THE ROLE OF TURKISH PERCUSSION IN THE HISTORY AND ...

CHAPTER 2
PERCUSSION INSTRUMENTS OF TURKISH MUSIC
The percussion instruments used in Turkish music included the bass drum, cymbals,
triangle, Turkish crescent, kettledrums, and, on occasion, the tambourine. Each of these
instruments, except for the Turkish crescent, differed somewhat from the modern orchestral
version. This document will examine the entry of the bass drum, cymbals, triangle, Turkish
crescent, and tambourine into the orchestra. Kettledrums will not be discussed in this study.
The bass drum dates back to the Sumerians as documented in artwork from the latter
half of the third millennium, B.C. which depicted an enormous drum five or six feet in
diameter. An early sixteenth-century Venetian painting by Carpaccio shows a Turkish
musician playing a drum almost exactly the same shape and size as the modern military bass
drum. With the introduction of Turkish Janissary music into the courts of Europe, a large
drum requiring a new playing technique entered Western music. This Turkish drum, known
as the daval, became an important instrument in Janissary music by the middle of the
eighteenth century. 1
1 Gangware, The History and use of Percussion Instruments n Orchestration, 7; Geary H. Larrick, “Percussion:
Its Status from Antiquity to the Modern Era,” Percussive Notes (1968): 44; Peinkofer and Tannigel, Handbook
of Percussion Instruments, 94; The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2 nd ed., (2001), s.v. “Bass
Drum,“ and “Janissary Music.”
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