Leonardo da Vinci designed a mechanical drum to provide a continuous rhythm. His concept used a rotating cylinder or wheel fitted with pegs that struck a drum as the mechanism turned.
The design appears among Leonardo’s studies of automated instruments and theatrical devices. A crank or other power source would rotate the mechanism, while the placement of the pegs determined the timing of the beats. This principle resembles later mechanical music systems in which pins or perforations control repeated sounds.
Leonardo’s machine was not an electronic drum machine and did not sample or synthesize sound. It was a mechanical automaton that converted rotation into percussion. Because Leonardo’s notebooks contain many related studies of movement and entertainment, historians distinguish this drum from his proposed automated instruments and from ordinary hand-played drums.