The Latin word percuss, means to strikeforcibly. Thus, musical instruments which are struck, kicked, rubbed, scraped or shook are called percussion instruments.
Percussion instruments have an ancient legacy and include hand claps and foot stomping. The oldest artifact, musical bones unearthed in Ukraine's Mezin, date to 22,000 BCE (Upper Paleolithic). These musical bones are made from mammoth and decorated with red ochre and include a deer antler beater.
Before use as musical instruments in the modern sense, percussion instruments were used as implements of warfare, magic and spiritual endeavors. Indeed, some of these ancient customs continue today: tolling church bells, thundering native American shaman buffalo drums, and the pop of muyu (temple blocks) in Buddhist ceremonies to name a few.
Classification
Percussion is the largest and most diversified instrument category, with hundreds of different instruments in regular use. However, all percussion falls within one of two Hornbostel-Sachs system categories: membranophone or idiophone.
Membranophone
Membranophones produce sound when their membrane is stuck or rubbed. The membrane vibrates and resonates within a chamber. Membranes are made of animal skin or plastic stretched across a frame or resonating chamber.
Neolithic Artifacts
The earliest known membranophones are Neolithic Chinese alligator drums, dating to 5500 BCE and unearthed at archaeological sites in Dawenkou and Longshan. Construction is similar to modern frame drums: a wooden or ceramic frame covered with tightly stretched skin. Ancient percussion was frequently used for non-musical duties such as rituals and shaman incantations.
Common membranophones include taiko, snare drum, bass drum, conga and bongos. Listen to kumi-daiko (組太鼓)—taiko drum ensemble—popular indefinite pitch membranophones from Japan:
Kodo: O-Daiko | (8:24)
O-Daiko | Tokugawa Era | The o-daiko, or o-taiko, is a barrel drum played in Japanese temples and orchestras. | Metropolitan Museum of Art
Idiophone
Idiophones produce sound through vibration of the entire instrument body, and lack vibrating strings or membranes. Common idiophones include claves, rattles, cymbals and marimba. Idiophones are the most ancient percussion instruments, often made of natural materials such as rocks, shells, sticks, bones and even ice:
Baikal Ice Percussion | IRKUTSK ethnik percussion group (4:26)
The assorted idiophones in the above photo are referred to as small percussion or hand percussion. Musicians use small percussion to add color and texture to an ensemble. In my recording of Shalom Chaverim, all of the above idiophones were used in the backing tracks except for the chimes and sleigh bells.
Shalom Chaverim | Frary Ukulele Band (ukuleles, bass and small percussion)
Zhong | Shaanxi Province, Zhou Dynasty, c. 850-771 BCE | Bells are among the oldest examples of percussion. | Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Definite and Indefinite Pitch
While the broad classifications of membranophone and idiophone are useful for anthropologists and ethnomusicologists cataloging artifacts, musicians think of percussion instruments in terms of the type of sound produced: definite pitch percussion and indefinite pitch percussion.
Definite Pitch Percussion
Percussion instruments that produce musical tones with an identifiable pitch, i.e., melody capable, are called definite pitch percussion. Examples of definite pitch percussion include marimba, xylophone, timpani, chimes, and celesta. Listen to a definite pitch percussion instrument, the marimba:
Here's a less common definite pitch percussion instrument, the handpan:
Handpan | Yuki Koshimoto | Handpans are a definite pitch idiophone (1:24).
Indefinite Pitch Percussion
Percussion instruments that produce sounds without an identifiable pitch—can't be measured in hertz or assigned a letter name—are called indefinite pitch percussion. There is timbre, duration, intensity and a sense of highness or lowness of the sound, but not an exact pitch.
Examples of indefinite pitch instruments include taiko drums (wadaiko), snare and bass drums, congas, bongos, cymbals and rattles.
The first video we watched on this page, Kodo: O-Daiko, is an example of Japanese indefinite pitch instruments—a taiko ensemble. Listen to the Berklee Percussion Ensemble play Western indefinite pitch percussion instruments:
Ogoun Badagris | Christopher Rouse | Berklee Percussion Ensemble (5:21)
Role of Percussion
Attend a musical performance, whether it be a symphony orchestra, praise band or heavy metal fest, and you’ll find percussion players situated to the rear of the ensemble, hinting at their support role. Indeed, the role of percussion is to add color, texture, dynamic emphasis and rhythmic drive to the group, leaving melody and harmony to the other instruments.
With only a few exceptions such as college percussion ensembles, kumi-daiko and drum circles, percussion instruments rarely serve as soloists or standalone ensembles. With that said, percussion is an essential element of Western music, especially during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It’s hard to imagine a Romantic symphony, opera, rock band or Salsa ensemble without the color and drive of percussion.
In some non-Western ensembles such as gagaku, bugaku and gamelan, percussion may also fulfill a director/gate keeper role in holding the players together by controlling and marking off structural units of pieces.
Woman Playing Tsuridaiko (釣り太鼓) | Yashima Gakutei, c.1786-1868 | The tsuridaiko is a suspended or hanging taiko drum (membranophone) played in bugaku ensembles. | Art Gallery of South Australia
Membranophone
Neolithic Artifacts
Idiophone
Definite Pitch Percussion
Indefinite Pitch Percussion
Role of Percussion
