Bass drum

The bass drum (grosse caisse in French, gran cassa in Italian) is the largest of the indefinite-pitch drums in the orchestra. It produces a low, powerful and sombre sound, with a resonance that lasts according to the way it is held and damped. It is written in the lowest part of the stave and, in modern notation, is usually read in the bass clef.

Its construction is simple in principle. It consists of a wooden shell with two heads, traditionally of calfskin, although today plastic is also used. Each head is held on a hoop and fixed with a counterhoop. Tension is achieved by threaded rods that run across the body from side to side. There are two systems: single tension, in which each rod joins one hoop with the opposite one and both heads are tightened at the same time, and separate tension, in which each head is tensioned independently. Formerly a single-headed bass drum, known as the gong drum, was also used; it was very popular for more than a century, especially in England. Its narrow body, open on one side, gave it great resonance, although it tended to sound at a definite pitch, as is common in single-skinned drums. Today it is rarely encountered.

In the orchestra the bass drum is usually supported on a stand or hung from a frame with a swivelling joint, so that the player can strike it from whichever angle they prefer. The sticks are large and have felt heads, with enough weight to draw out the full tone. The stroke is normally given midway between the centre and the rim of the head. In a marching band, by contrast, it is struck at the centre to produce an audible crack that sets the pace for those marching behind. The right hand holds the stick, while the left, on a single-headed drum, controls the length of the note. On a two-headed drum, the fingers of the right hand damp the vibrations and the left hand regulates the reverberation of the opposite head. For short notes in succession, the drum is struck at the centre, which reduces its sonority. The tremolo is obtained with simple alternating strokes between both hands, like the roll of the timpani. For a sustained note a double-headed stick, formerly called a tampon, was used; it brings both ends into contact with the head through a rapid rocking movement of the wrist. Composers such as Dukas in *L'apprenti sorcier* and Stravinsky in *The Firebird* specifically called for it.

The origins of the instrument lie in Asia. Its ancestors, the davul, large cylindrical double-headed drums held by cords, were known in South Asia from the second or first century BCE. The davul, or tabl turki, the direct forerunner of the bass drum, is documented in the eastern Mediterranean in the fourteenth century. In Europe, Isidore of Seville, around 600, described a hollow wooden instrument covered with skin at both ends and struck with sticks from both sides, which suggests a form of bass drum. A painting by Carpaccio from the early sixteenth century shows a Turkish musician with a drum of almost identical shape and size to the modern military bass drum, and the instrument was known as the Turkish drum until the early nineteenth century. For a long time it was a rarity in Europe. Its spread came with the eighteenth-century fashion for imitating Turkish Janissary bands, both in European military bands and, occasionally, in orchestral music.

In scores, the first experiments appear in Freschi's opera *Berenice vendicativa* (1680) and in Gottfried Finger's *Concerto alla turchesta*, from the early eighteenth century. Among Classical composers, Gluck seems to have been the first to use it, in *Le cadi dupé* (1761). He was followed by Mozart in *Die Entführung aus dem Serail* (1782), Haydn in his Symphony 'Military' (1793–1794) and Beethoven in his Ninth Symphony (1822–1824). The drum used in the orchestra until well into the nineteenth century may have been the narrow Turkish type with one or two heads, or a double-headed bass drum with a cylindrical wooden shell, longer than it was wide, about 50 centimetres in diameter. In England it was called the long drum. It was tensioned with V-shaped cords, following the tradition of many medieval drums, and tuned with leather straps called buffs or tug-ears. For a long time it was illustrated as being struck in the Eastern manner, with a stick on one side and a switch of twigs or a split bar on the other. For this reason, scores of the period indicate with stems pointing up and down which side should be played.

The long drum was replaced by the military bass drum, with a narrower shell, which before 1850 already used tension by screws. Kastner, in his *Manuel général de musique militaire* (1848), illustrates a grosse caisse of new design with fifteen tension rods. In 1857 the British firm Distin built what was called the 'largest drum in the world', with a single head and a diameter of about 240 centimetres. Even larger instruments followed, such as the Disneyland Big Bass Drum, built in the United States in 1961, about 370 centimetres in diameter. Such examples rarely appear on a concert stage. However, in Verdi's *Requiem* it is customary to use the largest bass drum available, and for this reason a large orchestral bass drum is often called a 'gran cassa verdiana'.

The bass drum appears frequently in orchestral scores from Gluck onwards, at first mainly as a marker of the beat. Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner, Verdi and Sibelius used it extensively. Berlioz, in his *Grand traité d'instrumentation* (1843), speaks of the sombre and threatening sound of the bass drum when the instrument is well built and large. In the 'Tuba mirum' of his *Grande messe des morts* (1837) he asked that the bass drums be struck alternately with padded sticks on each side, 'avec deux tampons'. Liszt is considered the introducer of the roll on the bass drum in *Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne* (1848–1849). Wagner and Sibelius also used the roll. In *En saga* (1892), Sibelius has the timpani fall silent and the bass drum, played with timpani sticks, take on the role that the timpani would otherwise have. Stravinsky left one of his most notable passages for the instrument at the end of *The Rite of Spring*, and in the revision of that work he wrote a passage in which the bass drum is played on the rim with a wooden stick. Britten specified the use of the side-drum stick in *Peter Grimes* (1944–1945), and Puccini wrote 'colla bacchetta di ferro', with an iron rod, in *Madama Butterfly* (1904). In the 'Dies irae' of Verdi's *Requiem*, the gran cassa must be 'well tensioned so that the off-beat comes out dry and very strong'. Vaughan Williams, in his *Sinfonia antartica* (1949–1952) and in his arrangement of the 'Old Hundredth', offers writing considered exemplary. Composers have also used it for descriptive purposes, as Beethoven did in *Wellington's Victory*, Tchaikovsky in the *1812 Overture* and Prokofiev in *Lieutenant Kijé*.

In current practice, the bass drum remains the lowest-pitched instrument of the percussion section and of marching bands, where plastic heads have become widespread for their resistance to the weather. In British and North American symphony orchestras a head 90 to 100 centimetres in diameter is usual, although smaller sizes are sometimes used. In Europe, for historical reasons, bass drums of smaller diameter, around 81 centimetres, but considerably deeper, about 66 centimetres, have been popular. It has been observed that this type tends to sound like a very low tom-tom, a quality that is not always desirable. Thus the bass drum remains an instrument that combines the simplest rhythmic function with enormous expressive power when the composer exploits its full range.