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Most musical instruments today, and indeed, throughout history, have been a kind of luxury. Used for entertainment or perhaps in certain religious ceremonies, they have nevertheless been something that humans could, if necessary, do without. Of course, there are those who claim they would die without music, and I would be among the first to expound upon the importance of music to the human spirit and psyche. Still, music is, in its simplest definition, an extravagance, something created for pure enjoyment. Yet there is at least one musical instrument that has historically been used for another purpose. The drum, with its resounding notes and relative ease of use, has been used as a means of long-distance communication for thousands of years. There is evidence that many different ancient cultures used drums to communicate over long distances. These cultures often existed in forested or isola guitar lessons ted areas, which made the use of aural communication a logical solution. The people of ancient Sri Lanka, for example, were using drums to communicate between the state and the community 2500 years ago. Various Native American tribes used both pressure and slit drums to send messages between individual camps. Even Europe had its own drum for communication, the “Txalaparta,” which was used in a part of Spain called the Basque Country. But the most famous of all drums used for communication are the talking drums of West Africa. The West African talking drum has its roots in the ancient Ghana Empire, which existed from approximately 750-1076 CE and was located in modern southeastern Mauritania, western Mali and eastern Senegal. This instrument is a pressure drum with an hourglass shape and drum heads on both ends. The body is wood and the heads are made from hide, fish skin or other membranes.