While visiting my brother in Windsor, Ontario–besides enjoying Iraqi cuisine–I bought myself a derbake (دربكة). Derbake is the name we give to the Arabic drum, a percussion musical instrument (الة) widely used in the Middle East that produces a distinctive and crisp thumping sound. The derbake is known by other names such as the goblet drum, darbuka, or dumbek. If you have listened to Arabic music (الموسيقى) in the past it is likely that you have heard the derbake. It is one of the most popular musical instruments (الة موسيقية) in the Arab world. The sounds (الأصوات) of the derbake are at the heart of nearly every rhythm (إيقاع), and it is often used as a solo instrument in belly dancing (الرقص الشرقي) performances.

Back in the old days derbakes were made from clay, and their sruface, the drumming top, was made from leather. It was difficult to maintain an old derbake as the leather of the drumming top would stretch and eventually wrinkle after repeated use. As a young boy, I remember my neighbour had an old derbake with a leather surface and, akin to tuning a guitar, he would either rub the drumming surface very quickly (to generate heat and stretch the leather), or use a lighter to heat it, or a combination of both. This resulted in the leather stretching evenly across the mouth of the drum, and therefore the sound of the derbake was tuned correctly.

Pictured above is my new derbake, and as you can tell, along with nearly all new derbakes, it does not come with a leather surface. Instead it has a fiberglass drumming top. This greatly reduced the maintenance and turning one had to endure to produce accurate sounds. You still have to tune new derbakes but, instead of using heat, new derbakes are tuned by tightening the screws that fix the fiberglass drumming top over the body of the derbake. Also, the use of aluminum to cast derbakes has become more common, although the body of my own is still made from clay.

Here’s a video of a derbake solo played by two drummers (scroll below for a full song, if you prefer):

Here’s a clip from a traditional Lebanese song where the derbake is used:

Here’s a link for the full song: http://www.youtube.com/user/mattiboi89#p/u/4/F1I8atnHIKA