Drum

Drum is an instrument of percussion, consisting either of a hollow cylinder, over each end of which is stretched a piece of skin or vellum, to be beaten with a stick; or of a metallic hemisphere (kettledrum) with a single piece of skin to be so beaten; the common instrument for marking time in martial music; one of the pair of tympani in an orchestra, or cavalry band.Likewise its a percussion instrument consisting of a hollow cylinder or hemisphere with a membrane stretched tightly over one or both ends, played by beating with the hands or sticks.

Drum is a musical instrument, the sound of which is produced by the vibration of a stretched membrane. Drums are usually either cylindrical or bowl-shaped. The drum is a universal instrument and very ancient; a drum dating to 6000 BC has been found in Moravia. Drums have been important ritually in cultures worldwide. They may have a definite pitch or be unpitched; those of Africa, South and Southeast Asia (see tabla), and the Middle East are mostly pitched, whereas Western drums are more often unpitched. Drumming has attained its highest degree of development in Africa and India. From the 13th century, the folk dance in Europe was accompanied by a single musician playing simultaneously the pipe or fife and the tabor, a small double-headed snare drum played with one stick. The side drum, or snare drum, has coiled wires or gut strings strung across the lower head, which vibrate against it when the upper head is struck. The powerful bass drum is used especially in marching bands. The pitched timpani are the standard orchestral drums. Until the 17th century, drum parts in Western music were entirely improvised. The drum set used in popular music is played by a single person and normally includes a snare drum, tom-toms, a pedal-operated bass drum, and suspended and hi-hat cymbals.

The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, technically classified as the membranous.Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drum head or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a drumstick, to produce sound. Other techniques have been used to cause drums to make sound, such as the thumb roll. Drums are the world's oldest and most ubiquitous musical instruments, and the basic design has remained virtually unchanged for thousands of years.Most drums are considered "untuned instruments", however many modern musicians are beginning to tune drums to songs; Terry Bozzio has constructed a kit using diatonic and chromatically tuned drums. A few types of drums such as timpani are always tuned to a certain pitch. Often, several drums are arranged together to create a drum kit.

Ancient tech speak term referring to slow, cylindrical magnetic media that were once state-of-the-art storage devices. Under some versions of BSD Unix the disk partition used for swapping is still called `/dev/drum'; this has led to considerable humor and not a few straight-faced but utterly bogus `explanations' getting foisted on newbies.

A drum is a musical instrument which produces sound by the vibration of a stretched membrane. The membrane, which is known as the head, covers one or both ends of a hollow body known as the shell. Instruments that produce sound by means of a vibrating membrane are also known as membranophones. Drums are part of the larger category of musical devices known as percussion instruments. Percussion instruments other than membranophones are known as idiophones. Idiophones, such as bells and cymbals, produce sound by the vibration of the instrument itself rather than by an attached membrane.It exist in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. The two basic shapes for shells are bowls and tubes. The most familiar bowl shaped drums in Western music are kettledrums, also known as timpani. Tubular drums may be taller than they are wide, such as conga drums, or shorter than they are wide. Short drums, also known as shallow drums, are the most common tubular drums used in Western music. Shallow drums include snare drums, tenor drums, and bass drums. If a tubular drum is so shallow that the shell does not resonate, it is known as a frame drum. The most familiar type of frame drum is the tambourine.Drums are usually played by being struck. Some drums, such as bongo drums, are designed to be played by striking them directly with the hand. In modern Western music, most drums are designed to be played by being struck with various devices known as beaters. The most familiar beaters are wooden sticks, generally used to play smaller drums such as snare drums, and padded wooden mallets, used to play larger drums such as bass drums. Sometimes drums are struck with wire brushes or other types of beaters to produce a different sound.

drum, in music, percussion instrument, known in various forms and played throughout the world and throughout history. Essentially a drum is a frame over which one or more membranes or skins are stretched. The frame is usually cylindrical or conical, but it comes in many other shapes. It acts as a resonator when the membrane is struck by the hand or by an implement, usually a stick or a whisk. The variety of tone and the volume of sound from a drum depend on the area, tension, and material of the membrane that is struck and, more particularly, on the skill of the player. The rhythmic effects of drum playing can be exceedingly complex, especially the intricate poly rhythmic arrangements of Asian and African cultures. The modern orchestra may have as many as five drums under one player, allowing an impressive range of tones. In Western music the kettledrum is of special importance. A metal bowl with a membrane stretched over the open side, it is the only drum that can be tuned to a definite pitch. It originated in Persia and spread throughout Asia, Africa, and Europe; it was later adapted into orchestral music. The kettledrum was formerly tuned by hand screws placed around the edge; now it can be tuned by a pedal mechanism. The bass drum, especially popular in military bands, is a huge wooden cylinder with a drum head (membrane) on both ends. The snare drum (sometimes called the side drum) also has a drum head at either end; across one end are stretched gut strings wound with wire. These strings rattle when the other end of the drum is beaten. The tenor drum is primarily used in military bands and is normally played with small felt sticks. The tambourine, known from Roman times, is a single-headed small drum, usually with jingles attached to the frame; it is shaken and struck by hand.

Some drums, particularly in non-Western cultures, are played in ways other than being struck. Rattle drums contain pellets within the shell or knotted cords attached to the head and are played by being shaken. Friction drums are played by being rubbed. Some membranophones have the vibrating membrane set into motion by sound waves coming from a human voice or from another musical instrument. These devices are known as mirlitons. The most familiar mirliton is the kazoo.Drums are either tunable, so that they produce a particular note, or non tunable. Most drums in Western music are non tunable. The only commonly used tunable drums in Western music are timpani. Idiophones, which exist in an even greater variety than membranophones, may also be tunable, such as a xylophone, or non tunable, such as a rattle.

A drum can represent everything from primitive urges, to dance, to the rhythms of life, to entrepreneurialism ("drumming up business"), to ejection (being "drummed out of town"). As with all dream symbols, the tone and setting of the dream indicate which meaning is appropriate.