 | Drum: Encyclopedia - Drum
Drum
A drum is a musical instrument in the percussion family , technically classified as a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drumskin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with parts of a player's body, or with some sort of implement such as a drumstick, to produce sound. Drums are among the world's oldest and most ubiquitous musical instruments, and the basic design has been virtually unchanged for hundreds of years.
The shell almost invariably has a circular opening over which the drumhead is stretched, but the shape of the remainder of the shell varies widely. In the western musical tradition, the most usual shape is a cylinder, although timpani for example use bowl-shaped shells. Other shapes include truncated cones (bongo drums) and joined truncated cones (talking drum).
Drums with cylindrical shells can be open at one end (as in the timbales) or, more commonly in the Western tradition, they can have another drum head. Sometimes they have a solid shell with no holes in at all though this is rare. It is usual for a drum to have some sort of hole in to let air move through the drum when it is struck. This gives a louder and longer ring to the notes of the drum, so drums with two heads covering both ends of a tubular shell often have a small hole halfway between the 2 drumheads. The membrane is struck, either with the hand or with a drumstick, and the shell forms a resonating chamber for the resulting sound. The sound of a drum depends on several variables including shell shape, size, thickness of shell, materials of the shell, type of drumhead, tension of the drumhead, position of the drum, location, and how it is struck.
In lots of popular music and jazz, drums usually refers to a drum kit or set of drums, and drummer to the band member or person who plays them. Drums are also played by percussionists whose skills can be called for in all areas of music from Classical to Heavy Rock & all areas in between.
In the past, drums were used as a means of communication and not just for their musical qualities. - see drum (communication).
Drum - Examples
Some examples of drums from different origins.
Drum - Latin and Brazilian
- bongo drum
- conga drums
- surdo
- steel drum - not a membranophone, but referred to as a drum
- tan-tan
- timbales
Drum - Indian
- mirdanga
- dholak
- khol
- tabla
Drum - Western
- basler drum
- bass drum
- Lambeg drum
- octoban
- snare drum
- tabor
- tenor drum
- timpani (kettledrum)
- tom-tom drum
Drum - Africa
- bougarabou
- djembe
- djun-djun
- log drum
- message drum
- monkey drum
- rebana
- donno
- dun dun
- ngoma
- brekete
- kete
- repeater
- sabar
- ashiko
- kidi
- sogo
- kaganu
- atsimevu
- iya ilu
- doumbek
- kpanlogo
- cuica
- talking drum
- bada
- tassa
- klobotoji
- totoji
- gudu gudu
- sakara
- okónkolo
- bata
- itótele
Drum - Middle East
- tonbak
- daf
- darbuka
- bodhrán
- goblet drum
- davul
- doyra
- tapan
Drum - Asia
In the Sachs-Hornbostel scheme of musical instrument classification, drums belong to the membranophone class.
double drumming, drum and bass, drum kit, drum machine, musical instrument, Percussive Arts Society, hearing the shape of a drum, drum beat, drum replacement
See also
- double drumming
- drum and bass
- drum kit
- drum machine
- musical instrument
- Percussive Arts Society
- hearing the shape of a drum
- drum beat
- drum replacement
Other related archivesLambeg drum, Percussive Arts Society, Sachs-Hornbostel, ashiko, bada, basler drum, bass drum, bata, bodhrán, bongo drum, bongo drums, bougarabou, bowl, communication, conga drums, cuica, cylinder, daf, darbuka, davul, dholak, djembe, djun-djun, double drumming, doumbek, doyra, drum (communication), drum and bass, drum beat, drum kit, drum machine, drum replacement, drumhead, drummer, drumstick, goblet drum, hearing the shape of a drum, jazz, khol, kpanlogo, log drum, membrane, membranophone, message drum, musical instrument, musical instrument classification, ngoma, octoban, percussion, popular music, rebana, repeater, sakara, snare drum, sogo, sound, sound of a drum, steel drum, surdo, tabla, tabor, taiko, talking drum, tan-tan, tapan, tassa, tenor drum, timbales, timpani, tom-tom drum, tonbak
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Drum", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
