PAINTED instruments consisting of a wooden drum, one of earthenware, and a Tam-Tam. The employment of such instruments is necessarily rhythmic, and they occupy a place on the borderland of music and mere noise. Mr. Rowbotham, however (History of Music, vol. i., London, 1885), in formulating the stages through which instrumental music has passed, according to a development theory as applied to music, considers the drum first responded to the nascent conception of music in the prehistoric man, and has since been tenaciously preserved as an adjunct to religious service among partially civilised races. The Nautch girls, at "India in London," London, 1886, performed their soothing gyrations to the gentle SÁrungÍ, a bowed instrument with sympathetic strings, accompanied by the beating of such drums.

There are many varieties of drums to be found in India, the names varying in different parts of the country. The largest of the three Drums here shown is not used by professional musicians, but in bands of street music found in all bazaars, and over the gateways of temples, etc., called Nahabat, or Nakkera Khaneh (in South India, Perya mÉla), and composed of low-class Mahomedans, or Hindus of the barber caste. Such bands consist of drums of various shapes and kinds, and primitive instruments of the oboe kind, with drones and cymbals. Musicians in the East are usually placed over the gateways, nearly all of importance having galleries for that purpose.

Professional musicians and Nautch girls generally use the M'ridang or Tabla. The Drum with the striped body and leather braces is a kind of M'ridang. The genuine Drum bearing this name is longer in proportion to its diameter, and has one head larger than the other. The two heads are tuned to the tonic and fourth or fifth as required. The pieces of wood between the braces and shell are used to assist in the tuning, and should be noticed. Tabla are small copper kettledrums tuned similarly. Drum-playing upon such instruments is a great art, and can only be learned by years of study. A good Tabla or M'ridang player will earn from 100 to 150 rupees per month. The wrist, flat of the hand, and fingers are employed. Such instruments should not be very noisy, the skill of the player being the first consideration. The M'ridang is considered to be the most ancient of Indian Drums; its origin is popularly ascribed to the god Mahadeo (S'iva).

The earthenware Kettledrum or Tam-Tam, here shown, is used by beggars and fakirs to attract attention as they wander from house to house. A similarly shaped kettledrum of copper, but very much larger—about three or four feet in diameter—is known by the name of Nagara or Nakkera, and is much used in the bands attached to the service of temples, and found over the gates of forts and palaces of native chiefs. Such drums are beaten in a peculiar way with short curved sticks; and, although when heard close the sound is anything but pleasing, yet, when heard from a distance among the mountains, in company with shrill oboes and deeper drones, the sounds rising and falling with the breeze and echoing from hill to hill, the effect is in character with the wildness of the country, and the hearer often listens, rapt, in spite of himself.

The three Drums, here represented, belong to the Music Class Room of the University of Edinburgh, and have been drawn by the permission of Professor Sir Herbert Oakeley.

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