Kettledrum

“ Then the dogs were dressed, the seats given a last wipe-down—and suddenly boom! boom! the big drum, furiously beaten, rolled out its deep-toned summons. Instantly a perfect hurricane of discordant, ear-splitting noises was let loose in front of the show-tent. Answering the deafening rumble of the big drum, the fifes and ophicleide awoke, the kettledrum began its rub-a-dub, the cymbals clashed, and the whole booth shivered and shook from floor to roof-tree. ”

“ In the bottom of the pan is a small vent-hole, which prevents the head being rent by the concussion of air. The vellum head may thus be slackened or tightened at will to produce any one of the notes within its compass of half an octave. Each kettledrum gives but one note at a time, and as it takes some little time to alter all the screws, two or three kettledrums, sometimes more, each tuned to a different note, are used in an orchestra or band. For centuries kettledrums have been made and used in Europe in pairs, one large and one small ”

“ He is altering the kettledrums so as to get notes that will soon be required; for ever since Beethoven raised the kettledrum to the rank of a solo instrument, composers have not hesitated to require many changes of tuning in the course of a composition, only they are careful to allow the player sufficient bars of rest, so that he may get ready for the new requirements. ”

“ Kettledrum, which she herself came over to make, that they should not think of returning until after breakfast on Thursday. In consequence of her husbandʼs hints, Rosa felt the keenest interest in “that Mrs. Kettledrum. Leave her to me, dear Rufus. You need not be afraid, indeed. Trust me to get to the bottom of it.” And so she exerted her probing skill upon her to the uttermost, more even than ladies usually do, [2] when they first meet one another. ”

“ So is the vigorous drumming. For marching purposes the addition of percussion instruments for the stronger accentuation of the rhythm is allowable, but out of that limit, if an addition is made, it should consist of kettledrums (timpani) , which heighten the effect and are in character with the instruments. Another regrettable point is the absence of trumpets (with shallow mouthpieces) and the gradual conversion of brass-bands into 'horn-bands.' [See Horn, vol. i. p. 748.] ”

“ The potentate is enjoying the music of various instruments, among which are two kettledrums strapped to the back of a Nubian slave. This was the earlier manner of using the instrument before it became inseparably associated with the trumpet, sharing its position as the service instrument of the cavalry. ”

“ In the case of the kettle-drum we have a skin stretched over a kettle or basin, which by being struck at a single point sets the entire surface vibrating with a muffled sound. Though a musical sound, it is one which from its very nature, as belonging to such an instrument, it is impossible to bring either to clear definition or any considerable degree of variety. We find a difficulty of an opposite type in the case of the harmonica and the bells of glass which are set in vibration in it. ”

“ Drums are, with the exception of kettle drums, indeterminate instruments, hardly, in themselves, to be regarded as musical, and yet important factors of musical and especially rhythmic effect. The kettle drum is a caldron, usually of brass or copper, covered with a vellum head bound at the edge round an iron ring, which fits the circle formed by the upper part of the metal body. ”

“ This drum had been heard from before. "It's put away," he mumbled; hastily adding, "That's a snare drum, anyway. What we need is a bass drum!"
The mere thought of a drum was annoying to his father, who declared in a menacing tone: "I hereby warn you that if I ever find a drum on the premises, snare, bass, kettle or any other kind, I'll kick a hole through it! Now don't forget that!"
"Kettle? Did you say kettle?" Sube asked eagerly. "What's a kettle drum?" [Pg 77]
"Never mind what it is," retorted his father. "The less you know about drums, the better off you'll be." ”

“ The instruments of percussion are the military drum, base-drum, kettle-drum, tabor, tamborine, and the triangle. The kettle-drum has received its name from its conformation. It has but one head, and is used in orchestres, and by the cavalry of modern armies, especially in Europe. The tabor has two heads, about three inches apart, and is beaten with one stick. The tamborine has one head, drawn over a hoop, to [17] which are attached small bells and bits of tin, to make a jingling sound. ”

“ Then at a wave of his fan, the kettle ran around on four legs, half badger and half iron, clanking its lid and wagging its tail. Next it turned into a badger, swelled out its body and beat a tune on it like a drum. It danced a jig on the tight rope, and walked the slack rope, holding a fan, or an umbrella in his paw, stood on his head, and finally at a flourish of his master's fan became a cold and rusty tea-kettle again. The audience were wild with delight, and as the fame of the wonderful tea-kettle spread, many people came from great distances. ”

“ But on his return home, he was informed that noises had been heard, and then he heard the noises himself, which were a ‘thumping and drumming,’ accompanied by ‘a strange noise and hollow sound.’ The sign of it when it came was like a hurling in the air over [419] the house, and at its going off, the beating of a drum, like that of the ‘breaking up of a guard.’ After a month’s disturbance outside the house, it came into the room where the drum lay. For an hour together it would beat ‘Roundheads and Cockolds,’ the ‘tattoo,’ and several other points of war as well as any drummer. ”

“ Anyone who has seen the band of the Life Guards must have admired (as I do) the splendid personage who plays the kettle-drums. These are not of the ordinary drum-form, being hemispherical instead of cylindrical, and having but a single membrane. They have a right to be called musical instruments since their pitch is alterable: [96d] I have often admired p. 97the drummer in an orchestra tuning his instrument at a change of key. One sees him leaning over his children like an anxious mother until he gets his large babies into the proper temper. ”

“ The insurgents amounted to 20,000 men, but were quickly defeated by the Earl of Warwick, whose troops killed more than 200 of the insurgents.
Kettle-drum. A drum formed by stretching vellum over the circular edge of a hemispherical vessel of brass or copper. This instrument, which gives forth a sharp, ringing sound, is used in Europe by regiments of cavalry and horse-artillery in lieu of the ordinary cylindrical drum, which would, from its shape, be inconvenient on horseback. Kettle-drums are not used in the U. S. military service. ”

“ I will say nothing of Herr Yunker; he forgets music in his zeal for counterpoint; as if he should say, he could not see the wood for the tall trees, or the city for the houses! Have I not heard him assert, ay, with my own living ears, slanderously assert, that the kettle-drum was a superfluous instrument? Only think, Louis, the kettle-drum a superfluous instrument! Donner and —. Did not the great Haydn—bless him for it!—undertake a noble symphony expressly with reference to the kettle-drum? ”

“ Not a sprite of the air has caught the baton of its drum-major. Not a sting of zero, has stiffened that fantastic arm as he lifts and swings the symbol of his foolishness. He is as inimitable in the bleak and dusty street as when I saw him last, on the velvet sward of West Point, that delicious evening in October. Something utterly ridiculous to look at, is refreshing, and anything more faultlessly ridiculous than the drum-major of West Point I never saw. ”

“ Doom was the substance of that sound of the Drum beating the roll of the dead. Could there be abiding in the wood a consciousness which counted that roll? Constance fought the mad feeling that it brought. The sound must have some natural cause, she repeated to herself—waves washing in some strange conformation of the ice caves on the shore, wind reverberating within some great hollow tree trunk as within the pipe of an organ. But Henry was not denying the Drum! ”

“ Yet the kettle keeps on singing—that's what we ought to do! Next time we're in some trouble, almost up to the chin, we'll think of the cheerful kettle, and a little song begin. It helps, when feelings are boiling, to let off lots of steam. Whistle and sing with courage; things aren't as black as they seem. Kettle, you merry creature, scorched by the callous fire, teach us your power of moulding the will to the day's desire. ”

“ Every time the drum begins to rattle he flourishes his tail, and when each little ceremony is over he moves on to a fresh place with a jaunty air, as if he were aware that all this drumming and fuss were especially intended for his entertainment. ”

“ A drummer close to him is beating very skilfully, from time to time, on his long wooden kettle-drum, and answers quite doughtily the roll of one of our drummers. Another is blowing a wooden trumpet, in which the mouth-piece, or the hole at the upper end, is like that of a flute. ”

“ The drum is nearly always improvised from an iron camp kettle, partially filled with water and covered with a piece of cloth, well soaped and drawn as tight as possible. The drumstick does not terminate in a ball, as with us, but is curved into a circle, and the stroke is not perpendicular to the surface, but is often given from one side to the other. ”

“ If a log to his taste cannot be found, he sets up his altar on a rock, which becomes resonant beneath his fervent blows. Have you seen the Partridge drum? It is the next thing to catching a weasel asleep, though by much caution and tact it may be done. He does not hug the log, but stands very erect, expands his ruff, gives two introductory blows, pauses half a second, and then resumes, striking faster and faster till the sound becomes a continuous, unbroken whir, the whole lasting less than half a minute. ”

“ This terror is also the cause of their not being able to endure the beating of a drum, as they take it to be the rolling of thunder. It is therefore a good receipt for banishing them to beat a drum every day in the neighbourhood of their hills ”

“ There was, of course, the dust on the roads; the processions of thirsty crowds to and from the springs or wells; it all seems now like an immense picnic. Dear me, what bass drums there were in General Patterson's army; wasn't there one to each company? The old-fashioned bass drum, too, as big as a barn door, and noisy in proportion, and to which was usually assigned the biggest fellow in the company the duty of beating on both sides. ”

“ The form, the poetic mould, he chooses is that of a ballad of the ‘Thomas the Rhymer’ class, in which a mortal passes for a time into the abode and under the power of a being from the elfin world. Into this mould Keats casts—with suchlike imagery he invests—all the famine and fever of his private passion, fusing and alchemising by his art a remembered echo from William Browne, ‘Let no bird sing,’ and another from Wordsworth, ‘Her eyes are wild,’ into twelve stanzas of a new ballad music vitally his own and as weirdly ominous and haunting as the music of words can be. ”

“ As in the bass drum, these and the vellums are tightened or slackened by means of cords and leather braces, or by a system of rods and screws. Across the lower head are stretched two or more catgut strings called snares, which produce a rattling sound at each stroke on the upper head, owing to the sympathetic vibration of the lower head which jars against the snares. The upper head, set in vibration by direct percussion from the sticks, induces sympathetic vibrations in the air contained within the resonating receptacle, and these vibrations are communicated to the lower head. ”

“ The drum is undoubtedly as much the national instrument of Africa as the bagpipe is of Scotland. It is made out of almost anything—the bark of a tree stitched together into a cylinder and covered with goat-skin at each end, or a hollow stump, or even a large gourd will serve. But there is one kind of drum valued above all others—so precious that, when a village owns one, it is kept in a little house all to itself. ”

“ He squatted just underneath the slit, and began to quarry the earth at the foot of the wall with skill and determination.
But if Kettle was prompt, his captors were by no means dilatory. Between Kettle's prison and the mate's was another of those bottle-shaped oubliettes, and in that there was presently a bustle of movement. There came the noises of some one lighting a fire, and coughing as he fanned smouldering embers into a glow with his breath, and then more coughing and some curses as the fire-lighter took his departure. ”

“ Among all the woodpeckers the drum plays an important part in the matchmaking. The male takes up his stand on a dry, resonant limb, or on the ridgeboard of a building, and beats the loudest call he is capable of. A favorite drum of the high-holes about me is a hollow wooden tube, a section of a pump, which stands as a bird-box upon my summer-house. ”

“ Human nature is much the same everywhere.
IV. The King's Magic Drum.—The drum is the mystic cauldron of ancient Welsh romance, which "always provides plenty of good food and drink." But the drum has its drawback, the food "goes bad" if its owner steps over a stick in the road or a fallen tree, a tabu like the geisas of ancient Irish legends. The tortoise, in this tale, has the geisas power; he can make the king give him anything he chooses to ask. ”