Music Fundamentals
Other Percussion

In addition to drums (in which a stretched membrane is struck), percussion instruments include idiophones -- instruments in which the entire body is set into motion. There are an enormous variety of idiophones in a modern percussionist's collection. Made from metal (triangle, cymbals), wood (wood blocks, claves), or sometimes other material.

Here is an example of a guiro, a hand-held hollow piece of wood with notches on the outside, played by rubbing a stick across the notches:

Some idiophones can be tuned to a particular pitch. In such a case, the vibrating bodies are often collected into a larger instrument configured like a piano keyboard and played with mallets. The xylophone is an instrument made of wooden bars:

The glockenspiel or bells is a high instrument made of metal bars:

The celesta also has metal bars, but it is played as a keyboard instrument rather than with mallets.

The vibraphone is a larger, lower instrument with metal bars, but it has a mechanism that can create a fluttering sound (a tremolo):


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