A drum is a musical instrument of the percussion family; it usually consists of a hollow wooden cylinder with at least one end covered by a stretched membrane.  It’s a period charge, found in the canting arms (French tambour) of Jehan Tabourot, d.1595.  (Tabourot is better known under his pseudonym of Thoinot Arbeau; he blazons his arms in the dedication of his Orchésographie.  See also Woodward 383.)  The illustration is taken from the example in Guillim, 1610 [224].  The default drum, used in war and processionals, was a “side drum”, or in modern terms, a tenor drum; it’s palewise by default, with the drumhead to chief.

Society armory gives examples of the “dumbeg” (“dumbek”, “doumbec”), a goblet-shaped drum found in Muslim lands, often used as accompaniment for dancers.  The dumbeg itself does not appear to be a period instrument, but it belongs to a class of Muslim goblet drums collectively known as darabukka, which are period:  an example is found in the Cantigas de Santa Maria of Alfonso the Wise, late-13^th Century (from which the illustration is taken).  Society blazons continue to use the term “dumbeg” for continuity’s sake.

Also found in Society armory is the “kettle drum” or “naker drum”, with a closed hemispherical body, as found in the Luttrell Psalter, c.1340.  We have the “tabor”, like the side drum but not as tall, worn on the hip and played together with a flute; examples of pipe-and-tabor players date back to c.1270 [Montagu 47].  The “tambour” is a wide shallow drum; when cymbals are mounted around the frame, it becomes a “tambourine” or “timbrel”, as seen on a relief by Agostino di Duccio, c.1454 [Remnant 165].

Drums, when blazoned “wooden [type of drum] proper”, have brown cylinders or frames, and argent drumheads, by Society convention; sometimes the drumhead is explicitly tinctured.

Geoffrey de Barde bears:  Sable, a drum argent.

Naila Kalilah bears:  Purpure, a serpent glissant bendwise Or between a dumbeg and a pair of zils argent.

Anna Kalita bears:  Purpure, two kettle drums in fess Or, in chief two drumsticks in saltire argent.

Sean Tabor bears:  Gules, a sword inverted argent piercing a tabor Or, a bordure per pale argent and Or.

Roger the Goliard bears as a badge:  Azure, on a demi-sun issuant from base Or in fess a mandolin bendwise sinister, a recorder bendwise, and a wood-framed tambourine all proper, in chief three doves volant argent.