Drums of War

Flute of War sold separately.
The Spirit of '76 (1876), Archibald Willard

"They had three cadences, these spectral drummers, which they called First Kings, Second Kings, and Revelations. Going into a fight, they went from one cadence to another with no apparent signal until the officers began to shout commands and men began to fall. Then the drummers began a solemn drill beat that Bushrod believed would be the muttering undertone of every nightmare he would ever have."

— Howard Bahr, The Black Flower: A Novel of the Civil War

Drums are often used to indicate that war is on the move. Armies march to the beat of a drum; scouts communicate with their commanders by means of coded drum-beats; the enemy may use their drums as an intimidation factor on the town they're besieging.

Truth in Television, as infantry marching in formation often use the beat of a drum to keep time and ensure their steps are even. Many cultures, both ancient and modern, have martial traditions based around drums, and often had specialized drums created for the express purpose of battle.

See also Jungle Drums, when drums are used to indicate a jungle setting, Thunder Drum, where drums are paired with thunder and lightning, and Dramatic Timpani, where large drums are used to underscore the tension in a scene.

The association of drums with violence may be a contributor to the All Drummers Are Animals stereotype. If the drums are being used to harass or annoy someone, it's Loud of War. If the sound of the drums itself causes harm, that's a Brown Note. If someone is getting hit with a drum, it's either Improbable Weapon User or Improvised Weapon. If someone uses their weapon to hit their shield like a drum, it's Shield Banging.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Kyogai can attack others with invisible clawing attacks within his domain by pounding on the drums embedded in his chest and shoulders. By pounding the drum on his back, he can forcibly transport someone to another room in his building.
• Parodied in One Piece. During Hannyabal's fight with Luffy, the former's subordinates pull out drums and start banging them as the Theme Music Power-Up to "support" Hannyabal as he's getting serious.
• Sailor Moon R: Furaiki carries a large drum and uses it to create her storm along with electrical attacks.

Art

• The Spirit of '76◊, the Archibald Willard painting celebrating the centenary of the The American Revolution. It includes two drummers, a piper and an American flag in the background.

Film — Animation

• In Pocahontas, the song "Savages" has both the Powhatans and the English colonists beating their respective drums as they go to war. The song's lyrics include the line "now we sound the drums of war".

Film — Live Action

• In The Great Escape, Captain Virgil Hilts organizes a makeshift July 4th celebration, including a parade in the POW camp with himself as a piper and another prisoner as drummer, recreating the popular image of The Spirit of '76 (and playing "Yankee Doodle" at that).
• In The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, as Sauron's army prepares to use the battering ram Grond to break the gates of Minas Tirith, a strong drum-beat underlies their war chant.
• In Mad Max: Fury Road, Immortan Joe transmits his orders via The Power of Rock and a massive truck with enormous speakers, a guitarist and four drummers in the back.
• Master and Commander: When the command "beat to quarters" is given, the beating of drums rouses the crew from their hammocks and sends them rushing to their action stations. On the soundtrack, the track called "The Battle" is very heavy on drums.
• In The Great Wall, the Nameless Order uses an entire drum squad to transmit orders. They stand on top of the tower not caring about things like firing catapults and rushing monsters, start a few pieces of soundtrack and use nunchaku for drumsticks.

Literature

• In The Lord of the Rings, after Pippin knocks a stone down the well in the Mines of Moria, the Fellowship hears drum-beats echoing up out of the well. It's not explicitly stated, but this is the sound of the orcs that now infest the mines gathering to attack the Fellowship. Along similar lines, the final entry in the Book of Mazarbul mentions hearing "drums in the deep"; the orcs coming to finish off the last holdouts of Balin's colony.
• Safehold: The Siddarmark army is specifically noted as using drum beats, instead of bugle calls, to pass commands in battle.
• In Thud!, as the anniversary of the Battle of Koom Valley approaches and tensions grow between the dwarves and the trolls, mention is made of the gahanka, the troll war beat, created by "five hundred clubs hitting the stone in unison".

Live-Action TV

• The famous taikos courtesy of Bear McCreary from just about every space battle sequence in Battlestar Galactica (2003).
• One episode of Gilligan's Island involved the castaways starting up a band to keep themselves entertained. Gilligan took the drum-like bongos and his song was mistaken by natives on a distant island as a declaration of hostile intent, prompting them to attack first. One adventure later, after everything had been cleared up, Gilligan proceeded to give the leaving natives a different bongo beat, which the natives of another island mistook for this trope.
• Doctor Who: The Harold Saxon Master speaks of being tormented by the constant sound of drumming in his head from when he first looked into the Untempered Schizm as a child, a "warrior's march" calling to him.
• Odd Squad: Parodied with Orzack, who rhythmically bangs a large drum twice, then says "Squeeze!" to the other agents to make them squeeze fruit, and repeats it over and over.

Music

• Gustav Holst's Planets has "Mars", the planet named for the Roman god of war, which famously features a pounding drumbeat.
• Sabaton:
  • Inverted by the song "Fields of Verdun" which compares the opening artillery barrage of the battle to a drum roll.
  • "Rorke's Drift", about the famous Last Stand during the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War, also features a lyric comparing the sounds of combat to drums. It's also an indirect reference to Zulu war drumming.
  As the rifles fire, echoes higher, (beating) like the sound of drums
  • As the music itself, drums of war are presented in "Swedish Pagans" during the chanting parts.
• Irish folk-rock group the Horslips did a series of concept albums putting the earliest Irish myths to music. the Tain chronicles the legends of the earliest wars on the island, largely due to the various kingdoms raiding each other for cattle and loot. In the song Charolais, the men of Connaught are gathering to march to war:
  The druids read the smoke and sand;
  Told her that she would love again;
  The rhythms from the wolfskin drums
  Called men to war in hide and bronze...
• Subway to Sally: In "Die Trommel", the Magic Music of the drum leads people into the battlefield against their will.
• Alice in Chains uses marching snare drums in “Rooster” at the start of the third verse, which is a song about band member Jerry Cantrell’s father in the Vietnam War. It is more prominent in the demo version of the song.

Video Games

• ANNO: Mutationem: After arriving in front of the Barbarian Tribe beneath Freeway 42, Ann is suddenly dropped down a Trap Door where the members bang on drums as they unleash bloodluster creatures to attack her.
• In Cossacks: European Wars and its expansions, drummers are needed in combination with officers and a precise number of soldiers to create battle formations, in both 17th and 18th century variants. There's an exception: the English nation's 18th century unit that's needed for battle formations is a bagpipe player.
• In both Crypt of the NecroDancer and Cadence of Hyrule, the player may obtain the War Drum item. Striking it allows the player to jump in place without missing the beat and increases the damage of their next attack.
• Warcraft Expanded Universe:
  • Warcraft III has an Orc unit called the Kodo beast, which is ridden by an orc drummer. It increases the damage done by all nearby allied units by 10%.
  • World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade and some later expansions had the leatherworking items called "War Drums" to grant the party a bonus, usually a haste (attack speed) increase.
• Touhou has Raiko Horikawa, who is a drum tsukumogami with a thunder-god motif, meaning her attacks and theme heavily feature drums.
• Icewind Dale 2 has drums that appear in the orc war-camp. If you approach them, they begin beating, summoning orcs to attack you until they're destroyed.
• In Darksiders, there is "Chaos Eater" track which is played in this fashion.
• In The New Order Last Days Of Europe, the superevent announcing that Hyperborea has reunited Russia features the beating of drums, indicating the war that Velimir will be bringing to the rest of the world after reuniting Russia.

Western Animation

• Blue Eye Samurai. In "An Unexpected Element", Mizu is meditating under a tree when she hears the drums start in a nearby village which is having a festival. At that moment the Four Fangs attack her, and the drumming continues throughout the subsequent battle on the cliff.
• The Simpsons: In "Eeny Teeny Maya Moe", the other babies at the playground threaten Maggie by drumming on upside-down pails. When she's clearly edgy upon arriving home, Bart makes it worse when he tries to soothe her by playing his bongo drums.

Real Life

• The Lambeg drum of Northern Ireland is possibly the biggest bass drum that can be carried by one person; it is a survival of the battle-drums of Ireland that goes back into the mists of antiquity, and these days is a centrepiece of the marching Orange bands that parade in July and August. These parades are a throwback to Protestant/Catholic conflict during The Troubles, during which lambegs were used by Protestants as a symbol of protest. Listen to massed lambegs here.
• There were also a lot of various drums in Chinese and Japanese armies while in Europe their role was partially fulfilled by brass instruments.

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