The tenor drum is somewhat longer than the ordinary drum, and its body is made of wood instead of metal. Its sound is dull and similar to that of a drum without snares, ie. of a muffled drum. It makes quite a good. effect in military music, and its subdued rolls serve as a
background for the other drums. It is a tenor dram which
Gluck uses in the chorus of Scythians in his “Iphigénie en Tauride” for beating the barbarous rhythm of the continuous four eighths-notes (see Example 148, p,392). Richard Wagner employed it magnificently in the Ride of the Valkyries to produce a wild roaring effect,