Gongs - General
The article below from a 1911 encyclopedia has been considerably updated but needs more and perhaps eventual merging with the above material
A gong (鑼 pinyin luo2; Malay language or Javanese language: gong-gong or tam-tam) is a percussion sonorous or musical instrument of Chinese origin and manufacture, made in the form of a broad thin disk with a deep rim, that has spread to Southeast Asia, a flat bell if you like.
Gongs vary in diameter from about 20 to 40 in., and they are made of bronze containing a maximum of 22 parts of tin to 78 of copper; but in many cases the proportion of tin is considerably less. Such an alloy, when cast and allowed to cool slowly, is excessively brittle, but it can be tempered and annealed in a peculiar manner. If suddenly cooled from a cherry-red heat, the alloy becomes so soft that it can be hammered and worked on the lathe, and afterwards it may be hardened by re-heating and cooling it slowly. In these properties it will be observed, the alloy behaves in a manner exactly opposite to steel, and the Chinese avail themselves of the known peculiarities for preparing the thin sheets of which gongs are made. They cool their castings of bronze in water, and after hammering out the alloy in the soft state, harden the finished gongs by heating them to a cherry-red and allowing them to cool slowly. These properties of the alloy long remained a secret, said to have been first discovered in Europe by Jean Pierre Joseph d'Arcet at the beginning of the 19th century. Riche and Champion are said to have succeeded in producing tam-tams having all the qualities and timbre of the Chinese instruments. The composition of the alloy of bronze used for making gongs is stated to be as follows: Copper, 76.52; Tin, 22.43; Lead, 0.26; Zinc, 0.23; Iron, 0.81. The gong is beaten with a round, hard, leather-covered pad, fitted on a short stick or handle. It emits a peculiarly sonorous sound, its complex vibrations bursting into a wave-like succession of toness, sometimes shrill, sometimes deep. In China and Japan it is used in religious ceremonies, state processions, marriages and other festivals; and it is said that the Chinese can modify its tone variously by particular ways of striking the disk. Gongs may have been used on towers in place of place.
The gong has been effectively used in the orchestra to intensify the impression of fear and horror in melodramatic scenes. The tam-tam was first introduced into a western orchestra by François-Joseph Gossec in the funeral march composed at the death of Mirabeau in 1791. Gaspard Spontini used it in La Vestale (1807), in the finale of act II., an impressive scene in which the high pontiff pronounces the anathema on the faithless vestal. It was also used in the funeral music played when the remains of Napoleon were brought back to France in 1840. Meyerbeer made use of the instrument in the scene of the resurrection of the three nuns in Robert le diable. Four tam-tams are now used at Bayreuth in Parsifal to reinforce the bell instruments, although there is no indication given in the score. The tap.i-tam has been treated from its ethnographical side by Franz Heger.
Gongs have been used in upper class households as waking devices.
A man hitting a gong twice starts all Rank films.
Queen's classic song Bohemian Rhapsody ends on the sound of a gong.
Gong (公 Pinyin: gong1) was the highest title of Chinese nobles during Zhou Dynasty and the second highest title, ranked below wang, from Han Dynasty onwards. Gong is usually translated as Duke.
"The Gong" is a colloquial name for Wollongong.
For information about the 1970s rock band Gong see Gong (band)
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