Drum & Percussion
Musical Instruments

Drum & Percussion Musical Instruments Fast Facts

Apart from the physical effort that goes into beating a drum, the music often gathers its own energy as strong rhythms seem to drive it forward. A vitality is created that sets bodies swaying, hands clapping, and feet tapping. Shaking rattles and scraping instruments often help to whip up the energy of the music. Music, however, is not the sole purpose of these instruments. Drums and rattles have always played an important part in rituals, and “talking” drums can even send messages far afield.

A Brief History of Drum & Percussion Instruments

The origin of percussion instruments presumably goes back to the moment when primitive man first beat out a rhythm on a hollow tree trunk – either for the sheer pleasure of the noise he made, or as a means of communicating over a greater distance than his voice could reach. The surprising thing is that they had to wait so long before they gained admittance into the orchestra.

The first to be accepted were the timpani, or kettledrums. They joined the orchestra at the beginning of the 18th century, together with the trumpets – both on loan from the army. Trumpets and drums tended to go together because both were the prerogative of the cavalry and, since the king always led the cavalry in battle, they were essentially ‘royal’ instruments used for fanfares and signals.

Toward the end of the 18th century new percussion instruments made an appearance as the result of a craze for ‘Turkish’ music. These were cymbals, triangles, bass drum, tambourine, and the forerunners of the glockenspiel, as used by the famous Janissary Bands. They came into the orchestra as exotics, but opened the way to an understanding of percussion instruments as more than mere noise makers.

A more extensive use of percussion came in the 19th century as composers increasingly explored the possibilities of descriptive, program music. Often it was a matter of adding ‘local color’ to a score – a piece in Spanish dance rhythm, for example, would naturally call for castanets and tambourines, while an ‘oriental’ piece would require gongs and bells, and temple blocks. The real breakthrough, however, came in the 20th century when composers began to explore complex rhythms for the first time. In the music of such composers as Bartok and Stravinsky it is the percussive, rhythmic element that is new and exciting, and consequently the percussion department that comes into its own. In many contemporary scores the percussion is all-important and virtually dominates the sound.

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Tama Starclassic 12 Ply Maple Snare	Latin Percussion Aspire Conga Set with Bongos and Stand