🥁 Percussion family
Percussion
🔊 How it makes sound
Hit, shaken or scraped. Timpani (kettle drums) play exact notes. Snare drum, cymbals and triangle make rhythms and sparkle. The xylophone and glockenspiel have bars for each note.
🎼 Range and clef
Timpani read bass clef; xylophone and glockenspiel read treble. Untuned drums use a single line.
🎨 Its timbre colour
Anything from a thunderous boom to a tiny tinkle.
Timbre is the "colour" of a sound, the idea from Lesson 0. A violin and a flute can play the same note, but you can still tell them apart!
🎧 Listen to
Ravel: "Boléro" (the snare drum plays the whole time!)
💡 Fun fact
Percussion players may play 10 different instruments in one concert.