Percussion musical instruments are those from which the sound is extracted by hitting, in some cases shaking or swaying, over the sounding body. This is the most ancient and numerous family of musical instruments.
Instructions
Step 1
There are several options for classifying drums, one and the same instrument can be attributed to two or more groups according to different criteria.
Step 2
Percussion instruments can be divided into groups by pitch. There are instruments with specific pitches and can be tuned to specific notes of the scale. This type of percussion includes a xylophone, timpani, vibraphone and others. Instruments with an indefinite pitch include a triangle, cymbals, snare and bass drums, castanets, tambourine, and others. The listed instruments cannot be tuned to specific sounds.
Step 3
All percussion instruments can be divided into membranophones and idiophones according to the principle of sound production. The first includes instruments in which a stretched membrane is a sounding body. This membrane can be made of plastic or leather. Such instruments include drums, timpani, tambourines, bongos, tam-tams, dhol and others. Idiophones are instruments that consist entirely of a sounding body, such as a xylophone, triangle, vibraphone, marimba, bells, and so on.
Step 4
It is the idiophones that are considered the most ancient musical instruments, they are present in most cultures of the world. Most percussion instruments can be classified as idiophones.
Step 5
Additionally, all idiophones can be divided according to the material of manufacture into metal and wood. For example, a triangle, bells and vibraphone have sounding elements made of metal, while Korean bells, a xylophone or a wooden box are made of wood. All idiophones can be additionally divided into groups according to the method of sound production into drums, in which there is no membrane (hang, glucophone, teonaztel), plucked (jew's harp), friction (glass harmonica, saw).
Step 6
A separate group of percussion instruments is those in which the sounding body is a string. These include all types of cymbals and pianos.
Step 7
In classical academic music, you can find many works that were written exclusively for percussion instruments. Performing such compositions usually requires not only traditional percussion instruments, but also a variety of exotic ethnic variations. There are many ensembles consisting only of percussion instruments, including in Russia, which perform such music with great success.
