TSUZUMI

any of various Japanese two-headed drums with hourglass-shaped (waisted) bodies. Ancient Japanese court orchestra music had three types of these drums, of which only the san no tsuzumi form survives in komagaku style (courtly music of Japanese, Korean, and other non-Chinese, non-Indian ancestry). Better-known tsuzumi are found in the music of No and Kabuki theatres. The smaller ko-tsuzumi is held on the player's right shoulder and hit with fingers of the right hand, producing four soft sounds by changing encircling rope tensions with gentle left-hand squeezes. Resonance is altered by thin paper (choshigami) applied to the centre of the rear horsehide skin. By contrast, the cowhide skins of the large o-tsuzumi are heated before being tied tightly against the body. The instrument, held on the left hip, produces a cracking sound when one head is struck with the central fingers of the right hand, which sometimes are covered with hard paper thimbles to intensify the sound. Related to these drums is the changko, a large hourglass-shaped drum with two heads, prominent in much Korean music. Their kinship is seen in their construction: the skins are sewn to hoops wider in diameter than the instrument body and are held tightly against it by the bracing ropes.