Big drum
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The bass drum , and bass drum (English; [ beɪsˌdɹʌm ]) or Gran Cassa is (Italian) a large, mainly due to low audio frequencies sounding percussion instrument , which is found in many types of construction. It can be found attached to a stand as part of stationary drums and in classical orchestras . It is used as a portable instrument when marching.
Due to the massive body and the large coat the instrument is able to produce very low sounds. The drum skin diameter is 38 to 80 centimeters, the frame height 25 to 55 centimeters.
The German term is used more in classical music, folk and march music, the English term more in rock music, jazz and electronic music. When it comes to drums, the kick drum is often used here .
The cylinder drum , recognizable in images in the Balkans from the 14th century onwards, was rare in Europe until it became popular in the 18th century through the Turkish janissary music.
Use in various areas of music
In orchestral music , the bass drum stands on a stand and is usually played with large mallets whose head is wrapped in fur or felt , otherwise leather. It measures 50 to 80 cm in diameter and 40 cm in depth and is mostly covered with natural fur (often calf skin ). If required by the composition, the longer reverberation is prevented by dampening it by hand. Sometimes pair pools ( Tschinellen ) are attached to the top of the drum.
In Jazz - and Swing -music stationary bass drums are also used. In big bands often particularly large head diameter to application came.
In brass music - bands and marching bands , often there falsely as timpani called, the big drum with shoulder straps worn across his chest. To save weight, large drums for marching bands are usually made of thinner wood than orchestral drums.
In a common drum kit , the bass drum is the rhythmic but also the visual basic element of the structure. It has a diameter of 18 to 24 in the control inches , a depth of 14 to 18 inches and with an attached to a pedal mallets ( Fußmaschine played). At the top they usually provide a gripping rosette for mounting toms .
In metal and rock music, two bass drums are sometimes used so that the drummer can use both feet to play very fast rhythmic figures. A cheaper and more comfortable way of using the double bass technique is to play a single bass drum with a double pedal . In both cases, the simultaneous hi-hat game with the foot must be avoided.
Since the 1980s it has been common (especially in electronic dance music ) to replace the "natural" bass drum as well as other percussion sounds with synthetically-electronically generated sounds (see electronic drums ).
Acoustic properties
A bass drum has a frequency response with a low fundamental frequency (around 50 Hz) and with an overtone spectrum that hardly exceeds 5 kHz at maximum sound pressure. Their sound is used as the basis of the rhythm in many styles of music . Their role is particularly important in modern dance music and techno , where their sound is mostly generated electronically with samplers or drum computers .
construction
boiler
The boilers are manufactured in various designs, thin boilers with reinforcing rings (common until the 1970s) or from 6 to 10 times cross-glued wood . Maple or birch wood is often used, but other types of wood are also used to produce bass drums. In the 1960s, for example, beech shells were very common and sometimes even tropical wood was used for top-class drums (example: Sonor Signature ).
Tension screws and tension rings
The hoops on higher quality bass drums are usually made of wood and are attached with ten to twelve tuning screws. In the category up to the middle class drums, only eight tensioning screws are attached. Older bass drums, up to around the 1970s, in size 20 ″ only have six tensioning screws. Even the cheapest offers from the Far East are often only equipped with fewer tensioning screws, which is problematic when it comes to larger drums (for example 22 "), because the skin areas cannot then be adequately tuned.
Skins
Nowadays, the skins are almost exclusively made of one or two-layer plastic film. The resonance head (which is seldom present in the large drums in dance music groups) often has a hole, which allows microphones to be inserted inside the kettle. In doing so, however, one accepts a not insignificant loss of sound pressure and thus also resonance, which means that the drum sounds far less concise and “crisp”. It was particularly common in the 1970s to play without resonance heads.
insulation
Cushions or special damping rings can dampen any reverberation that is sometimes perceived as annoying . With this insulation you can achieve a duller, bassier, drier sound. Up until the 1970s, many manufacturers equipped their drums with large built-in dampers (see Premier ) or with felt-cloth strip dampers , such as Ludwig or Sonor , which were clamped between the head and the shell.
Fasteners
The drum stands on feet whose metal tips or rubber feet prevent it from slipping today, but this was a problem until the 1970s.
The bracket that is required for mounting cymbals and toms on the bass drum is called the bass drum rosette . The bass drum rosette is usually offered with one or two mounting holes and is usually included in the scope of delivery of the bass drum. The tom mounting joints or those for cymbal attachments are sunk into these mounting holes. Sometimes, however, the attachment of a rosette is deliberately omitted; this is called an undrilled cup so that the instrument can swing more freely, unhindered by the weight of the toms and / or cymbals. In this case, toms and cymbals are only hung on stands or a drum rack .
Up to the 1970s, there were mostly on bass drums next to the tom holder, which was sometimes also slightly attached to the side, and additional recordings for a separate cymbal holder. The clamps into which the clamping screws are countersunk are called clamping lugs.
See also
- Taiko , Japanese big drums
- Dunun , African bass drums
- Small drum
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wieland Ziegenrücker: General music theory with questions and tasks for self-control. German Publishing House for Music, Leipzig 1977; Paperback edition: Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, and Musikverlag B. Schott's Sons, Mainz 1979, ISBN 3-442-33003-3 , p. 179.
- ↑ Wieland Ziegenrücker: General music theory with questions and tasks for self-control. 1979, p. 179.