Litchfield enquirer., 1874-06-25
c. T. s. on the Bass Drum.

C. T. s. on the Bass Drund.
 I take pleasure in calling your atten- tlon, this morning, to that bewitching in strument, the bass drum.
 l have with great originality, denomi- mated the fiddle the king of instruments. If that is true, then the Ibass drum must be the queen. Its tones soothe the heart, ravish the ear and lap the whole system of the tender sensibilities in soft-but 1 will not dilate unduly. nor attempt to speak for an instrument which is so we'll qualified to speak for itself.
 The Bass Drum is but rarely heard in this country, on account of the extreme technical difficulty of spihling it. The student must recollect that Listz and Joachims do not grow on every bush.
 An enthusiastic young man in Minne- sota wrote down to Chicago music deal- CT, inquiring violently the price of Shry- Ock's Charts and metronomes Said he, ''I feel that I am born to a musical ca reer. I am determined to master the whole science of music; but to do that I must have Shryock's Charts and q metro nome."
 He should have added, 1T must have a Bass Drum, and fame is within my grasp. |" Worst of all things in art is to be superfi- cial. A metronome and Shryock's Charts may place this young man on the pima cle of fame, but only a good Bass Drum can keep him there and scare away com petitors.
 The drum, i'll some of it's forms,-bass drum, snare drum, kettle drum, fig drum, alarm drum, drum of the ear, etc.-has been an inspiring theme among poets of all ages and sizes. Tom Moore, or some one else, tells us of ''the ear piercing fife and the spirit stirring drum,'' while Mil ton, or some fellow poet of his style, al- ludes touchingly to the time
 "When dead beat, at drum of night" etc., and Patrick s. Gilmore grows elo quent, i'll his forthcoming volume, over the Big Drum of the Peace Jubilee, which was expected to cause an earthquake at Dorchester Heights, or a tidal wave at Nahant every time it was beaten; but 1t that 1t was such a splendid drum that it couldn't be beat, so, of course, the earth quakes were postponed.
 The Bass Drum has several especial merits which recommend 1t above all oth- CT instruments.
 1. Its delicacy of tone, which is great ly superior to ttHt of tho Chinese gong, the sheet-iron boiler or the mitrailleuse. The tone of the Bass Drum, particularly just before each stroke of the player s shillelagh, is very soft and pleasing. One wishes it might last forever.
 7. It keeps in tune, and stands any climate that can stand it. The Bass Drum, unlike the piano, does not have to be made by Stek, or Steinway, or Chick ering, or somebody, in order to Stay in tune.
 3. You know right where to find it. The tone IS extremely reliable, and may be trusted in the hands of the smallest child, with confidence that 1t will be the same old tone at night that 1t was in the morning.
 4. The Bass Drum with one head re- moved is exceedingly convenient as a po- tato-bln over winter; or mess-table in camp; or bed for the drummer, in case the hand gets treated too many times dur ing the day. It may be put to hundred other uses, making 103 in all.
 NOTE.-It IS not advisable, on remoy- ing the head of the drum, to remove that of the drummer also. He is apt to incur bronchitis, which ruins his voice for drumming.
 ,. It takes much less wind and less elbow-grease to operate drum in an or chestra than it does for a violin or a French horn. The drummer Is held so high i'll the affections of composers that he is usually left by them with but few strokes to do in the whole course of a symphony, and these he can put in dur ing the ddogio and go off for beer during the rest of the performance.
 The compass of the Bass Drum is quite limited; but as have sad, what few notes 1t has, 1t has $ure. It is strongest in the middle resister-that is the centre, or ''buli's eye' of the head. Having once got that in range, the player can play away upon it to his hearts content until interfered with by the police. The Devils Dream will be found an interesting exer- else for practice upon the Bass Drum. Interesting mainly as showing what one can't do with a Bass Drum. I doubt greatly whether Rubinstein, the great Russian virtuoso, or even Horace Greeley himself, could play that air on a Bass Drum. Still they might hit about as near 1t as some of our young ladies do to singing U bacio or o mao Fernando when they try those airs in public.
 We come now to the crowning glory of the Bass Drum-the simplicity of it's mo- tation-a matter which I should have mentioned among the five other advanta- ges, except that I didn't want to over whelm the student with good news all at once.
 With the Bass Drum for & weapon it is not necessary for the artist to look up and down the staff for his notes. They are all on dead c level, as it were.
 The player has only to be sure he is right and then go ahead. His chief duty consists in observing the rests faithfully. And herein is the difficulty of engineer ing the Bass Drum, which makes it so impossible to obtain good players. The bars all have to be counted, and the pro- cess Is so wearing on the intellect of the musician that few are willing to under take 1t; and those few are liable at any moment to get appointed, at $500 per year, to tell off boards in lumber yard which position they of course accept.
 Another beautiful melody for the Bass Drum may now be undertaken by the pu- pl (regulated by chart and metronome). It is free transcription of the tune Bal erma-drum solo.
 This must be done fortissimo and strictly Gdagi0 to gets its full beauty. A coda may be played as a device for dis persing the audience, should any happen to remain through the performance of the main part.
 Other popular melodies, scored for bass drum solo, may be had on appica- ton to Dudley Buck, or A. J. Creswold.
 G. T. s.
 The proposition for grand social re- union of all the Connecticut war regi- ments, which was discussed two or three years ago is revived. Lieutenant James J. Hayes of New Haven, will be glad to recerve communications concerning the matter. He was appointed by his regi-