The tuning of the kettledrum is an operation requiring time, even when the screw-heads, as is now usual, are T-shaped; to expedite the change, therefore, efforts have been made in all countries to invent some mechanism which would enable the performer to tune the drum to a fixed note by a single movement. The first mechanical kettledrums date from the beginning of the 19th century. In Holland a system was invented by J. C. N. Stumpff[4]; in France by Labbaye in 1827; in Germany Einbigler patented a system in Frankfort-on-Main in 1836[5]; in England Cornelius Ward in 1837; in Italy C. A. Boracchi of Monza in 1839.[6]
The drawback in most of these systems is the complicated nature of the mechanism, which soon gets out of order, and, being very cumbersome and heavy, it renders the instrument more or less of a fixture. Potter’s kettledrum with instantaneous system of tuning, the best known at the present day in England, and used in some military bands with entire success, is a complete contrast to the above. There is practically no mechanism; the system is simple, ingenious, and neither adds to the weight nor to the bulk of the instrument. There are no screws round the head of Potter’s kettledrum; an invisible system of cords in the interior, regulated by screws and rods in the form of a Maltese cross, is worked from the outside by a small handle connected to a dial, on the face of which are twenty-eight numbered notches. By means of these the performer is able to tune the drum instantly to any note within the compass by remembering the numbers which correspond to each note and pointing the indicator to it on the face of the dial. Should the cords become slightly stretched, flattening the pitch, causing the representative numbers to change, the performer need only give his indicator an extra turn to bring his instrument back to pitch, each note having several notches at its service. The internal mechanism, being of an elastic nature, has no detrimental effect on the tone but tends to increase its volume and improve its quality.
The origin of the kettledrum is remote and must be sought in the East. Its distinctive characteristic is a hemispherical or convex vessel, closed by means of a single parchment or skin drawn tightly over the aperture, whereas other drums consist of a cylinder, having one end or both covered by the parchment, as in the side-drum and tambourine respectively. The Romans were acquainted with the kettledrum, including it among the tympana; the tympanum leve, like a sieve, was the tambourine used in the rites of Bacchus and Cybele.[7] The comparatively heavy tympanum of bronze mentioned by Catullus was probably the small kettledrum which appears in pairs on monuments of the middle ages.[8] Pliny[9] states that half pearls having one side round and the other flat were called tympania. If the name tympania (Gr. τύμπανον, from τύπτειν, to strike) was given to pearls of a certain shape because they resembled the kettledrum, this argues that the instrument was well known among the Romans. It is doubtful, however, if it was adopted by them as a military instrument, since it is not mentioned by Vegetius,[10] who defines very clearly the duties of the service instruments buccina, tuba, cornu and lituus.
The Greeks also knew the kettledrum, but as a warlike instrument of barbarians. Plutarch[11] mentions that the Parthians, in order to frighten their enemies, in offering battle used not the horn or tuba, but hollow vessels covered with a skin, on which they beat, making a terrifying noise with these tympana. Whether the kettledrum penetrated into western Europe before the fall of the Roman Empire and continued to be included during the middle ages among the tympana has not been definitely ascertained. Isidore of Seville gives a somewhat vague description of tympanum, conveying the impression that his information has been obtained second-hand: “Tympanum est pellis vel corium ligno ex una parte extentum. Est enim pars media symphoniae in similitudinem cribri. Tympanum autem dictum quod medium est. Unde, et margaritum medium tympanum dicitur, et ipsum ut symphonia ad virgulam percutitur.”[12] It is clear that in this passage Isidore is referring to Pliny.
The names given during the middle ages to the kettledrum are derived from the East. We have attambal or attabal in Spain, from the Persian tambal, whence is derived the modern French timbales; nacaire, naquaire or nakeres (English spelling), from the Arabic nakkarah or noqqārich (Bengali, nāgarā), and the German Pauke, M.H.G. Bûke or Pûke, which is probably derived from byk, the Assyrian name of the instrument.
| (Geo. Potter & Co. of Aldershot.) |
| Fig. 1.—Mechanical Kettledrum, showing the system
of cords inside the head. This regiment is now the 21st (Empress of India) Lancers. |
A line in the chronicles of Joinville definitely establishes the identity of the nakeres as a kind of drum: “Lor il fist sonner les tabours que l’on appelle nacaires.” The nacaire is among the instruments mentioned by Froissart as having been used on the occasion of Edward III.’s triumphal entry into Calais in 1347: “trompes, tambours, nacaires, chalemies, muses.”[13] Chaucer mentions them in the description of the tournament in the Knight’s Tale (line 2514):—
| “Pipes, trompes, nakeres and clarionnes, That in the bataille blowen blody sonnes.” |
The earliest European illustration showing kettledrums is the scene depicting Pharaoh’s banquet in the fine illuminated MS. book of Genesis of the 5th or 6th century, preserved in Vienna. There are two pairs of shallow metal bowls on a table, on which a woman is performing with two sticks, as an accompaniment to the double pipes.[14] As a companion illumination may be cited the picture of an Eastern banquet given in a 14th century MS. at the British Museum (Add. MS. 27,695), illuminated by a skilled Genoese. The potentate is enjoying the music of various instruments, among which are two kettledrums strapped to the back of a Nubian slave. This was the earlier manner of using the instrument before it became inseparably associated with the trumpet, sharing its position as the service instrument of the cavalry. Jost Amman[15] gives a picture of a pair of kettledrums with banners being played by an armed knight on horseback.
| (From Härtel u. Wickhoff’s “Die Wiener Genesis,” Jahrbuch der kunslhistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses.) |
| Fig. 2.—Kettledrums in an early Christian MS. |