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=slit drum= i Help us expand this topic.Submit Contribution Slit drums are found in Asia, the Americas, Africa, and Oceania. They vary in size from huge tree trunks (20 feet [6 m] or more in length and 7 feet [2.1 m] or more in width) enclosed in huts and played by several men to small bamboo instruments used in Malaysia by watchmen. Large slit drums are sometimes less precisely called slit gongs. Slit drums are frequently ritual instruments that are regarded as possessing magical attributes and are often associated with water and with death and resurrection. Because of their great carrying power and resonance, they are often also used as signaling instruments, in some places transmitting messages by reproducing the inflections of human speech. Frequently, slit drums are carved as elaborately stylized animals. Among the Aztecs (as the //teponaztli//) and earlier Mesoamerican peoples, the slit drum was hollowed through an H-shaped slit, the two tongues of which produced different pitches; several instruments are believed to have been combined in order to play melodies. Two smaller, Chinese offshoots of the slit drum are the wood block and the wooden fish (Chinese //mu yü;// also known as temple block), carved in the shape of a mythical fish and lacquered red. Both were used in [|religious ritual], and the former was also in [|Chinese opera] orchestras. Producing a clear, penetrating sound, they were adopted into the Western orchestra in the 20th century.
 * slit drum ****,** [|percussion instrument] formed by hollowing a tree trunk through a lengthwise slit and sounded by the players’ stamping feet or by beating with sticks; the edges of the slit are usually of different thicknesses, so as to produce different pitches. Unlike membrane drums, which are classified as membranophones, [|slit drums] are idiophones, or resonant solids.

A **slit drum** is a hollow [|percussion instrument]. In spite of the name, it is not a true [|drum] but an [|idiophone], usually carved or constructed from bamboo or wood into a box with one or more slits in the top. Most slit drums have one slit, though two and three slits (cut into the shape of an "H") occur. If the resultant tongues are different lengths or thicknesses, the drum will produce two different [|pitches]. It is 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 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.

Slit drums in Film Music
Chromatically Tuned Log Drums, range C3-C4 (from Emil Richards Collection) Renowned studio percussionist [|Emil Richards] used his [|chromatically] tuned slit drums in numerous soundtracks and other recordings. His tuned slit drums spanned one octave, from C3-C4 (middle C). Richards'slit drums consist of a wooden soundboard placed onto a [|resonator] box the length of which corresponds to the desired pitch. The soundboard is one piece, from which a bar is cut to a particular length, also corresponding to the chosen pitch. Emil got this set in the late 1970's from a craftsman in New York who brought them to show off at the [|Percussive Arts Society]'s International Convention, and added them to his giant instrument collection, the [|Emil Richards Collection].[|[][|2][|]] [|[][|3][|]] The fact that they were chromatic enabled melodies to be played on the set of slit drums, and the arrangement of them like a [|keyboard] allowed immediate fluency of performance. During recording sessions, some composers would give Emil the license to add it to the music if he heard a good place for it. In general, composers such as [|Lalo Schifrin], [|James Horner], and [|James Newton Howard] were interested and active in “marrying” instruments together to create new textures; slit drums were an interesting color available on the palette. Having a set available that was chromatic and in western tuning allowed them to be scored with other [|orchestral] instruments.[|[][|2][|]]