system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why drums and cymbals never sound out of tune when the rest of the instruments change keys and the drums/cymbals never change tuning.

Edit: I guess what I mean is, the drums do fall out of tune, but if they didn't and they started in the same key all the time, shouldn't it sound like it's out when the band changes keys?
gpt
Percussion typically doesn't have a fundamental frequency. They occupy a large range of frequencies on a curve rather than the typical melodic instrument which has a fundamental frequency and a quieter set of overtones which give the instrument its timber.

If you run a note from an instrument through a frequency analyzer you'll typically see spikes of the note's frequency then subsequent spikes at integer multiples of the base frequency. You might also see other minor spikes from different parts of the instrument contributing to the timber as well.

If you run something like a bass drum through a frequency analyzer you'll see more of a flatter curve shape with emphasis around the intended range of frequencies and then falling off on either side of it. It's technically considered noise because you can't distinguish a particular pitch.

If you look at older video game systems, their sound chips sometimes used to include a dedicated white noise channel specifically for percussion. The Texas Instruments SN76489 used on the Master System/Game Gear for example has three tone channels and a noise channel. The 2A03 used on the NES also had a noise channel along with its two square wave and one triangle wave channels.