my fathers favorite music is classical. his favorite composer was gustav mahler. years ago on public television they had mahler's 2nd. symphony. there was a part, where my father and i laughed hysterically, because of this percussion instrument they shown. now, i believe, this instrument was made for mahler, and was never used again!!! that's how akward and scary this was!!!! here's what it was. on the floor was a black platform, around 3 feet from off the floor. it was slightly tilted up on a little incline, and was around 9 feet in length!!! the percussionist, held in both hands a mallet the size of a compact car!!!! and instead of it being a soft cotton white mallet, it was a long thick wooden stick, and at the end of it was a full heavy piece of wood, about 30 inches thick!!!! and around 8 feet in length!!! he picked it up over his head, and like a lumber jack, lunged himself foward, and banged the living @$%# of this crazy wooden thing, into the wooden platform once!!!!! because of it's size the man could only hit it once, and VERY!!!!!!!! HARD!!!!, and then if needed again, later, but not immidiedtly!!! the effect was as if, king kong got up set, and banged his foot down once hard! this is not a joke, percussionists, back me up on this, and for those of you, curious, i suggest, you look this up, it is worth checking this out, before you die, to see how nuts mahler was, as a composer!!!!!

I am also aware of "Mahler's Hammer" as it is used in the 6th symphony.

It's supposed to be loud, dull, non-metallic, and not very resonant.  I believe some notations in Mahler's original scores indicated that the "Hammer" should be placed so that all the audience could see it be played.

More:

"The A-major to A-minor motif
from the previous movements has returned,
with marching tunes attempting a confident major
but each time struck down,
this time literally with hammer blows
that Mahler wanted to sound
"like the stroke of an ax."

-Barbara Heninger

Haha! Now that's REAL percussion!  

yes indeed--me too