Answering Your Q's
Q: What can you tell us about the history of drums?
Drums were almost lost in history. They flourished from 9000 to 4000BC with the Dionysus (mother-goddess) cults but were eliminated when Christianity came to dominate. The drums were all but eliminated from culture except for parts of West Africa.
That is why it is often thought that the birthplace of drums is Africa, however they can be found in neolithic cultures and animal species that drum too around the globe.
Drums were brought to the New World with the slaves and they influenced the birth of Latin, Reggae, Calypso, American Jazz and the birth of the drum-set. The drum-set does what would traditionally have been played by a group of people.Today cultural living is common, and with that comes a blend of traditional music.
Historically, in Africa, they had royal drums, which only the masters could touch. They were kept in a hut where food offerings were made to them. Talking-drums were used for communication. They would relay a message from one village to the next; it might take 3 to 4 relays, over miles & miles. It would announce a wedding, a funeral, a party or the presence of dangerous animals in the vicinity of the village. It has been referred to as the African Telephone. There is a rhythm a dance and a song for most occasions and a drum master is a master of all of them. He is often a storyteller too.
There were rhythms for anything from harvesting rice, weddings or funerals. Kuru-Kara is the rhythm used to announce a wrestling match in Senegal. Samsamoun, which translates to ‘summon your wits’, was played for the wrestler before his match to help him focus. Tscheppe, is the rhythm a group of musicians would play for the rice harvests. The African clave, is the basic pulse of Latin music.
Drums have a big part in rituals around the world. In Santeria, a voodoo-like religion, the Bata drums bring spirits to possess the dancers. In American Indian cultures, the shaman uses the drum to travel to the world tree and back, experiencing visions and telling prophecies.
In Tahiti, drums would accompany a human sacrifice. Ethiopians would have huge tympani-like drums on the back of their elephants, and in times of war, would beat them to scare their enemy.
In Tibet, drums and gongs are a big part of their ceremonies. Japanese Taiko drumming is treated like an Olympic event and the players train for years. Indian tabla playing is the most complicated of all. It is only in the last century that the wide array of percussion instruments have been celebrated in modern music.
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