A brief history of percussion
The rhythmic heartbeat of human civilisation has been intrinsically bound to the art of percussion for many millennia. From prehistoric times to the modern day, the evolution of drumming and beat-making has mirrored the development of society itself. Today, we embark on a journey through history to uncover the story of percussion, tracing the rhythmic thread that connects us to our ancient ancestors while leading us to the digital beats of modern drum machines.
Long before written language and more complex instruments, our prehistoric ancestors communicated through primitive beats. The earliest forms of “drumming” emerged from naturally occurring objects – hands clapping, rocks clashing, sticks tapping and feet stamping. These rhythms served as a means of communication and social unity within tribes, a conduit for emotional expression. From these simple beats, music would evolve.
As complex civilisations began to form, more elaborate percussion methods arose. In ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, drumming became integral to religious ceremonies, military marches, and social gatherings. The Mesopotamians used clay drums, while the Greeks crafted tympanums, a rudimentary frame drum or tambourine. These instruments not only added rhythm to proceedings but bound cultural identity to rituals and ceremonies.
As time wore on, membranophone percussion instruments evolved in different parts of the world, reflecting regional traditions and cultural preferences. In Africa, for example, the djembe emerged between 400 and 800 years ago as a storytelling accompaniment and a symbol of communal spirit during social gatherings and rituals. In Asia, the tabla drum brought vibrant rhythms to religious ceremonies and recreational performances. Evidence of such drums has been discovered in 6th-century temple carvings in India, but the tabula in its modern form only dates back to the mid-18th century.
Between the 18th and 20th centuries, the Industrial Age introduced new materials and technologies that vigorously transformed percussion in a comparatively short space of time. Metal drums, invented in the Caribbean, became the driving force behind genres like calypso and reggae. Meanwhile, the snare drum, originally created as an essential military instrument in Imperial Europe, was popularised in marching bands and orchestras. As transport and communication advancements beckoned globalisation, musical traditions began to cross borders, allowing rampant percussive propagation.
The first drum kits, as one would recognise in the modern day, arrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Central innovators like William F. Ludwig and Ulysses S. Grant Jr contributed to the development of pedal-operated bass drums, hi-hats, and snare drums, allowing a single drummer to create a broad spectrum of tesselating beat features. This innovation coincided with the rise of jazz, rock, and other popular music genres of the 20th century. Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich were among the early talents to demonstrate the dynamic potential of the drum kit.
Moving swiftly along, the digital age, born in the late 1970s and early ’80s, introduced yet another seismic shift to percussion with the advent of electronic drum machines. The Rhythmicon, an electromechanical instrument invented by Léon Theremin for composer and musical theorist Henry Cowell in the 1930s, paved the way for more versatile devices like the Roland TR-808 and TR-909 that emerged in the 1980s.
“The rhythmicon can play triplets against quintuplets, or any other combination up to 16 notes in a group,” musicologist Nicolas Slonimsky noted of the Rhythmicon’s capabilities in 1933 via Composing a World: Lou Harrison, Musical Wayfarer. “The metrical index is associated … with the corresponding frequence of vibrations…. Quintuplets are … sounded on the fifth harmonic, nonuplets on the ninth harmonic, and so forth. A complete chord of sixteen notes presents sixteen rhythmical figures in sixteen harmonics within the range of four octaves. All sixteen notes coincide, with the beginning of each period, thus producing a synthetic harmonic series of tones.”
As drum machine technology evolved, musicians were granted unprecedented rhythm control, enabling the dawn of entirely new genres, including hip-hop, post-rock and electronic dance music. Drum machines, commonly accompanied by synthesisers and samplers, began to blur the line between traditional instruments and technology, thus revolutionising music production for the future of pop music.
Listen to ‘Freeman Hardy & Willis Acid’ by AFX and Squarepusher below. The experimental electronic track, released on Warp Records in 1998, shows two masters at work, surfing on the crest of the percussive wave.
