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Marching to the Drums
A History of Military Drums and Drummers
By John Norris The History Press
Copyright © 2012 John Norris
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7524-8363-4
CHAPTER 1
Echoes from the PAST
The battle had entered its third day and the troops on both sides were exhausted. All attempts by the French to cross the Alpone River at Arcola in Italy had been repulsed by strong Austrian resistance. The battle had started on 15 November 1796 and early assaults by the French to cross the wooden bridge spanning the river had been forced back with heavy losses. On the second day of the fighting the commander of the French forces in Italy, a young energetic general by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte, personally led one of the attacks across the bridge with flag in hand. This spirited attempt to force a passage was also repulsed, and it seemed as though an impasse had been reached. The Austrians' superior firepower, including canister and grapeshot fired at close range from the artillery, was tearing into the ranks and inflicting a high rate of casualties on the French. The action had already cost the lives of nine generals and the French were facing defeat. Then on 17 November the seemingly impossible happened and some French troops managed to cross by swimming the freezing cold, swirling waters of the river with their weapons and equipment.
One of those crossing the river was a 19-year-old drummer boy by the name of André Estienne from the small town of Cadenet in the Luberon. He had managed to keep his drum dry by swimming with it perched on his head '... like an African native, carrying water in a pitcher ...' Having crossed over with infantrymen, André adjusted his equipment, gathered himself together and, according to the story, he began to beat his drum with such vigour and force that the Austrians believed they had been taken by surprise and were surrounded. Taking advantage of the diversion which distracted the attention of the Austrian forces, the French main force stormed the bridge and captured the town of Arcola (sometimes written as Arcole). The battle was won and the Austrians were in retreat.
André Estienne had joined his regiment in the Luberon and was engaged in the Wars of the French Revolution and attached to the Army of Italy under Napoleon Bonaparte at Nice, who rewarded the young boy for his valour by presenting him with silver tokens. Today, in memory of his bravery, a statue of André is to be seen in the square of his home town at Cadenet, where he is known as La Tambour d'Arcole (The Drummer of Arcole).
Some 4,500 years before young André exhibited his bravery in battle, the first military drums in history were entering service with the Egyptian army around 2,650BC, so beginning the story of the military drum which continues almost unbroken to this day. The country of Egypt falls into a region known as the Middle East, where over the centuries a number of military societies flourished, such as the Sumerians and the Parthians. Drums are among the oldest form of musical instrument and evidence of their existence goes back more than 8,000 years to around 6,000BC. Wall friezes and hieroglyphics dating from the period known as the Old Kingdom in Egypt, a timeline beginning from around 2,650BC to 2,152BC and encompassing the third to the sixth dynasties, have been discovered, although there are some authorities which also include the seventh dynasty, extending the timescale to 2,000BC.
In ancient Egyptian society, musical instruments were held in high regard and were of such importance that they are found in many paintings which decorate the interior of pyramids, often depicting deities such as Hather, Isis and Sekhmet engaged in playing a range of stringed instruments and even drums. These paintings are not just for decorative purposes; they tell a story which gives an insight into what was happening at that time. Through these images we can tell that drums were used in ancient Egypt and that the Pharaohs' armies almost certainly used them on the march during campaigns into the Sudan and Ethiopia. Musical instruments were also an integral part of Egyptian religious services and images mainly show women engaged in playing these and possibly even creating a rhythm. There were several main types of instruments in ancient Egypt, all hand held, including items known as sistrums, types of rattles made from metal, crotals, which were made from wood and 'slapped' together, trumpets and, of course, drums, which fell into two forms.
The first of these forms was the barrel-shaped drum, which was probably used exclusively by the military units of the army. These players would have been experienced musicians and most images show these drums being played with bare hands thumping out the beat. Military musicians had to audition for the role of drummer to prove their capability and there is a record of one drummer proving his talent by performing 7,000 'lengths' on a barrel-shaped drum. However, the account does not describe what actually constituted a 'length', but it is assumed to mean a rhythmical phrase to define drumming methods. No images have yet been discovered showing these drums being played using sticks, unlike for the round frame drum. The historian Lisa Manniche supports the theory that barrel-shaped drums were played by thumping with the hand because of the images showing them being played in such a fashion and because, as stated, no images showing them being struck using sticks have yet been found.
The round frame drum was also used in ancient Egypt and it is believed to have been developed around 1,400BC. Some examples have been found among grave goods at excavations during archaeological digs, along with painted and carved images which provide a picture to suggest these drums were played by female priestesses during religious ceremonies and other temple rituals. A drum was unearthed during excavations at Thebes in 1823 and this measured 18 inches (in) in height, with a diameter of 24in and was probably played using two sticks. In the book When the Drummers Were Women, the author Layne Redmond expands on this and, indeed, many images of the time do show women engaged in the act of drumming. Round frame drums are also understood to have sometimes been played aboard boats on the River Nile where they were used to set the timing for the oarsmen to row in unison. From this usage it was only a question of time before music, and drums in particular, particularly those bass-drum designs which have indefinite pitch, gradually came to find a wider role within the military and eventually onto the battlefield.
Drums are to be found in all societies across the continents of the world and come in all shapes and sizes. Drums are also one of the few musical instruments to be used for the specific martial purpose of signalling between military units on the battlefield and conveying a commander's orders to whole armies, such as advance and withdraw. A Chinese military adviser around 500BC suggested that the drum be given 'to the bold', presumably because they would stand firm in battle. This was certainly the belief of Sun Tzu, the Chinese officer, philosopher and author of The Art of War in the fifth century BC. Sun Tzu is sometimes known as Sun Wu or Sun Zi depending on the pronunciation and his most important and influential work is also known as Bingfa. In this important treatise he states that: 'Gongs and drums, banners and flags are employed to focus the attention of troops. When soldiers are united by signals, the bravest cannot advance alone, nor can the cowardly withdraw. This is the art of handling an army.' This is perhaps the earliest recognition of the importance of the use of drums and flags on the battlefield for relaying signals, and recognises how flags can be used as rallying points for troops when reforming on the battlefield. Sun Tzu is also informing us that even in these early times troops had a loyalty to regimental symbols, either drums or regimental flags, and would not abandon them either by advancing without them or withdrawing and leaving them behind. In this work, not only do we see many strategic and tactical recommendations, but also the beginning of regimental customs which armies around the world would adopt over the centuries.
The Chinese military used a form of drum called the taigu, which was used to set the marching pace and also for signalling on the battlefield. An account of an un-named battle by an anonymous warrior from around this time tells how drums were beaten with sticks and signals were beaten out, which must have been fairly typical of how drums were used across the region before spreading further afield to influence other armies down to Korea and then into Japan.
Visual signals using hands and flags were an obvious and reliable means of communicating and of passing on orders to troops. This method of signalling can be traced back to around 3,000BC, but it did, however, require constant vigilance to watch for the next set of signal flags and in battle this is not always possible. Despite this drawback the armies of ancient Egypt used flags for signalling, as did the Roman legions with their vexillum standards, the Vikings with their raven banners, and the religious symbols and coats of arms of the Crusades.
The voice has a limited range and can easily become lost among the mêlée of screams and shouts during battle and so drums and horns or bugles were seen as a natural progression to relaying signals because their sound can be carried further. In large armies the drum worked well as a signalling device, but it has been opined that as armies grew larger it became more difficult to relay signals using drums. This may have been correct in some cases where the mass was not working as a truly cohesive unit. In the case of the Mongols where a tuman, or army of 10,000 and up to 100,000 men, worked as a co-ordinated force, the drum was successfully used to pass on signals. Admittedly, it helped greatly that the Mongols communicated their commander's intentions down to the smallest group prior to engaging the enemy so that each man was aware of what he had to do. Even in later centuries when armies began to use gunpowder weapons, the drum was found to still have a place on the battlefield and drummers were present at Waterloo, the Crimean War and throughout the American Civil War, which were all fought at different periods in the nineteenth century.
All drums comprise an outer body or 'shell' formed into an open-ended tube, over which is stretched an animal skin which has been treated and prepared specially for use on the drum. The traditional material used for drumheads was always animal skin, usually calf's leather, but today some plastics are used. There is a drawback to the use of natural animal skin, which is that rain or any other form of dampness can cause it to become slack, thereby affecting its sound, and so it has to be capable of being tightened. Conversely, if the skin becomes too dry it will split and the drum will be equally useless. The calfskin had to be prepared in a special process involving several stages of preparation to make it useful for drum coverings.
The method of preserving leather so that it does not decompose and can be used to make drum skins, belts, boots, gloves and other equipment, is called tanning. The process was known in South Asia perhaps as early as 7,000BC and the process spread so that by 2,500BC it was known to the Sumerians and the Egyptians. Ancient armies used leather for a variety of purposes, including the manufacture of armour and helmets for head protection, and the elastic properties leather possesses meant it made an excellent covering for drumheads.
The tanning process involved cleaning the skins and soaking them in special agents of tannin compounds in water to break down the natural protein structure so that it was no longer raw or untreated hide. It was a time-consuming process and many hundreds of people would have been employed in processing leather. Over time the demand for leather increased as harnesses and saddles for horses were required, and, as armies increased in size, so more leather was required for more equipment. This included skins for drums as more drummers had to be deployed with the larger armies if signalling was to be maintained.
Preparing leather was also an extremely pungent process, which at one time involved a vast quantity of human urine along with other noxious substances such as arsenic sulphide to remove the hair from the hides. It was a toxic mix and could produce madness, blindness or even both among those in the leather-working trade. Despite its obvious importance to the military societies, the production of leather was seen as a very demeaning task. Indeed, in some societies handling leather and human urine was completed by only the lowest of social castes. In 1047 a young 21-year-old Norman duke by the name of William besieged the castle at Alençon, lying on the Orne River in Lower Normandy, France. He was taunted in his efforts by the defenders who draped leather hides over the walls to remind the illegitimate duke that his mother had been a lowly tanner of leather. He was far from amused by the gesture and when he captured the site he ordered the mutilation of the thirty-two defenders by having their hands and feet chopped off and then thrown over the walls. The young duke is perhaps better known as William the Conqueror, who later defeated the English army of Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
The drum shell itself can be made from wood or metal and whilst pottery shells for drums do exist, the fragility of the material precludes it from being employed in military use where it would most likely break during the violent activity on a battlefield. Examples of drums made entirely of cast bronze have been discovered in China and these have been dated back to the Shang Dynasty of around 1,600 to 1,100BC. Archaeologists working at a location in East China have also recently excavated shards of porcelain at the site of a celadon pottery workshop dated to around 618 to 907AD during the Tang Dynasty in the region of Yugan County in the Jiangxi Province. These fragments have been pieced together and identified as the remains of porcelain waist drums, with a body length measuring some 16in and a diameter of 8in. The style is believed to have been popular and may have even influenced the design of drums in other regions. However, due to the fragile nature of their construction these drums must be ruled out as being intended for military use on the battlefield where the rigours would have led to them becoming damaged or broken. It must therefore be concluded that such drums were intended purely for either ceremonial or parade use, possibly to celebrate military victories. Pottery drum shells from an earlier period have also been discovered at an archaeological excavation at a site near Taosi, close to the Yellow River. These have been dated to around 2,000BC, possibly during the Zia Dynasty, and some show signs of having been decorated with red colouring which traditionally was used as a symbol of a ruler's power. Some Chinese drums were made in one piece using a hollowedout tree trunk and some of these may have measured as much as 3ft in height and may have been the types used by the military. The German writer J. Schreyer noted as early as 1681 how some tribes in Africa: '... take a [clay] pot and bind a skin over it, and on this pot the women beat with their hands and fingers for these are their drums (trummeln) and kettledrums (paucken)'. This is an example of how different cultures, despite being separated by thousands of miles, evolved along similar lines and here in this scene the observer is recording women beating drums as in the Egyptian society of some 3,000 years earlier and also using pottery shells in the same way which we now know were used to form drums in China. In the Middle East similar clay drum shells have been discovered and it is believed these may have been covered with a drum skin of either donkey or goat stretched over the end. Some examples of wooden drum shells have also been found and these would have been covered in animal skins for the drumheads.
One of the earliest types of drum is that form known as 'frame', which has a body or shell with a shallow depth and has a diameter greater than its depth. It is a very old form of design, the drum skin being attached firmly to the wooden shell, which prevents the tension from being adjusted to alter the pitch. The circular shape of the shell is formed by a single piece of wood bent round, with the two ends joined together using a scarf joint cut at a very sharp angle to allow the ends to be fixed together using glue or nails. Examples have been discovered in various cultures from Europe to Asia and accorded different terms such as daffu or kanjira in India, bodran in Ireland and daf in some Middle Eastern countries. In Brazil it is called the tamborim and in Europe, where metal discs are attached to the frame, it is known as the tambourine. This evolved differently from the drum used by the military, and frame drums were more likely to be used for parades or festivals as opposed to being used for signalling on the battlefield.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Marching to the Drums by John Norris. Copyright © 2012 John Norris. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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