GONG (

See also:

• CHINESE, JAPANESE AND

Chinese, gong-gong or

See also:

• TAM, JACOB BEN MEIR (1100-1171)

tam-tam)  , a sonorous or musical instrument of Chinese origin and manufacture, made in the form of a broad thin disk with a deep rim . Gongs vary in diameter from about 20 to 40 in., and they are made of bronze containing a maximum of 22 parts of tin to 78 of copper; but in many cases the proportion of tin is considerably less . Such an alloy, when cast and allowed to cool slowly, is excessively brittle, but it can be tempered and annealed in a peculiar manner . If suddenly cooled from a cherry-red heat, the alloy becomes so soft that it can be hammered and worked on the lathe, and afterwards it may be hardened by re-heating and cooling it slowly . In these properties it will be observed, the alloy behaves in a manner exactly opposite to steel, and the Chinese avail themselves of the known peculiarities for preparing the thin sheets of which gongs are made . They cool their castings of bronze in water, and after hammering out the alloy in the soft state, harden the finished gongs by heating them to a cherry-red and allowing them to cool slowly . These properties of the alloy long remained a secret, said to have been first discovered in Europe by Jean Pierre Joseph d'Arcet at the beginning of the 19th century . Riche and Champion are said to have succeeded in producing tam-tams having all the qualities and timbre of the Chinese instruments . The composition of the alloy of bronze used for making gongs is stated to be as follows:' Copper, 76.52; Tin, 22.43; Lead, o•62; Zinc, 0.23; Iron, o•18 . The gong is beaten with a round, hard, leather-covered pad, fitted on a short stick or handle . It emits a peculiarly sonorous sound, its complex vibrations bursting into a wave-like succession of tones, sometimes shrill, sometimes deep . In China and Japan it is used in religious ceremonies, state processions, marriages and other festivals; and it is said that the Chinese can modify its tone variously by particular ways of striking the disk .

The gong has been effectively used in the

orchestra to intensify the impression of fear and horror in melodramatic scenes . The tam-tam was first introduced into a western orchestra by Francois Joseph Gossec in the funeral march composed at the death of Mirabeau in 1791 . Gaspard Spontini used it in La Vestale (1807), in the finale of act Ile an impressive scene in which the high pontiff pronounces the anathema on the faithless vestal . It was also used in the funeral music played when the remains of Napoleon the Great were brought hack to France in 1840 . Meyerbeer made use of the instrument in the scene of the resurrection of the three nuns in Robert le diable . Four tam-tams are now used at Bayreuth in Parsifal to reinforce the bell instruments, although there is no indication given in the score (see PARSIFAL) . The tarp-tam has been treated from its ethnographical side by Franz Heger.' (K .