and the smaller are tuned to one of the notes completing the chromatic and enharmonic scale from
. These limits comprise all the notes of artistic value that can be obtained from kettledrums. When there are but two drums—the term “drum” used by musicians always denotes the kettledrum—they are generally tuned to the tonic and dominant or to the tonic and subdominant, these notes entering into the composition of most of the harmonies of the key. Formerly the kettledrums used to be treated as transposing instruments, the notation, as for the horn, being in C, the key to which the kettledrums were to be tuned being indicated in the score. Now composers write the real notes.
The tone of a good kettledrum is sonorous, rich, and of great power. When noise rather than music is required uncovered sticks are used. The drums may be muffled or covered by placing a piece of cloth or silk over the vellum to damp the sound, a device which produces a lugubrious, mysterious effect and is indicated in the score by the words timpani coperti, timpani con sordini, timbales couvertes, gedämpfte Pauken. Besides the beautiful effects obtained by means of delicate gradations of tone, numerous rhythmical figures may be executed on one, two or more notes. German drummers who were renowned during the 17th and 18th centuries, borrowing the terms from the trumpets with which the kettledrums were long associated, recognized the following beats:—
Single tonguing
(Einfache Zungen)
Double tonguing
(Doppel oder gerissene Zungen)
Legato tonguing
(Tragende Zungen)