A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Excluding zoomusicological instruments and the human voice, the percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments. In spite of being a very common term to designate instruments, and to relate them to their players, the percussionists, percussion is not a systematic classificatory category of instruments, as described by the scientific field of organology. It is shown below that percussion instruments may belong to the organological classes of idiophone, membranophone, aerophone and chordophone.
The xylophone is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel, the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. Each bar is an idiophone tuned to a pitch of a musical scale, whether pentatonic or heptatonic in the case of many African and Asian instruments, diatonic in many western children's instruments, or chromatic for orchestral use.
The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a vibraphonist,vibraharpist, or vibist.
The glockenspiel or bells is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the vibraphone.
Gamelan degung is a form of Sundanese musical ensemble that uses a subset of modified gamelan instruments with a particular mode of degung scale. The instruments are manufactured under local conditions in towns in West Java such as Bogor and Bandung. Degung music is often played at public gatherings in West Java, such as at local elections, as well as many other events. There is international interest in degung as well among communities in other countries interested in Indonesian and gamelan music.
A piphat is a kind of ensemble in the classical music of Thailand, which features wind and percussion instruments. It is considered the primary form of ensemble for the interpretation of the most sacred and "high-class" compositions of the Thai classical repertoire, including the Buddhist invocation entitled sathukan as well as the suites called phleng rueang. It is also used to accompany traditional Thai theatrical and dance forms including khon, lakhon, and shadow puppet theater.
A gangsa is a type of metallophone which is used mainly in Balinese and Javanese Gamelan music in Indonesia. In Balinese gong kebyar styles, there are two types of gangsa typically used: the smaller, higher pitched kantilan and the larger pemade. Each instrument consists of several tuned metal bars each placed over an individual resonator. The bars are hit with a wooden panggul, each producing a different pitch. Duration of sound intensity and sound quality factors are generally accomplished by damping the vibration of the bar with the fingers of the free hand. Balinese gong kebyar gangsas, as with other metallophones in gong kebyar ensembles, are played in neighboring pairs with interlocking, rapid-tempo parts that elaborate on the melody of a piece of music ; these pairs are tuned to be dissonant and create certain wavelengths of sympathetic vibrations to create a shimmering tone that travels long distances. The gangsa is very similar to the old gendér and the saron.
A gendèr is a type of metallophone used in Balinese and Javanese gamelan music. It consists of 10 to 14 tuned metal bars suspended over a tuned resonator of bamboo or metal, which are tapped with a mallet made of wooden disks (Bali) or a padded wooden disk (Java). Each key is a note of a different pitch, often extending a little more than two octaves. There are five notes per octave, so in the seven-note pélog scale, some pitches are left out according to the pathet. Most gamelans include three gendèr, one for sléndro, one for pelog pathet nem and lima, and one for pelog pathet barang.
The ranat ek lek is a metallophone used in the classical music of Thailand. It is the smaller of the two sizes of Thai metallophone; the larger one is called ranat thum lek.
A gambang, properly called a gambang kayu is a xylophone-like instrument used in Indonesian gamelan and kulintang ensembles. It has wooden bars (wilah) in contrast to the metallic ones of the more typical metallophones in a gamelan. A largely obsolete instrument, the gambang gangsa, is a similar instrument made with metal bars.
Struck idiophones is one of the categories of idiophones that are found in the Hornbostel-Sachs system of musical instrument classification.
Traditional Thai musical instruments are the musical instruments used in the traditional and classical music of Thailand. They comprise a wide range of wind, string, and percussion instruments played by both the Thai majority as well as the nation's ethnic minorities.
Ranat is the generic name for keyboard percussion instruments used in the music of Thailand. The bars of the various types of ranat may be made from hardwood or bamboo, metal, or, much more rarely, glass.
The roneat dek is a Cambodian metallophone, comparable to the Roneat ek. It is an ancient instrument made of 21 blackened-iron bars. It may be used in the Pinpeat ensemble and Mahaori orchestra. It is believed to have originated from the Royal Courts before the Angkor period. This instrument is rarely covered with ornamentation on either the bars or the sound box. The roneat dek is analogous to the ranat ek lek of Thailand.
The pattala is a Burmese xylophone, consisting of 24 bamboo slats called ywet(ရွက်) or asan (အဆံ) suspended over a boat-shaped resonating chamber. It is played with two padded mallets. The pattala is tuned similar to the diatonic scale.
A keyboard percussion instrument, also known as a bar or mallet percussion instrument, is a pitched percussion instrument arranged in a similar pattern to a piano keyboard and played with hands or percussion mallets. While most keyboard percussion instruments are fully chromatic, keyboard instruments for children, such as ones used in the Orff Schulwerk, may be diatonic or pentatonic.
This is a partitioned list of percussion instruments showing their usage as tuned or untuned. See pitched percussion instrument for discussion of the differences between tuned and untuned percussion. The term pitched percussion is now preferred to the traditional term tuned percussion:
Song bells are a musical instrument in the keyboard percussion family. They are a mallet percussion instrument in the metallophone family that is essentially a cross between the vibraphone, glockenspiel, and celesta. They have bars made of aluminum.
