A rock gong is a lithophone

Lithophone

A lithophone is a musical instrument consisting of a rock or pieces of rock which are struck to produce musical notes. Notes may be sounded in combination or in succession...

. Found in Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

, Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

, and Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, the gong is a slab of rock that is hit like a drum

Drum

The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...

. Other regional names for the rock gong include kungering, kwerent dutse, gwangalan, kungereng, kongworian, and kuge. These names are all onomatopœic, except for "kuge" which is the Hausa

Hausa language

Hausa is the Chadic language with the largest number of speakers, spoken as a first language by about 25 million people, and as a second language by about 18 million more, an approximate total of 43 million people...

 word for a double iron bell.

History

Rock gongs have been found in various African locations, such as sites in Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso – also known by its short-form name Burkina – is a landlocked country in west Africa. It is surrounded by six countries: Mali to the north, Niger to the east, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Côte d'Ivoire to the southwest.Its size is with an estimated...

, Niger

Niger

Niger , officially named the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east...

, Nigeria

Nigeria

Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

, Sudan

Sudan

Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

, Uganda

Uganda

Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...

, and Zambia

Zambia

Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....

. The Kupgal petroglyph site in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, which was originally discovered in 1892 (though lost and rediscovered in the 21st century), includes a large number of rock gongs alongside rock art

Rock art

Rock art is a term used in archaeology for any human-made markings made on natural stone. They can be divided into:*Petroglyphs - carvings into stone surfaces*Pictographs - rock and cave paintings...

. The site dates to the Neolithic

Neolithic

The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...

 period.

Rock gongs were brought to the attention of the anthropological community in 1956 by archaeologist Bernard Fagg

Bernard Fagg

Bernard Evelyn Buller Fagg was a British archaeologist and Museum curator who undertook extensive work in Nigeria before and after the Second World War....

. Fagg identified that the first recorded discovery of rock gongs (or "ringing rocks used for the production of musical notes") was in Birnin Kudu, Nigeria

Nigeria

Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

, in June 1955. He drew a link between the geographic distribution of rock gongs and cave paintings, stating that the gongs' proximity to cave paintings "leaves [sic] little doubt that they are associated in some way".

Description

Rock gongs are often large dolerite rocks; Fagg describes examples that weigh up to several tons. They are almost always entirely solid, as playing rocks in other such states would result in a hollow and less metallic tone. Fagg identifies that the tone produced by the vibrating rock is not necessarily influenced by the size of the rock, provided that the resonating stone is not dampened by the solid earth.

Rock gongs would be played by striking the rock's surface with a hand-held stone. This beater would often be made of igneous stone, but examples of metamorphic quartzite

Quartzite

Quartzite is a hard metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. Pure quartzite is usually white to gray, though quartzites often occur in various shades of pink...

 beaters have been discovered.

Although often played solo, gongs can be played as an ensemble

Ensemble

Ensemble may refer to:* Musical ensemble* Ensemble cast * Dance ensemble* Statistical ensemble ** Quantum statistical mechanics, the study of statistical ensembles of quantum mechanical systems...

, with evidence that gongs for four players were sometimes used. These larger stones can have up to 50 tuned depressions. When measured against a Ragg tuning fork, a depression on one particular gong was found to have a fundamental frequency

Fundamental frequency

The fundamental frequency, often referred to simply as the fundamental and abbreviated f0, is defined as the lowest frequency of a periodic waveform. In terms of a superposition of sinusoids The fundamental frequency, often referred to simply as the fundamental and abbreviated f0, is defined as the...

 of 216 Hz.

Continuous playing of the instrument produces smooth indentations in the rock and a matt

Gloss (material appearance)

Gloss is an optical property, which is based on the interaction of light with physical characteristics of a surface. It is actually the ability of a surface to reflect light into the specular direction. The factors that affect gloss are the refractive index of the material, the angle of incident...

-like texture.