play for reasons more or less fantastic. Saint-Saëns has even utilized
the barbarous xylophone, whose proper place is the variety hall, in
his "Danse Macabre." There his purpose was a fantastic one, and the
effect is capital. The pictorial conceit at the bottom of the poem
which the music illustrates is Death, as a skeleton, seated on a
tombstone, playing the viol, and gleefully cracking his bony heels
against the marble. To produce this effect, the composer uses the
xylophone with capital results. But of all the ordinary instruments of
percussion, the only one that is really musical and deserving of
comment is the kettle-drum. This instrument is more musical than the
others because it has pitch. Its voice is not mere noise, but musical
noise. Kettle-drums, or tympani, are generally used in pairs, though
the vast multiplication of effects by modern composers has resulted
also in the extension of this department of the band. It is seldom
that more than two pairs are used, a good player with a quick ear
being able to accomplish all that Wagner asks of six drums by his
deftness in changing the pitch of the instruments. This work of tuning
is still performed generally in what seems a rudimentary way, though a
German drum-builder named Pfund invented a contrivance by which the
player, by simply pressing on a balanced pedal and watching an
indicator affixed to the side of the drums, can change the pitch to
any desired semitone within the range of an octave.

The tympani are hemispherical brass or copper vessels, kettles in
short, covered with vellum heads. The pitch of the instrument depends
on the tension of the head, which is applied generally by key-screws
working through the iron ring which holds the vellum. There is a
difference in the size of the drums to place at the command of the
player the octave from F in the first space below the bass staff to F
on the fourth line of the same staff. Formerly the purpose of the