Different types of percussion instruments

There are three main ways to play a percussion instrument, like this where you hit it, or you shake it, or you scrape it. That’s what makes percussion unique, so anything you scrape. So a washboard with a thimble, or a stick on a tree truck or a drum in your school band, every one of those is part of the percussion family. In addition to that we have some silly things that we get to play because people like the violinists, or the trombone players they are always too embarrassed to play something like this. You probably can’t see it, but you’ll be able to hear it. (Demonstrates). That’s a duck call. And that’s called a siren whistle. So if you don’t know what it is, usually it comes down to the drummers and the percussionists to play it, because everybody else is either too scared or too embarrassed, but it’s actually a lot of fun.

Most of the instruments that we play in the percussion family, as I said, have to be hit, and we can either use our hands, like many of the ethnic percussion instruments from Africa, South America, or Asia, but usually, and in my job playing the timpani, we use sticks. One for each hand, and you hit the drum. Since I didn’t bring the drum today I can play the table (demonstrates). Those are just pretty basic side drum sticks, and we can use those on all kinds of other percussion instruments. Or we have these very special mallets, and they are for an instrument called the vibraphone, or the xylophone, or the glockenspiel. They are all laid out like a piano keyboard. Has anyone ever heard of a xylophone before? Just nod your head if you have. Great. Those are percussion instruments, they can play a melody or chords like a piano or an organ, but again, they are very big instruments and we couldn’t fit them in on the screen this afternoon. And the sticks that I use on my timpani are big fluffy felt sticks wrapped around a piece of wood on a long wooden shaft. When I hit the drums and they can play specific pitches as well, but only one at a time. And that’s why people like Beethoven and Mozart, and even Gareth Farr, they like to write timpani because it’s loud and very percussive, but it also has more melodic function in the orchestra.