What are percussion instruments?
by Shelby Coleman
Percussion instruments are those that make a sound when they are struck, shaken, or scraped ("The Percussion Family", Oregon Symphony). Some percussion instruments include pitch and can sound as different notes, such as the timpani, piano, and xylophone. Others have no definite pitch, such as the bass drum, cymbals, and castanets. In Advanced Topics in Creative Studies, we learned to play two percussion instruments: the boomwhackers and handbells.
​
Both the boomwhackers and handbells are color-coded by note, so all Cs are red, all Ds are yellow, etc. Boomwhackers are PVC pipes cut to different lengths. The length of the PVC pipe determines its pitch: the longer the pipe, the lower the note. Boomwhackers make a sound when they are struck on the ground or on one's knee, although the ground makes a louder, more identifiable pitch.
Boomwhackers
The handbells we used in ATCS were made for students, so one can either ring a bell with a swift flick of the wrist or by placing the bell on a flat surface and pressing a button on the top of the handle, which then strikes the inside of the bell. As a class, we performed songs in harmony by learning to read sheet music and playing two lines of music at the same time: a bass line and a melodic line. We learned to play "Jingle Bells", "The Dreidel Song", "The Carol of the Bells", and "Ode to Joy", a famous excerpt from Beethoven's 9th and final symphony. Through this process, we learned to work cohesively and communicate with our peers without speaking during songs to hit notes at the correct time. If one person misses or misplaces a note, the entire piece is negatively affected. We were able to display our skills by visiting Upper School classrooms during first period to play our songs.
Handbells
What is sheet music?
