Slit Drums in Film Music
Renowned studio percussionist Emil Richards used his chromatically tuned slit drums in numerous soundtracks and other recordings. His tuned slit drums spanned one octave, from C3-C4 (middle C). Richards'slit drums consist of a wooden soundboard placed onto a resonator box the length of which corresponds to the desired pitch. The soundboard is one piece, from which a bar is cut to a particular length, also corresponding to the chosen pitch. Emil got this set in the late 1970s from a craftsman in New York who brought them to show off at the Percussive Arts Society's International Convention, and added them to his giant instrument collection, the Emil Richards Collection. The fact that they were chromatic enabled melodies to be played on the set of slit drums, and the arrangement of them like a keyboard allowed immediate fluency of performance. During recording sessions, some composers would give Emil the license to add it to the music if he heard a good place for it. In general, composers such as Lalo Schifrin, James Horner, and James Newton Howard were interested and active in “marrying” instruments together to create new textures; slit drums were an interesting color available on the palette. Having a set available that was chromatic and in western tuning allowed them to be scored with other orchestral instruments.
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