Drums are percussive instruments that are most commonly constructed by stretching one of a couple of different types of membranes over the opening in a vessel. The most common property of the various different types of drums is the pitch that each drum offers. Drums are by far one of the oldest and one of the widest reaching musical instruments, because there are so many different types of drums out there.
The sound in a drum always originates from the same place, the vibration that is caused when the membrane is struck with another object like a hand or a drumstick, regardless of what type of drum you are dealing with or what it is constructed from. Drumheads can be made from a variety of different membrane materials, including the skin from goats, cows, sheep and antelopes, and synthetic materials as well. The types of drums that exist can vary significantly as they originate from a variety of places and are used for communication, for ritual and for entertainment all over the entire world.
The most common way to classify drums is to classify them by their shape. Most drums fall into one of the following categories: cylindrical drums, barrel drums, conga drums, waisted drums, goblet drums and bowl drums.
Frame drums have squat hoops and long drums are thin and tall, but both are cylindrical drum varieties. Barrels like Tabla drums, goblets like the Djembe drum and bowl drums like the Nakari are all named based on their shapes, allowing them to be easily recognized. The conga is a drum that tapers at the bottom, the waisted drum is one that tapers in the middle. The Changko has a cinched waist, making it a waisted variety.
Another way to classify drums based on type is to classify drums based on which side of the drum has the head. A drum can have a head either at both ends of the body or on only one end of the body. Conga drums and bowl drums for example only have a single head, but frame drums have a head on both sides. Some drums can be carried while you are dancing, walking or otherwise moving around, and other drums are intended to be stationary, such as the Djembe drum for example, which hails from Mali.
In addition to categorizing drums into different groups, you should also be aware of the fact that not all drums are tuned in a specific way. Many drums develop their tone based on their head size or the shape of their body. If you pull a cord or shift a peg, stretching the drum's head over its body, the pitch of the drum is adjusted.
Rock music in the western world involves drums that are non-pitched, like the snare drum or the bass drum in a drum set. These drums can also be used in combination with any key or harmony. Different drums in a single drum kit are also all capable of being categorized as different drums, as different drums and cymbals are combined in order to create a single drum set. Different music styles incorporate and implement different types of drums in different ways depending on what kind of sound you want to create.
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Originally posted 2008-11-03 05:49:41. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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