Drums of India: A Pictorial Selection

Author(s): Carol S. Reck and D. B. Reck

Source: Asian Music , 1982, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1982), pp. 39-54
Published by: University of Texas Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/833878

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 DRUMS OF INDIA: A PICTORIAL SELECTION
Photographs by Carol S. Reck
Commentary by D.B. Reck

Drums form one of the four classes of musical

instruments categorized by Bharata in his Natya
Sastra (c. 2nd century B.C. to 5th century A.D.), the
earliest work extant on Indian dramaturgy and music.
Bharata classified drums as avanaddha vadyal instru-
ments bound down or covered (with skin), membranophones
in the current Western classification devised by Sachs
and Hornbostel after the Indian model.

Early texts and temple sculpture attest to the

wide variety of drums in use from the earliest times
and to their various functions. For example, the
dundhubi--a war drum--was taken out before battles,
rubbed with oils and unguents, and then played to
accompany hymns which appealed to the drums themselves
"to defeat the enemy with their great rumble".
(Krishnaswamy 1971:23) The bhoomi dundhubi, a massive
earth drum made by stretching a skin over a pit, was
used in certain royal religious ceremonies. Drums were
an essential part of the court musical ensembles which
accompanied singers and instrumentalists, drama and
dance in the spacious halls and courtyards of the
palaces of kings and maharajas. In contrast to these
indoor ensembles were the outdoor bands used in kingly
processions and ceremony. The Moghul Emperor Akbar the
Great (reigned 1542-1605) had, according to one inventory,
18 pairs of kettle drums (kurga) mounted on elephants
and other animals, 20 pairs of slightly smaller (but
still large) naqqara kettle drums, and 4 barrel-shaped
dhol in an ensemble that also included double-reed
pipes, horns, trumpets and cymbals. (Krishnaswamy 1971:28).
Among the uses of drums in villages was that of
warning or general alarm to raids by bandits and enemy
armies. The story is told of Tirumal Naik, a raja of
Madurai in the early 17th century, who would eat his
lunch only after the completion of the daily ceremony
to goddess Andal in a temple some fifty miles distant.
He established a series of nagara mantapas (drum stations),
each about a mile apart, to signal the end of the ceremony,
and--it is claimed--the drum signals were transmitted over
the distance in less than ten minutes (Sambamoorthy
1959:2). Finally, there is the association of several
drums with deities in the Hindu cosmology. Nataraja--
dancing Siva--plays the small hourglass-shaped damaru,
shaking it in one of his four hands (Illustration #1).

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The heads of the damaru are struck, when the drum is
quickly wriggled, by two beads or pellets attached to
strings. The damaru in India today is played by
minstrels and mendicants, and may be used to accompany
the dance of a trained monkey or other animal.
Nandiswara, the bull-god and vahana (or "vehicle")
associated with Siva, is the Lord of Drummers and is
regarded as a master percussionist, especially on the
double-headed mridangam, the principal drum of South
Indian classical music.

A sub-classification of drums in India must take

several factors into consideration. First, one may
describe instruments by general type, shape, number of
heads, and how they are played (fingers, hands, sticks,
etc.). But such a purely physical description must be
tempered by the context of the drum in a specific musical
environment. There are, for example, the "high status"
classical music drums: the tabla (a pair of drums, one
hemispherical, the other conical) and barrel-shaped
pakhawaj of Hindusthani music, and the barrel-shaped
mridangam and the khanjira tambourine of the Karnatak
music tradition. The first three of these are carefully
tuned and, through a multi-layered head construction and
"black spot" layer built up in the center of one of the
heads, are capable of a variety of sounds and overtones.
(For greater detail see Brown 1965: 60-106. These
drums are also part of classical dance ensembles. They
form the rhythmic bedrock for a layered musical texture
which also includes melody (voice and/or instrumental)
and drone.

Another large family are those drums associated

with ritual and temple worship. There is, for example,
the panchamukha vadya, a large spherical resonator of
metal with five projecting heads (representing the five
faces of Siva). Sambamoorthy (1959:25) lists twenty-six
drums specifically identified with south Indian temple
ritual. These may be played inside the temple or--as in
the photographs--in street processions. Among them are
the double-barrel-shaped pambai and the hourglass-shaped
urumi (Illustration #2); the double kettledrums of the
kundalam mounted on a bullock (Illustration #3); and the
small kettle-shaped kirikatti, the frame drum, and the
hourglass udukkai (Illustration #3A). Note should also
be made of the tavil, a barrel-shaped drum with tight
unpitched heads played with both stick (l.h.) and hands
(r.h.), which with the double-reed nagaswaram, is
associated with ritual happenings and ceremonies (weddings,
processions, temple worship, etc.) all through south India.
One should note in passing the connection of drums and
drumming with specific castes, depending upon the drum and
its status or function.

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 In the state of Kerala on the Arabian sea, the
panchavadyam ("five instruments") is a large percussion
orchestra of as many as twenty or twenty-five musicians
playing (besides trumpet blasts and cymbals) the small
hourglass-shaped idakka, the several-foot-long extended
hourglass timila, and the suddha maddalam, a barrel-
shaped drum (Illustration #4)T This ritual orchestra
with its complex polyrhythmic musical structures and
massive "wall" of sound frequently leads processions of
elephants and/or devotees at temple festivals. The
drummers are connected by their caste to temple service
and to their drumming tradition. Another large percus-
sion ensemble, called melam, figures in temple ceremonies
and includes the chenda, a large, cylindrical field drum
played with sticks.

Many folk dance traditions bridge the ritualistic

and the recreational. In the stick dance of the central
western state of Gujerat, dancers mixing intricate steps
with taps against their neighbors' sticks move in a
rotating circle around drummers playing the barrel-
shaped double-headed dhol (Illustration #5). This type
of drum, part of the dhol/dholak drum family, is found in
folk traditions throughout northern India, both as dance
accompaniment or paired with a double-reed pipe, or even
with flute. In the Chhau dance tradition of northern
Orissa, western Bengal and eastern Bihar, the dholak
player dances and leaps, establishing a fascinating
relationship with one or more dancers elaborately
costumed as mythical Puranic gods and goddesses. Both
dholak and the kettle-shaped dhumsa (the latter, however,
not made of metal but carved out of the base of a palm
tree) are also found in the dances of the Oraons, a
tribal people from Bihar (Illustration #6). In the
central Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, village dancers
may play the frame-drum dappu (generically known in
India as the khanjiri or duff) while dancing in a circular
fashion (Illustration #7).

The interplay between the mythic world of the folk

or traditional theater and the real world of ordinary
people is often achieved by the placing of musicians
onstage in juxtaposition with costumed actor-dancers.
For example, in the Yakshagana tradition of South Kanara
district of Mysore, a player of the field-drum chenda may
come face to face with a costumed god or demon (Illustra-
tion #8). The chenda, with a brittle, loud sound, is still
sometimes played in late afternoons all along the Malabar
coast to advertise an evening's theatrical performance.
The chenda also forms part of the ensemble for the complex
dance-theater tradition of Kathakali in Kerala. It is
joined by the double-headed barrel-shaped drum suddha

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maddalam (also utilized in Yakshagana), a multi-layered-
head drum related to the mridangam. Together with bell-
cymbals and drone harmonium, they accompany the singer-
narrators and dancers (Illustration #9). When female
characters enter the stage these louder, heavier drums
drop out and the music is accompanied by the more
delicate sound of the idakka, the small hourglass-shaped
drum played with a stick. The squeezing of the laces of
this drum tightens the head(s) and thus gives different
pitches. It is said that a virtuoso idakka player can
even play alapana (the slow melodic elaboration of a
raga, musical mode) on his drum!

Hourglass-shaped "squeeze" drums of simpler

construction are also found among wandering minstrels as,
for example, played by the two women drummers accompanying
a folk singer with her "dancing doll" (Illustration #10).

In summary, one must note the existence in India

of most of the drum families ranging from frame-drums to
barrel, cylindrical and kettle-shaped instruments, and
even friction drums. While wood is the most common
material for drum bodies, clay is also widely used, and
bamboo may form the hoop for a frame drum, while metal
may also occasionally be found. The complex tuned heads
of the classical music drums are especially noteworthy.
Drums may be played with the fingers, with palms of the
hands, with sticks, with a stick in one hand and the
fingers (often wrapped to make them into miniature
drumsticks) on the other, or with beaters. Drums often
occur in pairs (one pitched high, the other low). They
may form a percussion layer in the overall musical
texture, or they may be combined with other drums or
percussion instruments in percussion ensembles. Finally,
specific drums may be connected to certain musical
traditions or to other uses (ritual, theater, minstrelry,
etc.), and they may be played by certain castes.
Drumming itself in India--even on the so-called folk
level--is highly developed, as various and interesting as
the drums themselves.

REFERENCES CITED

Brown, R.
1965 The Mrdanga: A Study of Drumming in
South India. University of California,
Los Angeles, Ph.D., Music.

Kothari, K.S.
1968 Indian Folk Musical Instruments. New
Delhi: Sangeet Natak Akademi.

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Krishnaswamy, S.
1971 Musical Instruments of India. Boston:
Crescendo.

Sambamoorthy, P.
1959 Laya Vadyas. New Delhi: All India
Handicrafts Board.

NOTE

i. The terms in various Indian languages are spelled

as they appear in the works listed in the select
bibliography.

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Illustration #1. In this south Indian sculpture, Siva

Nataraja dances holding the damaru in the hand at upper
left.

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 iiii! iii!! i-ii:i i iii

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Illustration #2. Musicians in a Madras street procession

honoring the smallpox goddess Mariamman, playing pambai
(left) and urumi.

45

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t4-i

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Illustration #3. This musician and his bullock bearing

the double kundalam drum are participating in a festival
procession at a great Siva temple in Madras.

46

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Illustration #3A. Three types of drum in a south Indian

street festival.

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 40.:

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Illustration #4. With their timilas slung over their

shoulders, these panchavadyam musicians pound out thrilling
rhythms for hours at a time under the hot Kerala sun. The
suddha maddalam can be seen at left.

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 400000

...............

Illustration #5. Gujerati stick dance accompanied by

dancing drummers and a double-reed pipe.

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 Airi

Azii

Illustration #6. Oraon dancers, for whom dance and music

are integrated into many aspects of daily life, here
perform a circular festival dance around the two central
drums.

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 ~I

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Illustration #7. Andhra villagers accompany their dance,

each holding a dappu played with two slender sticks.

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 low:i~_

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Illustration #8. The chenda's piercing sound announces the

arrival onstage of a ferocious Yakshagana demon and
punctuates his various roars, pronouncements and threats.

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 Ark

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Illustration #9. The drum ensemble for Kathakali dance-

drama is capable of producing a great variety of rhythms,
dynamics and textures to help evoke the moods of the drama.

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 itso

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Illustration #10. Wandering minstrels in a Kerala village

accompany their songs praising goddess Bhagavathi with
idakka-type variable-pitch squeeze drums.

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