Damaru

The Damaru and the huruk (Tamil Nadu) or dugdugi (Bengal) are small drums Indian S with two skins in the shape of sand glass.

Stringed-instrument trade

Of modest size (15 cm height and 8 cm in diameter) usually, there are the large ones (60 cm height and 40 cm in diameter) held with two hands, used in the temples. The skins are tended by an active system of cords of the one to the other. Fixed at the end of a string placed at the center of the instrument, a large seed strikes alternatively each goatskin when it from right to left is shaken.

The huruk and the dugdugi do not have a seed in the medium. It have one a body out of enamelled wooden, the other out of terra cotta. They function like the drum African speaker tama or the ôtsuzumi Japanese, by pressing the cords at the finest place (junction of the cones) to make modulate the notes of the skin struck with the hand.

Play

The damaru is one of the privileged attributes of the god Hindou Shiva, in particular in its shape of dancer. It then symbolizes the sound pulsation source of any creation, but also the rate/rhythm which the dance of Shiva at the time of the destruction of the world follows. He also plays a ritual part and symbolic system in the Bouddhisme Tibetan. So he is a companion of the pilgrims and musicians itinerant. Huruk and dugdugi are also reserved for the folklores.

Random links: