University of Texas Press

Drums of India: A Pictorial SelectionAuthor(s): Carol S. Reck and D. B. ReckSource: Asian Music, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1982), pp. 39-54Published by: University of Texas PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/833878Accessed: 22/02/2010 08:30

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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 vadya,l 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). 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

1. 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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Illustration #2. Musicians in a Madras street procession honoring the smallpox goddess Mariamman, playing pambai (left) and urumi.

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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.

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

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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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I

Illustration #5. Gujerati stick dance accompanied by dancing drummers and a double-reed pipe.

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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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Illustration #7. Andhra villagers accompany their dance, each holding a dappu played with two slender sticks.

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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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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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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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