Gong in the context of "Gamelan"

A hammer is a tool, most often a hand tool, consisting of a weighted "head" fixed to a long handle that is swung to deliver an impact to a small area of an object. This can be, for example, to drive nails into wood, to shape metal (as with a forge), or to crush rock. Hammers are used for a wide range of driving, shaping, breaking and non-destructive striking applications. Traditional disciplines include carpentry, blacksmithing, warfare, and percussive musicianship (as with a gong).

Hammering is use of a hammer in its strike capacity, as opposed to prying with a secondary claw or grappling with a secondary hook. Carpentry and blacksmithing hammers are generally wielded from a stationary stance against a stationary target as gripped and propelled with one arm, in a lengthy downward planar arc—downward to add kinetic energy to the impact—pivoting mainly around the shoulder and elbow, with a small but brisk wrist rotation shortly before impact; for extreme impact, concurrent motions of the torso and knee can lower the shoulder joint during the swing to further increase the length of the swing arc (but this is tiring). War hammers are often wielded in non-vertical planes of motion, with a far greater share of energy input provided from the legs and hips, which can also include a lunging motion, especially against moving targets. Small mallets can be swung from the wrists in a smaller motion permitting a much higher cadence of repeated strikes. Use of hammers and heavy mallets for demolition must adapt the hammer stroke to the location and orientation of the target, which can necessitate a clubbing or golfing motion with a two-handed grip.

The strike tone, strike note, or tap note, of a percussion instrument (e.g. bell, chime or gong) when struck, is the dominant note perceived immediately by the human ear. It is also known as the prime or fundamental note. However, an analysis of the bell's frequency spectrum reveals that the fundamental only exists weakly and its dominance is a human perception of a note built up by the complex series of harmonics that are generated. The correct and accurate harmonic tuning is therefore important in creating a good strike tone.

A striking clock is a clock that sounds the hours audibly on a bell, gong, or other audible device. In 12-hour striking, used most commonly in striking clocks today, the clock strikes once at 1:00 am, twice at 2:00 am, continuing in this way up to twelve times at 12:00 mid-day, then starts again, striking once at 1:00 pm, twice at 2:00 pm, and the pattern continues up to twelve times at 12:00 midnight.

The striking feature of clocks was originally more important than their clock faces; the earliest clocks struck the hours, but had no dials to enable the time to be read. The development of mechanical clocks in 12th century Europe was motivated by the need to ring bells upon the canonical hours to call the community to prayer. The earliest known mechanical clocks were large striking clocks installed in towers in monasteries or public squares, so that their bells could be heard far away. Though an early striking clock in Syria was a 12-hour clock, many early clocks struck up to 24 strokes, particularly in Italy, where the 24-hour clock, keeping Italian hours, was widely used in the 14th and 15th centuries. As the modern 12-hour clock became more widespread, particularly in Great Britain and Northern Europe, 12-hour striking became more widespread and eventually became the standard. In addition to striking on the hour, many striking clocks play sequences of chimes on the quarter-hours. The most common sequence is Westminster Quarters.