Bamileke drummers in Cameroon's West Province.

A slit drum or slit gong is a hollow percussion instrument. In spite of its often being called a drum, it is not a true drum (because it lacks a drum head) but an idiophone, usually carved or constructed from bamboo or wood, in the form of a mostly closed hollow chamber with one or more slits in it. It is played by striking near the edge of the slit. In some designs, the slit is a single straight line; in others, the slit is used to create one or more "tongues", achieved by cutting three sides of a rectangular (or similar) shape and leaving the fourth side attached. Most slit drums have one slit, though two and three slits (often resembling an "H" and thereby forming two tongues) occur. Tongues of different areas or thicknesses will produce different pitches. Slit drums are used throughout Africa, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. In Africa such drums, strategically situated for optimal acoustic transmission (e.g., along a river or valley), have been used for long-distance communication.[1]

The ends of a slit drum are closed so that the shell becomes the resonating chamber for the sound vibrations created when the tongues are struck, usually with a stick or mallet. The resonating chamber increases the volume of the sound produced by the tongue and presents the sound through an open port. If the resonating chamber is the correct size for the pitch being produced by the tongue, which means it has the correct volume of airspace to complete one full sound wave for that particular pitch, the instrument will be more efficient and louder.

The people of Vanuatu cut a large log with "totem" type carvings on the outer surface and hollow out the center leaving only a slit down the front. This hollowed out log gives the deep resonance of drums when hit on the outside with sticks.

Chromatically tuned slit drums, range C3–C4

List of slit drums

African

Austroasiatic

Austronesian

Mesoamerican

Modern

  • Gato – 20th-century American, originally a brand name, later generic[3]
  • Tongue drum

Sinitic

Wooden fish

The wooden fish works like a slit drum but is rarely classified with the other slit drums.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Hart, Mickey; p. 52
  2. ↑ "Lukombé (slit drum) | Tetela, Kasai or Kusu". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 18 February 2023.
  3. ↑ "Gato drum". Metropolitan Museum of Art. Archived from the original on 9 March 2016. Retrieved 29 June 2023.

References

  • Hart, Mickey, and Fredric Lieberman, with D. A. Sonneborn (1991). Planet Drum: A Celebration of Percussion and Rhythm. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 9780062504142, ISBN 9780062503978, ISBN 9780062504623. OCLC 23357061.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Slit drums.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.