Conclusion

Abstract

In explaining his move away from radio-oriented pop music, songwriter Nick Lowe once recalled in an interview that he had successfully escaped from ‘the tyranny of the snare drum’. This comment resonated with some musicians presumably because it expressed an uneasiness regarding the drum kit’s slow and steady ascent in the aesthetics of record mixes. The drummer’s status has arguably shifted over history from a position of conspicuous absence and ‘hanging around with musicians’ to a position of ‘tyranny’ where the freedom of contemporary commercial songwriting is restricted through a conservative reliance on a 4/4 beat, rigidly enforced by a regime of kick and snare. This chapter discusses area for future research on the drum kit.