Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Drums trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 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 50 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
Cymbals, by contrast, are idiophones - the oldest idiophones in music.
Q 02What is the stretched membrane that is struck on a drum called?
The head or skin
There is usually a resonant head on the underside as well.
Q 03On modern drums, the head is held on by a rim tightened by screws known as what?
Tension rods
They screw into lugs around the shell; most drums have six to ten of them.
Q 04Drums made with the skin of which animal have been found in Neolithic China, dating from 5500-2350 BC?
Alligator
Literary records give early drums shamanistic and ritual roles.
Q 05The ornate bronze Dong Son drums were made by a Bronze Age culture in which modern country?
Vietnam
The Ngoc Lu drum is the most celebrated example.
Q 06What do the talking drums of Africa imitate in order to communicate over distance?
The tone patterns of speech
A talking drum's head is tightened by squeezing the ropes between its two heads.
Q 07In which country did the drum called the karyenda become a symbol of royal power?
Burundi
Drums acquired near-divine status there.
Q 08Which primates have been shown to drum objects rhythmically to display social dominance?
Macaque monkeys
Their brains process the drumming like vocalisations, hinting at an evolutionary root for drumming.
Q 09Which two effects does tightening a drumhead have on its sound?
Higher pitch and lower volume
Bigger diameters mean lower pitch; deeper and thicker shells mean more volume.
Q 10What was the drum kit initially called, a name that stuck to its players' job title into the 1930s?
A trap set
'Trap' was short for the 'contraption' tray holding whistles, klaxons and cowbells.
Q 11In which city was the modern drum kit developed during the vaudeville era of the 1920s?
New Orleans
Drummers such as Baby Dodds, Zutty Singleton and Ray Bauduc fused marching rhythms with 'traps'.
Q 12Which brothers founded a company in 1909 and patented the first commercially successful bass drum pedal?
William and Theobald Ludwig
Foot-pedal experiments had begun in the 1840s but took 75 years to reach mass production.
Q 13Which early jazz drummer is credited with developing the ride cymbal technique and inspiring the hi-hat?
Baby Dodds
He asked William Ludwig to raise the new low-hat cymbal nine inches, creating the modern hi-hat.
Q 21Which stick grip, with underhand left hand, came from side drums slung at an angle?
Traditional grip
It remains more common among jazz drummers; matched grip dominates modern playing.
Q 22Which cymbal-making family firm has been in business since 1623?
Zildjian
Cymbals are mostly associated with Turkey and Turkish craftsmanship.
Q 23Which cymbal is used chiefly to keep a constant rhythm pattern, often 20-22 inches across?
The ride
Ringo Starr used a sizzle cymbal as a second ride during guitar solos in the 1960s.
What is a hi-hat?
Q 14Around which year did hi-hat stands become commercially available?
1926
Before that, drummers tapped a foot-operated 'low-boy' to clash small cymbals.
Q 15What technological change around 1930 put thousands of theatre drummers out of work?
Films with recorded sound
Drummers had provided the sound effects for silent films; some became Foley artists.
Q 16Which piece of the kit provides the backbeat, thanks to wires held under tension against its bottom head?
The snare
The top head is the batter head; the bottom is the snare head.
Q 17In a kit, the bass drum is commonly known by what other name?
The kick
The term arose once percussionists began playing it with their feet via a pedal.
Q 18Which drums, played without snares, are the most numerous in most kits and carry most fills and solos?
Tom-toms
Floor toms are the widest and lowest; the number of toms defines a 'four-piece' or 'five-piece' kit.
Q 19What are the small, deep, narrow toms sometimes called 'rocket toms' or 'tube toms'?
Octobans
They extend the tom range upwards in pitch.
Q 20What is the most common full-size drum kit configuration across pop, rock and jazz fusion?
The five-piece kit
Only the drums are counted; the cymbals come on top.
Two cymbals on a stand, closed by a pedal
Closing them with the pedal makes a 'chck' sound; they can also be struck open or closed.
Q 25What word does 'cymbal' ultimately come from?
Greek kymbē, meaning cup or bowl
Cymbals appear in reliefs from the Armenian Highlands, Babylon, Assyria and ancient Egypt.
Q 26Drumsticks are most commonly turned from which wood?
Hickory
Maple is the next most common, and oak the third.
Q 27What did drummers begin using in 1912 as a quieter alternative to sticks?
Wire brushes
Metal fly swatters were pressed into service later on.
Q 28What is a rimshot?
Striking the head and rim together with one stick
The cross-stick, by contrast, clicks the rim with a stick laid across the head.
Q 29The snare drum descends from which medieval drum, first used to accompany the flute?
The tabor
The tabor had a single gut snare strung across the bottom.
Q 30What is another common name for timpani?
Kettledrums
Their heads stretch over large bowls traditionally made of copper.