RATTLE OF DRUMS

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 March 1928, Page 2

RATTLE OF DRUMS

-<► USED AS CHURCH BELLS. The drum is a musical instrument of great antiquity. In fact, it is of such ancient origin that its inventor is unknown. However, Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and of the vintage, promoter of civilisation, law-giver and lover of peace, is said to be the inventor of the old instrument. It is known that drums of all kinds were popular in the most ancient civilisations. Representations of various types of this instrument have been found on monuments and paintings in Egypt, Assyria, India, and Persia. Perhaps the first soldiers to march to the beat of the drums, according to the Pathfinder, were the Janizaries, the renegade Christians in the service of the Turks. At any rate, drums were used in the battle of Halidon Hill in 1333. Tympanums, or kettle-drums, wore in use among the Greeks and Romans and were introduced into western Europe through the Roman civilisation. Some writers claim that drums were introduced by the Crusaders, but the instrument was known in England long before the Crusaders. Drums were not used in the British army, however, until the sixteenth century. Until the reign of Elizabeth the instrument was much larger than it is now, and was held horizontally and beaten on one head only. Likewise, it is not known at what date the snare drum

made its appearance. An instrument of this type belonging to the ancient Egyptians was found in the excavations at Thebes in 1823. The Spanish conquerors are said to have found drums in South American temples. Besides being ancient, the history of the drum is honourable. The Puritans of New England used the drum as a church bell. The drums also figured prominently and romantically all through the American Revolutionary and Civil Wars. To-day, however, the drum has fallen into bad grace in a number of places and its doom is threatened. Although it is hard to imagine a. military band without a single drum, its days in such bands are likely to be numbered. It is interesting to note that the famous drum of the great sea fighter, Sir Francis Drake, was his constant companion throughout his career. On it he beat the signals on his flagship when he scattered the Spanish Armada. It went with him on the first British ship that ever sailed around the world, and it sounded taps when, after his death in the West Indies, his body was committed to the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Just before his death he gave the old drum to his brother, a captain in the British fleet, to be taken to England and hung in the hall at Buckland Abbey, the ancestral home of the Drakes, near Plymouth. According to one story, the drum was to be sounded when danger, threatened England and Drake’s spirit would enter into the commander of the British fleet.