  In a family of drums used in the Indian subcontinent, the circular drum head
is made of material of non-uniform density. Remarkably, and in contrast to a
circular membrane of uniform density, the low eigenmodes of the non-uniform
membrane are harmonic. In this work we model the drum head by a non-uniform
membrane whose density varies smoothly between two prescribed values. Using a
Fourier-Chebyshev spectral collocation method we obtain the eigenmodes and
eigenvalues of the drum head. For a suitable choice of parameters, which we
find by optimising a cost function, the eigenspectra obtained from our model
are in excellent agreement with experimental values. Our model and the
numerical method should find application in numerical sound synthesis.
