Drums Trivia
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98 free Drums trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This drums trivia quiz covers the world's oldest instrument family, from Neolithic alligator-skin drums in China to the modern five-piece kit. The easy questions are the ones any music fan should get: what a drum is made of, which drum keeps the backbeat, what a drummer sits on, and where the modern drum kit came together. Then it goes deeper: the Hornbostel-Sachs classification, the tension rods and counterhoop, the talking drums of Africa, the Ludwig brothers' bass-drum pedal, Baby Dodds inventing the ride pattern and asking for the hi-hat to be raised nine inches, why drummers were called trap drummers, the difference between traditional and matched grip, Zildjian's 1623 origins, timpani arriving on horseback in 1457, the goatskin and rope of the djembe, the syahi paste of the tabla, kumi-daiko in 1951, the hembra and macho of the bongos, the three sizes of conga, the tambourine roots of the bodhrán, and the oil drums of Trinidad's steelpan. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on drums, the drum kit and the individual instruments before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our musical instruments, jazz and rock drummers quizzes next.
30 of 98 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification of instruments, what type of instrument is a drum?
A membranophone
A membranophone. The system sorts instruments by what vibrates: a drum sounds through its stretched membrane, while a cymbal, whose whole body rings, counts as an idiophone.
Q 02Which Nirvana drummer went on to front Foo Fighters as singer and guitarist?
Dave Grohl
Dave Grohl. Foo Fighters began as his one-man project: in October 1994 he recorded the debut album in about a week, playing nearly every instrument himself.
Q 03On modern drums, the head is held on by a rim tightened by screws known as what?
Tension rods
Tension rods. Each one screws into a lug on the shell, and turning them tightens or slackens the head, which is how a drum is tuned.
Q 04Drums made with the skin of which animal have been found at Neolithic sites in China?
Alligator
Alligator. The earliest such drums come from Dawenkou culture sites in eastern China, where alligators probably then lived along the coast, with the hide stretched over a wooden frame.
Q 05The ornate bronze Dong Son drums were made by a Bronze Age culture in which modern country?
Vietnam
Vietnam. The Dong Son people of the Red River region were seafarers who traded across Southeast Asia, which is why their bronze drums have turned up as far away as eastern Indonesia.
Q 06What do the talking drums of Africa imitate in order to communicate over distance?
The tone patterns of speech
The tone patterns of speech. A drummer bends the pitch by squeezing the cords between the two heads, copying the rise and fall of words in tonal languages such as Yoruba.
Q 07In which country did the drum called the karyenda become a symbol of royal power?
Burundi
Burundi. The karyenda sat on the national flag at independence in 1962, and when the monarchy was overthrown in 1966 the drum was removed.
Q 08Which primates have been shown to drum rhythmically on objects as a form of communication?
Macaque monkeys
Macaque monkeys. Scans found that their brains handle drumming sounds and calls in overlapping regions, hinting that drumming grew out of social communication.
Q 09What was the drum kit called in its early decades, a name some drummers still use?
A trap set
A trap set. 'Traps' were the extras around the drums, such as cowbells, woodblocks and whistles, and by 1903 a 'trap drummer' was someone who played a drum and several of them at once.
Q 10The modern drum kit took shape among early jazz drummers in which city?
New Orleans
New Orleans. Its early jazz drummers gathered a marching band's separate drums around one seat and added cymbals, cowbells and woodblocks, so a single player could do the work of several.
Q 11Which brothers founded a company in 1909 and patented the first commercially successful bass drum pedal?
William and Theobald Ludwig
William and Theobald Ludwig. Their Chicago drum shop grew out of William's pedal design, but Theobald died in the 1918 flu epidemic and William carried the firm on alone.
Q 12Early jazz drummer Baby Dodds played Mississippi riverboats around 1919 alongside which teenage cornet player?
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong. Both men played in Fate Marable's riverboat band until 1921, and by 1923 they were making records together in King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band.
Q 13Which part of a kit began as the foot-operated 'low-boy'?
Hi-hat
Q 21Which cymbal-making family firm has been in business since 1623?
Zildjian
Zildjian. The firm began in Constantinople, and a feud between two brothers of the family later led Robert Zildjian to leave and start making rival Sabian cymbals in 1981.
Q 22Which large cymbal does a drummer chiefly use to keep a steady rhythm pattern going?
The ride
The ride. In the 1940s bebop drummer Kenny Clarke moved timekeeping up to it, which freed the bass drum for the surprise accents known as 'dropping bombs'.
Q 23Which drummer for The Who was notorious for smashing his kit on stage?
Keith Moon
Keith Moon. On American television in 1967 he had a stagehand load gunpowder into his bass drum for the finale of 'My Generation', and far more went in than planned.
Hi-hat. Around 1926 a taller stand lifted the low-boy's two cymbals to hand height, so drummers could play them with sticks as well as the foot.
Q 14What technological change at the end of the 1920s put many theatre drummers out of work?
Films with recorded sound
Films with recorded sound. Cinema drummers had supplied live sound effects for silent pictures, and when prerecorded soundtracks took over, the musicians' union ran newspaper adverts in protest.
Q 15Which drum in a kit gets its sharp crack from metal wires stretched across its bottom head?
The snare
The snare. Hitting the top head makes the wires rattle against the bottom one, and a lever on the shell can drop them away to silence the buzz.
Q 16In a kit, the bass drum is commonly known by what other name?
The kick
The kick. Orchestral players beat the bass drum by hand, but in a kit it is struck by a pedal-driven beater, hence the nickname.
Q 17Which drums are the most numerous in most kits and carry the bulk of fills and solos?
Tom-toms
Tom-toms. Early kit toms were 'Chinese' drums whose pigskin heads were tacked to the shell, so they could not be tuned as modern ones can.
Q 18Which long, narrow, tube-shaped drums extend a kit's range upward in pitch?
Octobans
Octobans. Tama makes them in eight lengths, all the same narrow width, so each drum's pitch is set by how long its tube is.
Q 19What is the most common full-size drum kit configuration across pop, rock and jazz fusion?
The five-piece kit
The five-piece kit. Kits are named by counting only the drums, so the cymbals and other percussion come on top of the five.
Q 20Which stick grip, with an underhand left hand, came from side drums slung at an angle?
Traditional grip
Traditional grip. Early jazz drummers came out of marching bands and kept the grip, which is why it is still seen more in jazz than in rock.
Q 24What word does 'cymbal' ultimately come from?
Greek kymbē, meaning cup or bowl
Greek kymbē, meaning cup or bowl. It passed through Latin cymbalum, the same word that later gave English 'chime'.
Q 25Drumsticks are most commonly turned from which wood?
Hickory
Hickory. The wood is hard, dense and shock-resistant, the same mix that makes it a favourite for tool handles.
Q 26What did drummers begin using in the 1910s as a quieter alternative to sticks?
Wire brushes
Wire brushes. Sticks could overpower the other instruments in a band, so drummers swapped to brushes, a sound that became a hallmark of soft jazz playing.
Q 27What is a rimshot?
Striking the head and rim together with one stick
Striking the head and rim together with one stick. The 'ba-dum-tss' played after a joke is often called a rimshot too, but percussionists know that phrase as a sting.
Q 28Which small medieval drum, played alongside a pipe, is the ancestor of the modern side drum?
The tabor
The tabor. One musician played both at once, fingering a three-hole pipe with one hand while beating the tabor with a stick in the other.
Q 29What is another common name for timpani?
Kettledrums
Kettledrums. The name comes from their shape, a skin stretched over a metal bowl, and paired with trumpets they long served as emblems of royal power.
Q 30How are most modern timpani tuned quickly to precise pitches?
With a foot pedal
With a foot pedal. It tightens or slackens the whole head at once, where older timpani had a ring of hand screws to turn one by one.