Gong: Barbados musical instrument

A gong is an East and South East Asian percussion musical instrument that has the shape of a flat metal disc that can be struck with a mallet.

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Gongs are mainly of three types, Suspended gongs are more or less flat, has circular discs of metal hanged vertically by means of a chord passed through holes that are near the top rim. Also there is a Bossed or Nipple gongs, this type of gong have a raised center boss and are often hanged and played horizontally and also we have the Bowl gongs that are bowl-shaped and rest on soft filled bag and belong more to bells than gongs. Gongs are mainly made from bronze or brass and they are many other alloys that are in use. This musical instrument produces two different types of sound. There is a category of gong with a substantially flat surface and vibrates in multiple modes to give a “crash note” instead of a tuned note and this type is called the “tam-tam” to distinguish it from the bossed gongs that give a tuned note. It is very common to use the term gong for the both types.

The suspended gongs are played with hammers and are of two types which are the flat faced discs eother with or without a tuned edge and the gong with a raised center boss. All round, the larger the gong, the larger and softer the size of the hammer. The chau gong which is the most familiar gong to the westerners and can also be called tam-tam. It has become part of the symphony orchestra. It is sometimes referred to as the Chinese gong and it is made of copper-based alloy, bronze or brass. Except the rims, the instrument is almost flat and the rim turned out to make a shallow cylinder. The main surface of the instrument is slightly concave when viewed from the direction to which the rim is turned and range in size of the chau gong is 7 inches to 80 inches in diameter. The earliest chau gong was found at the Guizian site which is in the Guangxi Zhuaung Autonomous community in China. This musical instrument was used to clear the way for an important personnel when they are passing on the road, so it is more like the siren in the modern day. A nipple gong is has a central raised boss or nipple that is often produced of different metal to the rest of the gong. The range in size of the nipple gong is 6 inches to 14 inches or it can be smaller than that but cannot be larger than that size and it is mostly used in the Chinese temples for worship. We also have the opera gong which is a important part of the orchestra for the Chinese opera and the range in size of this gong is 7 inches to 12 inches. The pasi gong which is a medium-size gong ranges 12 inches to 13 inches in size and is traditionally used to announce the start of an event, play or magic. We also have the tiger gong, shueng kwong, wind gong and the sculptural gong.

In general, a gong is a percussion or sonorous musical instrument that is of Chinese origin and production which is carved in form of a board thin disk with a deep rim. The musical instrument has spread to the Southeast Asia.

Gongs differ in diameter from about 20 to 40 inches and they are made of bronze containing a maximum of 22 parts of tin to the maximum of 78 copper. Although in many cases, the proportion of the tin is considerably less. Such an alloy when cast and allowed to cool slowly is much brittle but it can be tempered and annealed in a similar manner. In these characteristics it will be observed that the alloy behaves in a manner exactly opposite to steel and the Chinese use themselves for the preparations of the thin sheets of which the gong is made. They cool their casting of bronze using water and after hammering out the alloy in the soft state, they also harden the finished gongs by heating them to a cherry-red and leaving them to cool slowly. These properties said to have been discovered in Europe by Jean Pierre Joseph at the beginning of the 19^th century was a long kept secret. The composition of the alloy of bronze that is used in production of the gongs is opined to be as follow: Copper, 76.52, Lead, 0.26, Tin 22.43, Zinc, 0.23 and Iron, 0.81. The drum is then beaten with a round leather-covered pad that is hard and fitted on a short stick or handle. It produces a percussion sound and its vibration burst into a wave like succession of tones and sometimes deep or shrill.