Sure @n80, why not?! You don’t say whether or not you want to eventually join a band, but being on stage in front of an audience, or even just in a practice room with other musicians and a singer or two, is a lot more fun that playing alone. While a guitarist and pianist can make music by his or herself, drumming is, in it’s most basic sense, accompaniment for tuned instruments and (usually) a singer. Bluegrass doesn’t even employ drums! In that music, one or more of the instruments accents the 2 and 4, providing the "backbeat" normally played by the drummer on his snare drum. Junior Brown insists his drummer play nothing but the 2/4 backbeat, and many of them lost their job for not doing as they were instructed ;-) .
To a lot of people, playing a drumset doesn’t look like something they could ever do. At first it’s kind of like simultaneously rubbing your belly and patting your head, but if one has the aptitude for rhythm, that will soon pass. One thing drummers work on is independence---each of the four limbs playing a "different thing" than the others. To develop their hands, drummers learn to play the rudiments leading with both left and right. Having a teacher can be helpful, as he can see what you are doing wrong, and steer you in the right direction. The following may be more than you asked for, but you might find it instructive:
When I was a kid, even Elementary Schools (grades Kindergarten through 6th Grade) had an orchestra, and learning to play an instrument was considered part of a basic education. I picked drums, and was taught the Thirteen Essential Rudiments and reading, then put on the snare drum in the orchestra (there was also a bass drum player and a percussionist, who played triangle, cymbals, etc.). At the graduation ceremony of my 6th Grade class, I had to do the flag ceremony---I was the Senior Patrol Leader in my Boy Scout Troop---then play in the orchestra dressed in my Boy Scout uniform!
On the first day of 7th Grade I met a kid named Pete who would soon become my best friend. He too played drums, and joined the Jr. High Orchestra. He already had a snare drum of his own, but I had decided to try my hand at guitar and was taking lessons. A new kid moved onto my block, and he had both an organ and a tape recorder. Pete and I got together with him and started playing music in his living room---organ, guitar, and snare drum.
During the 8th Grade year, Pete started adding pieces to his snare drum---a hi-hat stand and a pair hi-hat cymbals, a cymbal, and then a bass drum. By the middle of the school year he had added a mounted and floor tom---he now had a full kit. We walked home from school together, and I would watch and listen to him play along with records. It looked like fun, and as my fingers were getting really calloused from playing guitar, I started bugging Pete to let me take turns on his drums. He was right handed and I left, so I had to play right-footed and left-handed---just as Dennis Wilson did in The Beach Boys. Pete eventually relented, allowing me to switch the kit around for left-handed playing.
I immediately loved playing drums, and wanted a full set of my own. I guess my Dad thought it would keep me off the street, so one day came home with a set of used Ludwig drums and Zildjian cymbals (Pete was jealous---his drumset was Japanese [at that time not good] and cymbals student level). I started doing at home what I had done at Pete’s, playing along with records. About two months after I got the drumset, a mutual friend of ours (Pete and I) told us his older brother (19, and in college) and a friend of his were starting a group (that was happening all over the U.S., in response to the British Invasion), and were auditioning drummers. Pete and I both tried out, and much to Pete’ surprise (and chagrin), they chose me. In spite of that, we remained friends ;-). The friend with the older brother was the band’s bassist.
That group rehearsed a couple of months, working up a set of songs. Before we appeared even once in public, the two older guys (guitarist/singer and organist) were stolen away by a couple of guys at their college (Foothill Community, in Los Altos) who were forming a group. They were soon one of the best in the South Bay, the legendary Chocolate Watchband (seen in the Roger Corman teensploitation movie Riot On Sunset Strip). The Watchband stole their drummer from another local group, The Squyers, and they called me for the audition of drummers to take his place. I was again chosen, and for a year-and-a-half played with them all over the Valley (The Santa Clara), the same places Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham were in their group Fritz. During that time, I learned the basics of how to play in a band.
Funny story: Years later (in the early 00’s), long after both Pete and I had relocated to Los Angeles and he had transformed his garage into a working recording studio (3M 16/24 track), he was hired to engineer and produce one song for a low-budget movie soundtrack. He threw me the gig, and one afternoon I put down my part. Pete happens to love Keith Moon, and kept trying to get me to play a Keith Moon-style part instead of the one I felt the song called for. He was quite insistent, and when I said that if I were to do so the part would walk all over the vocal (sung by one of the offspring of The Lennon Sisters ;-), Pete said, and I quote "Oh, I don’t care about that." Well, I wasn’t about to do it, and he finally gave up. After I left Pete put down his own drum part (his primary instrument was by this time electric bass, but he was still playing drums), and turned in the track with his take to the movie’s Music Supervisor. The track was rejected, so Pete submitted the take with my drumming, and it was accepted. Some things never change ;-) .
After joining The Hawks and spending some time making music with them, Band organist Garth Hudson asked bassist Rick Danko if he knew his scales (Garth obviously had figured out Rick didn’t). Rick put his nose to the grindstone and learned them, and years later said Garth’s advice to learn them was the best he ever received. The drum rudiments are equivalent to the bass scales; knowing them is not absolutely mandatory (Ringo doesn’t, and he’s done alright ;-), but if you wanted to be in Frank Zappa’s band it sure was. Not knowing them puts a limit on how far you can progress technically. Steve Gadd needed to know them to play in the Navy Band, and has provided him with the skills needed to pay the parts he has. And they are great parts! Very musical, using "flash" only when necessary. Some drummers play so as to display his or her chops, not out of the demands of the song.
Billy Swan and I both lived in Sherman Oaks in the 90’s-early 00’s, and became acquainted. He served as Kris Kristofferson’s band leader for many years, and recounted how in the late-60’s everyone was telling Kris he had to get a drummer in his band. So he tried one out, and the guy unfortunately played in the style popular at the time: trying to hit as many drums and cymbals as possible, as many times as possible, "over-playing" to an extreme. Kris didn’t hire him, and swore off drummers. The number one complaint against drummers is the tendency to over-play. Too bad Kris didn’t auditioned a musical player; Kenny Buttrey (Neil Young’s Harvest album) would have been perfect for him.
Learning how to physically play drums is one thing, learning WHAT to play quite another. Kids now have a lot of help in technical matters, but with learning musical "wisdom", you’re on your own!
