How were drums used in ancient China and Japan for court and ritual music?

In ancient China and Japan, drums served primarily as ritual and ceremonial instruments rather than purely musical ones, often being associated with thunder, sacrifice, and divine power.1

Ritual and Symbolic Use

In China, drums were frequently linked to the imitation or creation of thunder. The Daoist deity Lei Gong is traditionally depicted surrounded by drums used to generate thunderous sounds. Ritual significance was profound; during the 7th and 6th centuries BCE, Chinese drums were consecrated by smearing them with the blood of war captives. Rattle drums, which can be traced back to the Shang dynasty, also maintained a ritual status, sometimes serving as attributes of deities.1

Court and Orchestral Use

Drums were essential components of early court orchestras in China and Korea, a tradition that survives in the Japanese court music known as gagaku. In these ensembles:12
* Timekeeping: A leader typically beats time on a cylindrical or hourglass-shaped drum.1
* Construction: Japanese court music utilizes large barrel-shaped drums with nailed heads, which are suspended from elaborate frames, such as the gaku-daiko or tsuri-daiko.13
* Evolution: The tsuzumi (hourglass-shaped drum) was also prominent in ancient Japanese court music, with the san no tsuzumi still used in komagaku (courtly music of non-Chinese/non-Indian ancestry).4