The Cambridge Companion to the Drum Kit

An approachable introduction to the drum kit, drummers, and drumming, and the key debates surrounding the instrument and its players.

This is a first-of-its-kind text: a collaborative volume dedicated solely to scholarly consideration of the drum kit. It features an array of perspectives on the social, material, and performative dimensions of the drum kit, with original contributions by emerging and established scholars and drummers.The drum kit is ubiquitous in global popular music and culture, and modern kit drumming profoundly defined the sound of twentieth-century popular music. The Cambridge Companion to the Drum Kit highlights emerging scholarship on the drum kit, drummers and key debates related to the instrument and its players. Interdisciplinary in scope, this volume draws on research from across the humanities, sciences, and social sciences to showcase the drum kit, a relatively recent historical phenomenon, as a site worthy of analysis, critique, and reflection. Providing readers with an array of perspectives on the social, material, and performative dimensions of the instrument, this book will be a valuable resource for students, drum kit studies scholars, and all those who want a deeper understanding of the drum kit, drummers, and drumming.