Tenor Drum
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A tenor drum is a low-pitched cylindrical drum. The term has different meanings in the band and orchestral contexts.
Band Tenor Drum
Tenor drums (commonly as mounted sets of 3-6 drums) are worn by percussionists in a drumline. They are also known as toms, duos, trios, quads, quints, hexes, or six packs depending on the number of drums. Typically there are four main drums and one or two accent drums (typically 5 or 6 inches in diameter). The accent drums are also known as shot, gock, or spock drums. Sometimes there are other accent instruments added such as cow bells or cymbals.Most of the time, tenor drums are tuned relatively tightly, giving them a high-pitched sound that can be heard from miles around. The gock drums are generally tuned as high as possible to produce a piercing sound. Occasionally, they are tuned lower as well. Some drumlines may employ multiple tenor lines, or high-toms and low-toms.
Most tenor players use match grip. This facilitates tenor techniques such as "scrapes" (moving the hands between drums while playing rolls or diddles) and "crossovers" (crossing one hand over the other to reach a drum). These techniques allow an incredible variety of rhythmic and melodic figures possible on the tenors.
Orchestral Tenor Drum
-->In a symphony orchestra's percussion section, a tenor drum is a low-pitched variant of the snare drum, although usually without snares and played with softer sticks. Under various names, the drum has been used by composers since the mid-19th century. It is particularly noticeable in scores by 20th century English composers such as Britten and Walton, and American composers such as Copland.
Pipe Band Tenor Drum
Originally a rope-tensioned drum, giving way to modern rod tension, the tenor drum occupied a unique position in the drum corps of military and civilian pipe bands, being used as both timekeepers, accents to the musical ensemble, as well as spectacle.
Tenor drummers in pipe bands play the instruments with beaters on the end of long sticks, which are then tied to the fingers, and tenor drummers twirl the beaters while playing.
Three types of tenor drum are played in modern pipe bands :
(a) Flourishing Tenor - as described above, in which the tenor drum beaters are flourished in coordinated movements, while striking the drum; to add "spectacle".Modern pipe bands of average size usually field two to six flourishing tenor drummers.
(b) Alto Tenor - played in tandem with the bass drum to add sound and keep time. Not all bands use alto tenor drums.
(c) Rhythm Tenor-played to accent the snare drum part. It usually is played constantly.
In a usual band formation, the tenor drummers occupy the row(s) between the bass and side drummers.
This type of drum is often used in the Air Training Corps(ATC). It is mainly used in the "flourishing tenor" style, in beat with the bass drum.
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