| Name | Image | Tradition | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agung a Tamlang |  | Philippines | The Agung a Tamlang is a type of Philippine slit drum made of hollowed out bamboo in imitation of the real agung. Pitch is determined by the length and depth of the slit. The agung a tamlang is used as practice for the real agung: players either use either one agung a tamlang (hold it with one hand and using the other to strike it with a beater) or using two agung a tamlangs where the other agung is held with one’s feet. |
| Ashiko |  | Africa | An ashiko is a kind of drum shaped like a truncated cone and meant to be played with bare hands. It produces a resonant bass tone when struck in the middle, and a high tone when struck on the rim. The ashiko drum is played throughout sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas. In eastern Cuba, it is known as boku and is played during carnivals and street parades called Comparsas. |
| Atabaque |  | Brazil | The atabaque is a tall, wooden, Afro-Brazilian hand drum. The shell is made traditionally of Jacaranda wood from Brazil. The head is traditionally made from calfskin. A system of ropes are intertwined around the body, connecting a metal ring near the base to the head. Wooden wedges are jammed between this ring and the the body and one uses a hammer to tighten or loosen the ropes, raising or lowering the pitch of the drum. |
| Batá drum |  | Cuba | A Batá drum is a double-headed drum shaped like an hourglass with one cone larger than the other. The percussion instrument is used primarily for the use of religious or semi-religious purposes for the native culture from the land of Yoruba, located in Nigeria, as well as by worshippers of Santería in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and in the United States. |
| Bedug |  | Indonesia | The bedug (Javanese: bedhug) is one of the drums used in the Javanese gamelan. Unlike the more frequently-used kendang, the bedug is suspended from a rack and played with a padded mallet. It is similar in size or larger to the largest kendang. It is not adjustable like the kendang, but has pegs holding the two identical heads in place, similar to the Japanese taiko. Its sound is generally deeper and duller than that of the kendang. |
| Bendir |  | Morocco | The bendir (also called erbeni or arbani) is a frame drum used as a traditional instrument throughout North Africa, more specifically in Morocco. Unlike the tambourine, it has no jingles but most often has a snare (usually made of gut) stretched across its head, which when the drum is struck with the fingers or palm gives the tone a buzzing quality. |
| Bodhran |  | Ireland | The bodhrán is an Irish frame drum ranging from 25 to 65cm (10" to 26") in diameter, with most drums measuring 35 to 45cm (14" to 18"). The sides of the drum are 9 to 20cm (3½" to 8") deep. A goatskin head is tacked to one side (although nowadays, synthetic heads, or new materials like kangaroo skin, are sometimes used). The other side is open ended for one hand to be placed against the inside of the drum head to control the pitch and timbre. One or two crossbars, sometimes removable, may be inside the frame, but this is increasingly rare on professional instruments. The image shows a bodhrán with two-headed tipper. |
| Bombo |  | Spain | A bombo is a kind of bass drum used in traditional music in Spain, Portugal and South America. |
| Bombo Legüero |  | Argentina | Bombo legüero is an Argentine drum traditionally made of a hollowed tree trunk and covered with cured skins of animals such as goats, cows or sheep. It derives instead from the old European military drums, and uses a similar arrangement of hoops and leather thongs and loops to tighten the drumheads, which are usually double. The player’s hands hold a soft-headed mallet and a stick, which strike drumhead and wooden rim in alternation. The bombo serves as a combination of bass and percussion, not just maintaining the meter, but evoking an elemental, visceral response. It is called legüero because it can be heard from many leguas. |
| Bongos |  | Cuba | Bongo drums or bongos are a percussion instrument made up of two small drums attached to each other. The drums are of different size: the larger drum is called a hembra (Spanish: female), the smaller drum is called a macho (Spanish: male). |
| Buhay |  | Ukraine | The Buhay is a percussive that was used in Western Ukraine and is classified as a friction drum. It consists of a conical barrel (sometimes a wooden bucket). At one end a sheep membrane is stretched with a hole in this skin's center. Through this hole a tuft of horse hair with a knot at one end is passed. Usually two performers are needed to operate the instrument, one to hold the instrument, the other to pull the horsehair with moistened fingers. In recent times versions of the Buhay have been made which are held in position by the players feet allowing one player to play the instrument. These instruments can be played successfully by one player without assistance. Five to six different sounds can be obtained from the instrument, depending on the skill of the player. |
| Buk Drum |  | Korea | A buk is a traditional Korean drum. It is barrel-shaped, with a round wooden body covered on both ends with animal skin. It is played with both an open hand and a wooden stick in the other hand. The buk is one of the four instruments used in samul nori, a modern performance version of pungmul. |
| Bukhalo |  | Ukraine | The bukhalo is a type of large drum often used in dance music, particularly popular in Western Ukraine. It is tied to the player with a belt so that the performer can also dance. The bukhalo is struck with a wooden stick and often has a cymbal joined to the side of the instrument which is struck by a metal rod, or another cymbal, to produce unexpected rhythmic sounds. |
| Caixa |  | Brazil | A caixa is a Brazilian snare drum. It is the driving force in samba music where ghost notes are played continuously with accented strokes outlining the rhythm. The caixa is also used extensively in Reggaeton (a form of urban music which became popular with Latin American youth during the early 1990s), and in extreme metal to provide a blast beat. |
| Caja |  | Colombia | The caja, a drum similar to a tambora, is one of the three main or traditional instruments of the Vallenato music. Caja, the slang word adopted to nickname this drum, means "box" in Spanish. There is also a Caribbean drum called caja, used in the music of Cuba. |
| Cajón |  | Peru | A cajón (Spanish for 'crate', 'drawer', or 'box') is a kind of box drum played by slapping the front face (generally thin plywood) with the hands. The cajón is the most widely used Afro-Peruvian musical instrument in the 20th century. The instrument has been officially declared "Cultural Patrimony of the Nation" by the Peruvian government. |
| Chenda |  | India | The Chenda is a cylindrical percussion instrument used widely in the state of Kerala, India. It is also used in some parts of Karnataka where it is called the Chende. The chenda is mainly played as an accompaniment in the Hindu religious art forms of Kerala. |
| Conga Drums |  | Congo | The conga is a tall, narrow, single-headed Cuban drum of African origin, probably derived from the Congolese Makuta drums or Sikulu drums commonly played in Mbanza Ngungu, Congo. Most modern congas have a staved wooden or fiberglass shell, and a screw-tensioned drumhead. They are usually played in sets of two to four with the fingers and palms of the hand. Typical congas stand approximately 75 cm from the bottom of the shell to the head. |
| Cuica |  | Brazil | Cuíca (pronounced KWEE-kah) is a Brazilian friction drum often used in samba music. The tone it produces has a high-pitched squeaky timbre. The body of the cuíca is normally made of metal. It has a single head, normally six to ten inches in diameter (15-25 cm), made of animal skin. A thin bamboo stick is attached to the centre of, and perpendicular to, the drum head, stretching into the drum's interior. The instrument is held under one arm at chest height with the help of a shoulder strap. To play the cuíca, the musician rubs the stick up and down with a wet cloth held in one hand, using the thumb of the other hand to press down on the skin of the drum near the place where the stick is attached. The rubbing motion produces the sound and the pitch is increased or decreased by changing the pressure on the thumb. |
| Culoepuya |  | Venezuela | The culo'e puya drums, also known as culoepuya, culo e puya, or culepuya, are a battery of three small drums (prima, cruzao, and pujao) originally from Venezuela, with a Kongo lineage. They are used in an ensemble also known as redondo drums, after the dance motion and the circle which forms around the dancers during performance. |
| Dabakan |  | Philippines | The dabakan is a single-headed Philippine drum, primarily used as a supportive instrument in the kulintang ensembles, which have been playing for centuries in regions of the Eastern Malay Archipelago. The dabakan is frequently described as either hour-glass, conical, tubular, or goblet in shape. Normally, the dabakan is found having a length of more than two feet and a diameter of more than a foot. |
| Dadaiko |  | Japan | The dadaiko is a pair of large barrel drums (around two meters in diameter) that are used for Gagaku (Japanese court music) and religious ceremonies. Dadaiko is one of the oldest styles of taiko used in Japan, dating from at least the 7th century. The drum on the left is used for the left repertoire (of Chinese origin) of gagaku. It has a red body with two images of dragon. The right drum is used for the right repertoire. It has a green body with two images of phoenix. |
Prev Top Next |
