Hand drum - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A hand drum is any type of drum

Drum

The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...

that is typically played with the bare hand

Hand

A hand is a prehensile, multi-fingered extremity located at the end of an arm or forelimb of primates such as humans, chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs...

rather than a stick, mallet

Mallet

A mallet is a kind of hammer, usually of rubber,or sometimes wood smaller than a maul or beetle and usually with a relatively large head.-Tools:Tool mallets come in different types, the most common of which are:...

, hammer

Hammer

A hammer is a tool meant to deliver an impact to an object. The most common uses are for driving nails, fitting parts, forging metal and breaking up objects. Hammers are often designed for a specific purpose, and vary widely in their shape and structure. The usual features are a handle and a head,...

, or other type of beater. The simplest type of hand drum is the frame drum

Frame drum

A frame drum is a drum that has a drumhead width greater than its depth. Usually the single drumhead is made of rawhide or man-made materials. Shells are traditionally constructed of bent wood scarf jointed together; plywood and man-made materials are also used. Some frame drums have mechanical...

, which consists of a shallow, cylindrical

Cylinder (geometry)

A cylinder is one of the most basic curvilinear geometric shapes, the surface formed by the points at a fixed distance from a given line segment, the axis of the cylinder. The solid enclosed by this surface and by two planes perpendicular to the axis is also called a cylinder...

shell with a drumhead

Drumhead

A drumhead is a membrane stretched over one or both of the open ends of a drum. The drumhead is struck with sticks, mallets, or hands so that it vibrates and the sound resonates through the drum.-History:...

attached to one of the open ends.

Types

The Following descriptions refer to tradditional versions of the drums. Modern synthetic versions are available for most if not all of the drums listed through various manufacturers.

Middle & Near East

A frame drum
Frame drum
A frame drum is a drum that has a drumhead width greater than its depth. Usually the single drumhead is made of rawhide or man-made materials. Shells are traditionally constructed of bent wood scarf jointed together; plywood and man-made materials are also used. Some frame drums have mechanical...

common in Middle Eastern music is the Tar (drum)
Tar (drum)
A tar is a single-headed frame drum. The tar comes from North Africa and the Middle East. Depictions of these frame drums date back thousands of years....

.
The tambourine
Tambourine
The tambourine or marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all....

is simply a frame drum with jingles attached to the shell.
The daf
Daf
A daf is a frame drum used as a musical instrument in popular and classical music. The term daf is used in Iran / Kurdistan for a large drum that has a series of four interlinked rings in the frame. Daf is mostly used in Middle East, Iran, Armenia, Pakistan, Turkey, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and ...

and the dayereh
Dayereh
A dayereh is a medium-sized frame drum with jingles, used to accompany both popular and classical music in Iran , the Balkans, and many Central Asian countries such as Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan...

are Iranian frame drums.
Ghaval is the Azerbaijani frame drum.
The tonbak
Tonbak
The tonbak or zarb is a goblet drum from Persia . It is considered the principal percussion instrument of Persian music...

is the Persian goblet drum
Goblet drum
The goblet drum is a hand drum with a goblet shape used mostly in the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe....

.
The Doumbek is a goblet shaped drum used in Arabic, Jewish, Assyrian, Persian, Balkan, Greek, Armenian, Azeri and Turkish music.
Mirwas
Mirwas
The mirwās or marwas , plural marāwīs is a small double-sided hand drum originally from the Middle East. It is a popular instrument in the Arab Gulf states, used in sout and fijiri music...

Africa

The most common African drum known to westerners is the djembe
Djembe
A djembe also known as jembe, jenbe, djbobimbe, jymbe, yembe, or jimbay, or sanbanyi in Susu; is a skin-covered drum meant played with bare hands....

, a large, single-headed drum with a goblet shape.
The Ashiko
Ashiko
An ashiko is a kind of drum shaped like a truncated cone and meant to be played with bare hands. The drum is played throughout sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas....

is another African drum in the shape of a truncated cone. Similar to the Djembe it is rope strung. This drum is easily recognized as having straight sides (many actually have a slight curve but appear straight compared to most hand drums). The ashiko, contrary to popular belief, is tradditionally mounted with wild game heads such as a gazzel. Most modern Ashikos are made with goat skin as a matter of convenience or legality, differing their sound from that of the traditional ashiko. A more tradditional sounding ashiko can be created using hand picked goat skins that imitate the game skin or using deer skin (which requires more frequent tuning and maintenance). Modern Ashiko drums are quite popular but less so than other types of hand drums ; their lack of popularity can be attributed to their nontraditional sound.
Bougarabou
Bougarabou
A bougarabou is a set of drums commonly used in West Africa. The drums are single headed , with an elongated goblet or roughly conical shape, usually placed on a single stand, and most commonly played in sets of three to four.Until the last few decades the Bougarabou was played only one at a time,...

are African drums with cow skin heads. The base of the drum is shorter than a djembe and the goblet shape less pronounced. (This is the believed by some to be the African tradditional predecessor of the Conga.)

Latin percussion

Conga
Conga
The conga, or more properly the tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed Cuban drum with African antecedents. It is thought to be derived from the Makuta drums or similar drums associated with Afro-Cubans of Central African descent. A person who plays conga is called a conguero...

s and bongos
Bongo drum
Bongo or bongos are a Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of single-headed, open-ended drums attached to each other. The drums are of different size: the larger drum is called in Spanish the hembra and the smaller the macho...

are essential to all kinds of Latin American music, especially that of the Caribbean and South American regions, used in both folklore (punta, santeria, rumba, etc.) and popular music such as merengue
Merengue music
Merengue is a type of music and dance from the Dominican Republic. It is popular in the Dominican Republic and all over Latin America. Its name is Spanish, taken from the name of the meringue, a dessert made from whipped egg whites and sugar...

, salsa
Salsa music
Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...

, son
Son
A son is a male offspring; a boy or man in relation to his parents. The female analogue is a daughter.-Social issues regarding sons:In pre-industrial societies and some current countries with agriculture-based economies, a higher value was, and still is, assigned to sons rather than daughters,...

, boleros, bachata, cumbia
Cumbia
Cumbia is a music genre popular across Latin America. The cumbia originated in the Caribbean coast of Colombia, where it is associated with an eponymous dance and has since spread as far as Mexico and Argentina...

, latin jazz
Latin jazz
Latin jazz is the general term given to jazz with Latin American rhythms.The three main categories of Latin Jazz are Brazilian, Cuban and Puerto Rican:# Brazilian Latin Jazz includes bossa nova...

, and others.
The Tambora, a two-sided drum played with both a stick and a hand, is essential to the merengue
Merengue (dance)
Merengue El camino1ro de Secundaria-In popular culture:* Merengue was mentioned as a song performed between Babs and Charlie in the song by Steely Dan....

dance of Dominican Republic.
The maracas
Maracás
Maracás is a town and municipality in the state of Bahia in the North-East region of Brazil.-References:...

and timbales
Timbales
Timbales are shallow single-headed drums with metal casing, invented in Cuba. They are shallower in shape than single-headed tom-toms, and usually much higher tuned...

are widely played in popular music.

Far East and India

Tabla
Tabla
The tabla is a popular Indian percussion instrument used in Hindustani classical music and in popular and devotional music of the Indian subcontinent. The instrument consists of a pair of hand drums of contrasting sizes and timbres...

are central to Indian music
Music of India
The music of India includes multiple varieties of folk, popular, pop, classical music and R&B. India's classical music tradition, including Carnatic and Hindustani music, has a history spanning millennia and developed over several eras. It remains fundamental to the lives of Indians today as...

.
The mridangam takes the main spot in Indian classical (Carnatic
Carnatic music
Carnatic music is a system of music commonly associated with the southern part of the Indian subcontinent, with its area roughly confined to four modern states of India: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu...

) music.
Ghatam
Ghatam
The ghaṭam is a percussion instrument used in the Carnatic music of South India. Its analogue in Rajasthan is known as the madga and pani mataqa "water jug"....

s and Kanjira
Kanjira
The kanjira, khanjira or ganjira, a South Indian frame drum, is an instrument of the tambourine family. It is used primarily in concerts of Carnatic music as a supporting instrument for the mridangam...

s accompany the mridangam in carnatic music.
Răbāna or Raban
Raban
Raban or Rabana is one-sided traditional drum type played with the hands, used in Sri Lanka. The body of these drums are made by carving the Jack or Vitex trees. The skin used is that of a goat. There are two types of Rabans as Hand Raban and Bench Raban.* Hand Raban is about one foot in diameter...

, Gáta Béra, Yak Béra and Udákkiya are used in Sri Lankan music.
One drum head in Daŭla is played by hand, which is again used in Sri Lanka.
Dhōlki is used both in Sri Lanks and India, and even Pakistan.
Klong Yao is the Thai "long drum" which is shaped like an enlongated or stretched goblet and rope tuned.

Native American

Native Americans also had a frame drum version which is usually played with a mallet but can be played by hand.

(Name not found) There is a tradditional Native American drum that is tall and has vertical slits at the bottom of the drum allowing sound to escape from the sides. This drum although extremely rare in the modern world has shaped the way many play drums in modern America. A quick search of the web or attending diverse drum circles will reveal many people sitting on their drums which are laying horizontally on the ground. It is believed that this style of playing the drum (rather than sitting in a chair or holding it on your lap) originates here tradditionally (as well as simply being convenient)this is how the drum was played.

External links

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