Most percussion instruments as the term is normally understood are classified as idiophones and membranophones. The Hornbostel–Sachs system has no high-level section for percussion. In a musical context then, the percussion instruments may have been originally coined to describe a family of musical instruments including drums, rattles, metal plates, or blocks that musicians beat or struck to produce sound. However, all known uses of percussion appear to share a similar lineage beginning with the original Latin percussus. The term is not unique to music, but has application in medicine and weaponry, as in percussion cap. As a noun in contemporary English, Wiktionary describes it as the collision of two bodies to produce a sound. The word percussion derives from the Latin verb percussio to beat, strike in the musical sense, and the noun percussus, a beating. Percussion instruments are classified by various criteria sometimes depending on their construction, ethnic origin, function within musical theory and orchestration, or their relative prevalence in common knowledge. Usually started to be played at a younger age for more talented individuals, commonly started at age 10 - 12 Rhythm, melody, and harmony are all represented in these ensembles. In more recent popular-music culture, it is almost impossible to name three or four rock, hip-hop, rap, funk or even soul charts or songs that do not have some sort of percussive beat keeping the tune in time.īecause of the diversity of percussive instruments, it is not uncommon to find large musical ensembles composed entirely of percussion. In classic jazz, one almost immediately thinks of the distinctive rhythm of the hi-hats or the ride cymbal when the word-swing is spoken. In military marching bands and pipes and drums, it is the beat of the bass drum that keeps the soldiers in step and at a regular speed, and it is the snare that provides that crisp, decisive air to the tune of a regiment. In almost every style of music, percussion plays a pivotal role. The use of percussion instruments became more frequent in the 20th century classical music. In the 18th and 19th centuries, other percussion instruments (like the triangle or cymbals) have been used, again generally sparingly. Rather, they serve to provide additional accents when needed. However, often at least one pair of timpani is included, though they rarely play continuously. Most classical pieces written for full orchestra since the time of Haydn and Mozart are orchestrated to place emphasis on the strings, woodwinds, and brass. In jazz and other popular music ensembles, the pianist, bassist, drummer and sometimes the guitarist are referred to as the rhythm section. Percussion is commonly referred to as "the backbone" or "the heartbeat" of a musical ensemble, often working in close collaboration with bass instruments, when present. Percussion instruments may play not only rhythm, but also melody and harmony. Percussion instruments are most commonly divided into two classes: pitched percussion instruments, which produce notes with an identifiable pitch, and unpitched percussion instruments, which produce notes or sounds in an indefinite pitch. On the other hand, keyboard instruments, such as the celesta, are not normally part of the percussion section, but keyboard percussion instruments such as the glockenspiel and xylophone (which do not have piano keyboards) are included. Percussive techniques can even be applied to the human body itself, as in body percussion. However, the section can also contain aerophones, such as whistles and sirens, or a blown conch shell. The percussion section of an orchestra most commonly contains instruments such as the timpani, snare drum, bass drum, tambourine, belonging to the membranophones, and cymbals and triangle, which are idiophones. It is shown below that percussion instruments may belong to the organological classes of ideophone, membranophone, aerophone and cordophone. In spite of being a very common term to designate instruments, and to relate them to their players, the percussionists, percussion is not a systematic classificatory category of instruments, as described by the scientific field of organology. Excluding zoomusicological instruments and the human voice, the percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments. A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument.
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