| Frame drums are percussion instruments comprised of one or two membranes stretched over a light and shallow frame or hoop. Iconographical and literary sources reveal the widespread use of two different types of frame drums in the medieval Iberian Peninsula: a round version with parchment stretched only on one side of its shell and another of square shape with parchment covering both sides of its body. The names tympanum in Latin, pandero and adufe in Castilian, and bandair and duff in Iberian Arabic were most commonly used to refer to these instruments. From a variety of sources, such as sculptures, illuminations of Christian and Jewish books, Islamic decorative objects, music treatises, dictionaries, and historical chronicles, we learn that these instruments were not only played to provide rhythmic accompaniment to recreational, civic, and paraliturgical music, but were also perceived and used as symbols that stood for or suggested something else that was not intrinsically connected to them.;In this dissertation I examine these historical membranophones from four different perspectives: organological, socio-anthropological, symbolic and performative. I used an organological approach to study the construction of frame drums and trace back their historical materials in an attempt to reconstruct their timbre. The results of this analysis suggest that these instruments produced a clear and bright medium-high tone full of high overtones because of their specific sizes and materials. Round frame drums tended to produce a clear and sustained pitch and square frame drums a muffled and "woody" tone. The second perspective that I applied is socio-anthropological to place the frame drums in a social context. This analysis revealed that frame drums were not the sole patrimony of a single religion or social class, but were popularly played by Christian, Muslim, and Jewish performers of different social classes and professional status. Of them, women who performed to make a living were considered to be sexually available and therefore looked down upon. My third approach is symbolic, which I applied to decipher how the instruments were transformed into objects that emphasized cultural concerns. On the one hand, frame drums were used as symbols of paganism and female sexuality to generate anti-Semitic and misogynous feelings from the audience. On the other hand, they were perceived as attributes of Miriam and as symbols of Christ on the Cross and divine justice. My final approach is performative, which I employed to recreate the playing techniques and other aspects of their performance practice. While the round pandero was played with the thumb, the palm, and the fingers, the square adufe was set to vibrate only with the fingers. The historical sources also indicate that medieval Iberian frame drums were combined alone with each other and also with voices, wind and string instruments, and other percussion instruments. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
