In almost all cases, “drums” in the credits refers to a drum set.
However, there are also cases where it does not. For example, “various drums” certainly doesn’t refer to a drum set, and the correct answer here would actually be “membranophone.” I have never read this term anywhere - not on a release, nor anywhere else (except MB and Wikipedia). The last time I had to enter unspecified drums (not in a drum set), I avoided the membranophone by using “percussion credited as”.
Wouldn’t it be possible to rename membranophone to drum (unspecified)?
I read Wikipedia:
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone.
A membranophone is any musical instrument which produces sound primarily by way of a vibrating stretched membrane. … Most, but not all, membranophones are generally called drums.
All categories describe instruments with a membrane, hit or brushed with anything, thus drums. …except:
24: by modifying sounds through a vibrating membrane (unusual form, including the kazoo)
@ernstlx There is a very old long thread discussing the change. Something to do it being misused, and “drums” not looking right in some language or other. So every “drums” was renamed in one edit. Leaving the current confusing mess for anyone reading English.
Now and then I take long correction editing sessions of resetting membranophones to drum(drum set) for various artists I trip over.
Like many in the UK I have never heard of a membranophone. I assume most British drummers don’t know they hit a membranophone either…
This would have made so much more sense… but there was a reason why that didn’t happen.
(See also “guitar family” another change that happened around the same time…)
Trying to find the threads… one from 2019 ( The Membranophones Poll ) when a vote happened to change membranophone relationships over to drums (drumset)… but I don’t think the bot ever got run (?).
Aha - the original 2017 thread ( Drums vs. drumset ) if you want a 33mins read of 143 posts on why it happened
(Sometimes I see old posts of mine in threads like those and feel rather embarrassed as to my knowledge back then… )
I (US English native speaker) don’t think I had ever heard of membranophones before seeing it in MB, but I like the term because it’s pretty clear from the name what it means. Like if an album mentions a custom homemade instrument where the player hits a stretched membrane, I can put it under membranophone. But if they hit a solid piece of wood, then it’s not a membranophone, even if the artist calls it a type of drum.
Yes, and I would think it wouldn’t make anything worse if “membranophone” would simply be renamed “drum”, but it would be much easier for me to use drum than membranophone, if that’s what the credit means.
And I don’t even think that membranophone is the correct term in the MB classification of instruments. Mirliton, like kazoo, is a membranophone but not a percussion instrument.
@yindesu - I didn’t find all the relevant sections in the linked protocols, but thank you! What I was trying to say was: simply renaming “Membranophon” to “Drums (unspecified)” would not make anything worse than it is, but could lead to more frequent use in the future.
I think the idea was to change the relationships of “membranophone” to “drums (drum set)” with that bot. Leaving membranophone as the name of the “drum family”. Not just rename membranophone back again.
One of the aims was to stop people selecting “drums” by default. Drums (unspecified) makes more sense, but it is supposed to be the name of the thing at the top of the tree.
Sure, but that’s one of the reasons that I don’t think membranophone should be renamed to drums, because then things like steel drums might need to move. I’d rather have a clear and obscure term that’s easy to understand once you think about it than a common term with a bunch of weird exceptions.
Yeah, a possible solution would be to move all membranophone relationships to a new unspecified drum and the family would be “drum family” (DO NOT USE).
But it would be even better if it would be renamed “drum family” - still better than membranophone, and more accurate with the exception of mirloton.
Certainly not “drums” alone. Something that should prevent it of being used for drum sets. And steel drum (actually steelpan) should get a disambiguation but I don’t think many would use “drum (unspecified)” or “drum family” if “steel drum” is printed.
(a steel drum is not a drum, according to how a drum is defined)
You would think that, it makes sense, but alas, experience has thought me that this is not the case.
For example, still now some people will add drum-programming credits in wildly inappropriate ways
While I agree that a more clarifying name would be idealistically a good idea, this more accurate one is going to stay, the reason is that any renaming of “membranophone” to “drums, drum (unspecified)” etcetera is going to lead to a magnitude of even more wrongly added credits. I speak from experience, we do not live in an idealistic world where everyone research the instruments in credits thoroughly.
Further even then, it’s something that’s hard, because instruments can be mislabelled or difficult to find out!
(Massive kudos to all of you that research as best as they can! )
I’ll also note that we also have “ideophone”, “concussion ideophone” and similar, but there is no contention on these terms
I would rather use other instrument than one of these terms, but usually I find an instrument, similar enough to be “credited as”. Only with drums, it seems impossible to provide something that doesn’t require the use of an instrument family (which, using it, carries the risk of the entry being accidentally changed to a drum set ).
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