Daily Kennebec journal., 1898-11-05
The Echo Of the Drum.

The day of the bass drum is approach
ing its hour of twilight. The salvation
army at IT'S national field council to be
fo, IN oa Chicago At the Waverly
its final tap and herald its passing away.
Ballington Booth, as the voice of the con-
vention, will proclaim its banishment
from further service in the street worship
of the volunteers in America, and from
henceforth the work of summoning sin
ners to repentance will be relegated to
the slighter sister of the big masculine
drum, the tambourine. Its jar and jingle
will take the place of the larger BOOM
ing monitor, and the future will know
its solemn reverberation only as an echo
of the past.
The drum is the Oldest of musical in
Struments. Turning back the pages of
nations, each race is found to have in
vented its instruments of percussion
The inverted bowls of the Sandwich
habitants of the Fiji Islands were proto-
types of the drum. In many lands it was
credited. with divine origin. Not more
with profound veneration in South Amer
lea, being the only object of worship ac-
cepted by the natives stretching their
habitations from the shores of the Orino-
co to the La Plata. Even today the drum
is treated as god in the interior of
Brazil.
Away, north in the frozen regions of
Lapland the drum adds to the charms Of
the native sorcerer. The instrument
makes him all-powerful in the eyes of his
superstitious followers. With its beats he
ing through green fields and pastures
new, while their fur covered bodies tra-
verse the snow and ice of their native ter
ritory With the aid of the drum the
happenings of his people and the success
or failure of the hunting, season;
In the land of the ESkimos the drum
expresses the passion of the natives, If
there be any of that fiery quality left uil-
congealed by perpetual ice and snow. In
the language of the American Indian the
drum is an instrument of affection, re-
peating. with it's monotonous beating the
old, old story that Hiawatha told Min
nehaha and that every Indian brave
whispers into the ears of every willing
Indian maiden.
The modern drum is of three kinds-the
smaller sil1 ,sr, size or tambourine family; the
side drum of many varieties, of which the
bass drum, condemned by the Salvation
army. is the mightiest specimen, and the
artistic kettle drum, the. drum of the or
| chestra and of the English cavalry reg
iment. Berlioz said it took seventy years
to discover that three kettle drums could
be employed in an orchestra, a knowl-
edge the French master of sound quick
ly put to practical test. In his stupen-
dous requiem mass, besides fifty brass
instruments. Berlioz has added the ser
vice of eight pairs of kettle drums, two
the effect of the Tuba Mirum' is so
overwhelming, and who that ever listened
| to the storm of woe that filed the audi
| torum when the requiem was intoned by
the Apollo club can forget its powerful
climax of mourning. George Eliot said il
was impossible for her to find any music
| quite loud enough to suit certain moods
a statement which probably shows she
never sat through performance of Ber.
| loZ S masterpiece.
| Beethoven was the first musician to ad-
vance the drum to the dignity of sole
| instrument The famous violin concerto
] begins with four taps of the drum, and ir
the change from the scherzo to the final,
of the fifth symphony the soft beats of The
| instrument are the sole signs OF life II
the "encrcing gloom. Hogarth alst
was lover of the drum eontendins thai
| ito play it well was no easy natter.