuned up), we even ask ourselves if drumm …

If you have been playing hand drums for a while, you know there are plenty of differences between a djembe and the bongos. Really, if you’ve been playing for a while, you know there are differences between a rope-tuned djembe and a key-tuned djembe, not to mention the thousands of other nuances that those drums offer. Loving your djembe (or any hand drum) will inevitably lead you down a path of expertise about your drum, as well as drums that sit alongside it at the local music store or …

Just ask any drummer about the most important sound from a drum set… and, you’ll get a different response each time. But, just because drummers cannot agree on what part of the drum set is the best, that doesn’t mean that drummers who prefer the bass drum are entirely wrong. If that is, of course, the answer, which we are assuming, solely so we can discuss our love for kick pedals. Kick pedals became necessary additions to a drum set back in the early 1900s, when drummers realized that b …

We all have a rhythm, we all have a beat that drives us, inspires us or leads us into a more fun, harmonious or playful state of mind. Feeling “in sync” with our surroundings gives us a more relaxed approach to life, and the ability to get into that groove is a function of rhythm and drumming. Yet, few people look at a drummer and think, “wow, she’s so chill!” It is a lot more common to think of drummers as spazzy, or even (sadly) less intelligent than other instrumentalists because of …

If we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it a thousand times: drummers are not musicians and pianists are not percussionists. It seems that even in music, an experience that is based on the ability of people and instruments to work together to weave together the magic of song, there are always going to be those hard-hitting debates where feelings get hurt and someone stomps off in anger. The argument has been around forever, and it seems that there is always a drummer or percussionist in the …