How do I get the drum tracks to show up in the track view. Sometimes it does and sometimes not. Sometimes I have to activate the drums in order to hear them during playback.

I assume you are referring to SI Drums or Addictive Drums?
 
Are you inserting a Simple Instrument track (combination midi/audio track) or a separate midi and audio track?

I am very new at sound production. I probably do not know all the terminology, but I am inserting drums from the available drum tracks in sonar as a separate track to play with my audio guitar track. Session Drummer 3.
 

Hi, and welcome to this forum. Which version of SONAR do you have? 
I would suggest watching some of the videos over at CakeTV. There are several videos that will help getting you started. 
If you installed using CCC (Cakewalk Command Center), there are some included videos available during install.
All the best.
 
 

Welcome to the forum Terry.  There is no such thing as a drum track. Its all MIDI. MIDI can drive a drum sample player or a piano and everything else. I would create a MIDI tack and call it drums. Then create an audio track and call it drums too.  Then you want to output the MIDI drum track to the input of a Softsynth such as SI Drums that you have inserted in the FX bin of the audio track called drums.  So at this point you should have two tracks one is MIDI the other is audio.  To add MIDI events to the MIDI track select that track and open the Piano Roll View . There you can add notes for each drum hit want. 
 
On page 3 of the Sonar manual there is a listing of tutorials, 9 of them. 4 deals playing and recording software instruments. You should go through it. 

Thank you. Sonar Artist. I've viewed all the videos there and am trying to absorb most of the content. Sorry, I need a personal trainer sitting right next to me while I work on my songs...ha ha! My question seems simple, too simple for a video. One drum track shows as clip with drum markings on it and the other drum track shows nothing. I have to double click the icon in track 5 to get the drums to sound during playback. Track six works without doing anything. Track six was done in the sequence view. Track 5 was Drum Session 3. Am I missing something basic in my thinking or setup of the track???

Thank you John. Will do. I am able to get some things to work, but I don't understand the "why" yet.
 

MIDI is a foreign language to most. It stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. Its a protocol. Once you understand it you can do anything with it. I would load one of the Sonar demo projects with MIDI in it and study it. Or download a standard MIDI file off the net and load it. Select a track of MIDI data and open up the PRV (Piano Roll View) the look at it with the  Event List.  This will give an idea what you are dealing with. Its really data sent in sequence to trigger an instrument.  

Maybe this will be of help?
https://www.cakewalk.com/Support/Knowledge-Base/2007013154/Creating-MIDI-Drum-Parts-Pt-1
All the best.