The Kudüm: Kettledrums of Ottoman Classical Music

The kudüm is a pair of small copper kettledrums that serves as the primary percussion instrument of Turkish classical music. Played with two lightweight wooden sticks, the kudüm articulates the usul — the rhythmic cycle that governs composed forms — with a soft, clear attack that blends with the melodic instruments rather than dominating them.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Construction

Established The kudüm consists of two hemispherical copper bowls, each approximately 28–30 cm in diameter, with goatskin or camel-skin heads stretched across the top. The two drums differ slightly in size: the larger one produces a lower-pitched dum stroke, and the smaller one produces a higher-pitched tek stroke.

Attested The drums sit on rings or cushions on the floor in front of the player, who sits cross-legged and strikes the drumheads with two wooden sticks (zahme). The sticks are lightweight, typically covered with leather or felt at the striking end, producing a controlled, moderate volume.

Practice The kudüm's volume is deliberately restrained. Unlike Western timpani or Middle Eastern davul, the kudüm does not project loudly. This is by design: in the intimate setting of Ottoman court performance and Mevlevi ceremony, the percussion must articulate rhythm without overwhelming the melodic instruments.

The dum-tek vocabulary

Established Like all Middle Eastern percussion, the kudüm produces two fundamental stroke types:

• Düm (dum): a lower-pitched stroke on the larger drum, corresponding to the strong beat of the rhythmic cycle
• Tek (tek/teke): a higher-pitched stroke on the smaller drum, corresponding to lighter beats and subdivisions

Established These two strokes, combined with silences, form the building blocks of every usul pattern. The notation system for usul — which appears in Özkan's treatise and other pedagogical sources — uses düm and tek symbols to represent each cycle.

The kudüm in the ensemble

Attested Feldman documents the kudüm as a standard member of the Ottoman fasıl ensemble. Its role is to maintain the usul throughout composed pieces — peşrev, saz semaisi, beste, and semai — providing a rhythmic framework that the melodic instruments follow.

Attested In the Mevlevi sema ceremony, the kudüm plays a particularly important role: it is one of the instruments that accompany the whirling, and the kudümzen (kudüm player) must maintain steady, precise rhythmic patterns through the ceremony's extended duration.

Practice The kudüm player in a classical ensemble functions as a timekeeper, but not a rigid one. In practice, the kudüm follows the melodic instruments' subtle tempo fluctuations — the slight accelerations and decelerations that give Turkish classical performance its breathing quality. The relationship is collaborative, not dictatorial.

Historical context

Attested The kudüm belongs to the nakkare family of paired kettledrums found across the Islamic world. Related instruments include the Arabic naqqara, the Persian naqqareh, and the Central Asian nagora. The Ottoman kudüm is the refined, chamber-music-scaled version of an instrument family that also includes large military drums.

Attested The instrument's association with both court and Sufi music reflects the Ottoman tradition's integration of secular and devotional performance. Many kudüm players served in both contexts, and the instrument's technique and repertoire crossed the boundary between saray (palace) and tekke (lodge).

Where to go from here

The rhythmic patterns it plays: Usul and Iqa. Frame drums of the region: Frame Drums. The forms it accompanies: Classical Forms. Its role in the sema: Mevlevi and Bektashi Traditions. The court it served: Ottoman Court Music.