Tam-Tam

1. Large Eastern unpitched GONG, suspended from a stand and struck with a felt-covered stick. It spread through Europe in the 18th century.

The tam-tam is often associated with tragic situations. Because of this association, many classical composers have used it for atmospheric effect in their works:

FRANÇOIS-JOSEPH GOSSEC includes it in the funeral march in Mirabeau (1791).

PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY expresses the inexorability of fate in the Pathétique Symphony with it.

RICHARD STRAUSS uses it for funereal effect in Death and Transfiguration.

However, despite this common association with death or fate, the tam-tam functioned in courts, temples, and elsewhere to give signals and for other uses as well.

The tam-tam is not a true gong, such as those found in the Indonesian GAMELAN orchestras. Those gongs have raised hubs in the middle, upon which the instrument is struck and dampened by stick, and which are factors in its tuning. The tam-tam has a white-noise sound, with no particular place to be struck, and a much slower, more unpredictable decay.