Concert & Orchestral Percussion Instruments
Concert & Orchestral Percussion Instrument Fast Facts
THE TIMPANI – Though usually called by their Italian name, these are the kettledrums. They are shaped like large copper cauldrons with a skin stretched tightly over the open top. Never fewer than two are used at a time, so whatever the language their name is in the plural. Initially the two drums were tuned to the tonic and dominant degrees of whatever key the piece was sin – that is, the first and fifth notes of the scale. Nowadays three or four drums are regularly called for, and their pitches are changed frequently during the course of a movement.
A Brief History of the Concert & Orchestral Percussion Instruments
The percussion section of the orchestra (known in the trade as the ‘kitchen’ department) is now so vast that it is probably best to think of it in terms of two main sections, each with its subdivisions. First come the standard percussion. Instruments that are frequently required and therefore basic to the percussion section include: timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, wood block, tamtam, glockenspiel, celesta and xylophone. Standard instruments that are required only occasionally and are therefore additional to the basic group include: castanets, tenor drum, bells, antique cymbals, vibraphone and piano.
The second section is known as the auxiliary percussion.
Its exotic instruments, often of oriental and Latin-American origin, include:
maracas, claves, guiro, bongos, timbales, tom-tom and temple blocks. Auxiliary
instruments that are really ‘sound effects’ include: sleight bells, sand
block, rattle, whip, cowbells, anvil, wind machine and thunder sheet.
The kettledrum is a tuned instrument. Until quite recent times the stretched
calfskin which formed the drum ‘head’ was held in place by a wooden hoop,
over which was fitted a metal counter-hoop. This metal hoop could be raised
and lowered by means of a set of screws (usually eight) attached to the
body or ‘shell’ of the drum.
The glockenspiel and celesta are both metallophones, the first having a resemblance to a small xylophone and the second to a small piano. ‘Glockenspiel’ means ‘bell-play’ in German. The glockenspiel used in marching bands is a set of steel bars set in a lyre-shaped frame. Mozart specified an instrumento d’acciaio for the part of Papageno’s magic bells in Die Zauberflote. While the glockenspiel is played by a percussionist, the celesta is often played by a pianist. It was invented in 1886 by Mustel, the maker of harmoniums.
The chimes, or tubular bells, are also made of metal. They cover a chromatic compass of an octave and a third. The eighteen bells are hung in two rows and are struck near the top. ‘Their effect is dramatic rather than musical,’ was the opinion of Berlioz.
The xylophone is of ancient Asiatic bars, played with beaters similar to those used for the glockenspiel. The resonance of the bars is augmented by metal tubes fixed below each one. The whole arrangement, which when seen from above resembles and outsize piano keyboard, is built into a wheeled frame supplied with brakes to prevent it wandering around the platform.
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