According to Henri Matisse “creativity takes courage” this quote explains everything that the Ambyrym did in terms of their Gong instrument, their creativity and intelligence to use woods and transform it into one of the world’s well known musical instruments is amazing in my opinion. The history and advancement of civilization cannot be mention without its impact on music and the evolvement and development of its instruments over all. The slit Gong is a woody painting tower which is a very large instrument in many cases but might vary in size from culture to culture, it was first recognize in north Vanuatu. The slit gong I believe was used to show expression because I have always believe that music and its instruments are both forms of expression like frowning, laughing and smiling . All of musical expressions comprise a lot of elements which has a lot to do with how we treat our daily lives and our cultures. The slit Gong is used in many countries around the world not just to convey their selves but to represent their country and cultures at large. Every culture makes their own music which makes musical instruments very powerful and helpful in the presentation of these cultures.
The Gong woody instrument is recognize and acknowledge to be the world largest instrument, even though the making of instruments is one of man’s oldest made object ever recognize, it is also primarily found in ambrym and mostly neighboring islands, it is also found in parts of Africa, Oceania and Americas .the instrument is dated to be around 1960s with in a culture call ambrym. The helibrunn timeline of art is Melanesia, 1900 A.D. they are different ways that the gong instrument is carved, they are normally carved based on the cultural design of that particular culture or most commonly they are carved from the trunks of breadfruit trees. The breadfruit trees is grown on most pacific islands and are mostly spread by humans through out the region and any specific culture and country at large. The making of music and its instruments can be acknowledge to be one of the components of human beings, the slit Gong instruments benefits the cultures and most importantly the musical field, in my opinion musical instruments especially in the case of the slit gong is any piece of art that produces sound, but also in the case of the slit gong it just did not produce sound but the object itself became more of a cultural and symbolic item to many cultures and the world and large ,the slit gong made many artist to start looking into the production of the slit gong during the A.D 1900. I have seen the actually making of small gongs in African, Gambia, where I was born; the carvers made them and sell the little gongs to tourist who was mainly from Europe. One of the main ironic issues I have come across with two years ago when I went to London was , I saw some gong in one of the local instrument stores which was been sold at a very expensive price which am very certain they bought for a very low-price. One of the main importance of the slit gong piece is that of its cultural reflect on many societies especially during the heilbrunn art .The instruments properties includes breadfruit trees which is not only use to make this particular instrument but also a very important food sources, many villages uses the breadfruit trees to feed their family and most importantly use in many west African countries for the making of their main national dish and it is a essential ingredient in their daily cooking. The usage of the Slit gong also varies, In each village their might be slight difference in the usage of the gong instrument, but most important it is use as a source of communication mostly long distance it also serves as a way to gather people mainly for entertainment. the credit line is Roger Fund in 1975, one of the main things why I like this instrument is that of its symbolic characteristics, meaning its impact on the societies and in the music world and how I can proudly associate and have a direct connection to it .this piece says a lot about its civilization even though many people might see this instrument and admire this culture why others might look down at it, their way of communication is very productive and of importance in the world of music. Even though they were a lot of instruments and pictures to choose from I end up with this instrument mainly due to my love for music and the importance of the piece to its culture over all. Every piece of art in any specific culture had its benefits to its citizens; the gong instruments benefits included the gong orchestras playing it in very huge village and national festivals, religion gathering and specifically funerals and dance festivals as well. The musicians played it in many different ways but mostly they will stand in from of the gong instrument due to the height and size of the instrument. The musician will strike the lip with a club like ligneous attachment to play it as accurate as possible. Even though normally when the instrument is played, there are normally multiple drummers drumming in the back ground which will normally put more flavors to the overall entertainment of that particular festival .even though the paintings and the woody style might be the same among all the gong instruments, they still vary in size and shape. Most of the gong instruments are played by one person, some are still played by multiple people, due to the size and mostly that particular event they performing for. The civilization of this instrument during this period also used their musical instruments as magical attributes due to the power of music and most relevantly signaling devices to pass out information and so on. In conclusion the slit gong will always have a reflect and importance to the world, because there are a lot of cultures that cannot be presented accurately without its musical instruments and over the entire slit gong benefited the people of Ambrym and the world.