Percussion instrument

“ The Christmas Night 180, 13th bar—'Cellos glissando.-117-
Use of percussion instruments for rhythm and colour.
Whenever some portion of the orchestra executes a rhythmic figure, percussion instruments should always be employed concurrently. An insignificant and playful rhythm is suitable to the triangle, tambourine, castanets and side drum, a vigourous and straightforward rhythm may be given to the bass drum, cymbals and gong. The strokes on these instruments should almost invariably correspond to the strong beats of the bar, highly-accented syncopated notes or disconnected sforzandi. ”

“ The ou, of which we give a woodcut, likewise an ancient Chinese instrument of percussion and still in use, is made of wood in the shape of a crouching tiger. It is hollow, and along its back are about twenty small pieces of metal, pointed, and in appearance 43 not unlike the teeth of a saw. The performer strikes them with a sort of plectrum resembling a brush, or with a small stick called tchen. Occasionally the ou is made with pieces of metal shaped like reeds. ”

“ These instruments have neither strings, nor holes, nor keys. They are simply beaten, or shaken.
In his definition of percussion instruments Gevaert subdivides them into two groups: Autophonic Instruments, and Membrane Instruments. Autophonic Instruments are those in which the tone is produced by the vibration of solid bodies (made of metal or wood) , and which are of a nature sufficiently elastic to keep up the vibratory motion that has been given to them by the blow from the performer. These include instruments of definite pitch, such as bells, glockenspiel and celesta ”

“ Modern skill has not added one new means, but has simply improved the contrivances by which musical sound is produced. We can, however, trace the evolution and growth of the various instruments with considerable accuracy, and to this end it is of the utmost importance to have a clear understanding of the principles upon which musical instruments are constructed, in order to avoid bewilderment among the endless variety that have been and are yet made. All instruments may be divided into three general classes: Percussion Instruments, Wind Instruments, Stringed Instruments. ”

“ They therefore form a single group or family, known as the “wood-wind,” or, more briefly, the wood. Horns, trumpets, and trombones [Pg 5] are instruments of brass, and they form a family known as the brass. The percussion instruments (drums, triangles, cymbals, etc.) are sometimes called “the battery.” Violins, violas, violoncellos (usually called ’cellos) , and double-basses are all stringed instruments played with a bow, and they form a group known as “the strings.” ”

“ The trombones, trumpets and tuba are occasionally tacet for long periods, the percussion is seldom employed, and practically never all together, but in single instruments or in two's and three's. In national dances or music in ballad style, percussion instruments may be used more freely.
After a long rest the re-entry of the horns, trombones and tuba should coincide with some characteristic intensity of tone, either pp or ff; piano and forte re-entries are less successful, while re-introducing these instruments mezzo-forte or mezzo-piano produces a colourless and common-place effect. ”

“ Among the percussion instruments are tambourines, castanets and cymbals; they had wind instruments such as flutes (seldom transverse or blown in from the side, and often played by blowing on them through the nostrils) , trumpets, horns, bagpipes and oboes. Certain instruments were used only by the priests, others by beggars, and others by dancing girls. Imagine how weird a story could be told in music if a modern symphony orchestra played a piece of music telling of life among the Hindus. Maybe some of the readers of this book will get an idea for a Hindu tone poem, who knows? ”

“ The evolution of instruments of percussion requires but brief mention. Sound-producing apparatus devoid of definite pitch belongs to the initial attempts of primitive men to assist vocal expression of emotional feeling, to accompany religious orgies, or to encourage their warriors on the march. The modern orchestra includes the best of these primitive species, transformed into perfected types of genuine artistic value, and has also drawn into requisition various instruments originating in countries that are far apart. Most commonly used are the bass-drum, the cymbals, and the triangle. ”

“ Instruments of percussion of definite sonorousness are chiefly met with in China, Japan, Burmah, Siam, and Java. They not unfrequently contain a series of tones produced by slabs of wood or metal, which are beaten with a sort of hammer, as our harmonicon is played.
Stringed instruments without a finger board, or any similar contrivance which enables the performer to produce a number of different tones on one string, are generally found among nations whose musical accomplishments have emerged from the earliest state of infancy. ”

“ Uniting plucked strings and percussion with instruments of sustained resonance results in the following: wind instruments, wood and brass, strengthen and clarify pizzicato strings, harp, kettle-drums and percussion generally, the latter lending a touch of relief to the tone of the wood-wind. Uniting plucked strings and percussion with bowed instruments does not produce such a satisfactory blend, both qualities being heard independently. The combination of plucked strings with percussion alone, is excellent ”

“ Besides these various kinds of sound-producing means employed in musical performances, a few others less widely diffused could be pointed out, which are of a construction not represented in any of our well-known European specimens. For instance, some nations have peculiar instruments of friction, which can hardly be classed with our instruments of percussion. Again, there are contrivances in which a number of strings are caused to vibrate by a current of air, much as is the case with the Æolian harp ”

“ He increased the variety and usefulness of the instruments of percussion, forming out of them a new family of instruments to balance the families of the strings, brass, and wood-wind. In the score of the Second Symphony he calls for six timpani, bass and snare-drums, a high and a low tam-tam, cymbals, a triangle, glockenspiel, three deep-toned bells, in the chief orchestra; besides a bass-drum, triangle and cymbals in the supplementary. In the Eighth Symphony, the instruments of percussion form a little band by themselves. ”

“ Score-readers will often find the parts for those instruments of percussion which are without musical pitch, such as triangles, cymbals, bass-drums, etc., written not on a stave, but on a single line. ”

“ The toothed bow of the left wing-case is the motor; the friction-nervure of the right wing-case is the point of concussion; the stretched membrane of the mirror is the resonator, to which vibration is communicated by the shaking of the surrounding frame. Our own music has many vibrating membranes; but these are always affected by direct percussion. Bolder than [263] our makers of musical instruments, the Decticus combines the bow with the drum. ”

“ From the Roman lituus and buccina devolved side by side the trombe and Zinken of the Middle Ages. Experimental development through the stages of bent tubes, slide mechanism, finger holes, removable crooks, chromatic valves, perfected the valve-trumpet, the bugle-horn, the slide-trombone.
Instruments of percussion are the parents of all other instruments. Certain species subsequently became distinctly characteristic of certain distinct races; those most effective are now incorporated in the modern orchestra. ”

“ Neither musical feeling nor the ear itself can stand, for long, the full resources of the orchestra combined together. The favourite group of instruments is the strings, then follow in order the wood-wind, brass, kettle-drums, harps, pizzicato effects, and lastly the percussion, also, in point of order, triangle, cymbals, big drum, side drum, tambourine, gong. Further removed stand the celesta, glockenspiel and xylophone, which instruments, though melodic, are too characteristic in timbre to be employed over frequently. ”

“ We have now to look to something slightly resembling the principle of the violin or of the organ, in order to secure the additional sostenuto effect for which we are searching. Having to deal with a piano in practically its existing form, we obviously require to take special account of the fact that the note is begun by percussion, and that any attempt to bring a solid substance into contact with the wire while still vibrating, with the object of continuing its motion, is likely to produce more or less of a jarring effect. ”

“ Opportunity for obtaining pure tone-color in independent harmony from each family of the brass is effected by employing four horns, by the union of two trumpets and two cornets, by adding to the three trombones a bass-tuba, and by making further requisition for two opheicleides, which together with the bass-tuba are capable of independent deployment. The strings are reënforced by two harps. The array of instruments of percussion would appear rather formidable; nevertheless, they are never used aggressively. ”

“ As regards instruments of percussion, a kind of drum deserves special notice on account of the ingenuity evinced in its construction. The Mexicans called it teponaztli. They generally made it of a single block of very hard wood, somewhat oblong square in shape, which they hollowed, leaving at each end a solid piece about three or four inches in thickness, and at its upper side a kind of sound-board about a quarter of an inch in thickness. ”

“ The [198] sound is clear, deep, and sonorous, nothing at all like the dull and thick tone of the ordinary double–bass. The fingering is done by means of mechanism connected with keys at the lower end of the finger–board, which the performer, standing on a stool, easily reaches with the left hand, while with the right he draws a big bow across the strings. The use of this instrument must be reserved for the grander effects of harmony. It is like the sub–bass of the organ. ”

“ Another advantage is that the two hands of the auscultator are left free to practice the method of auscultatory percussion--a method which has not yet received the attention it deserves, and which, it is to be hoped, will come into more general use. ”

“ But there can be no percussion without movement, and sound is not produced by the percussion of any kind of substance, as we have said, (since wool, however percussed, does not, while brass and smooth and hollow bodies—brass because it is smooth—do give out sound,) and hollow bodies create, by reflexion, many percussions after the first, owing to the medium within them having been set in motion and being unable to make its escape. ”

“ Likewise some negro tribes in western and central Africa have certain instruments of percussion which are constructed on a principle somewhat reminding us of the teponaztli. The method of bracing the drum by means of cords, as exhibited in the huehueil of the Mexican Indians, is evidently of very high antiquity in the east. It was known to the ancient Egyptians.
Rattles, pandean pipes made of reed, and conch trumpets, are found almost all over the world, wherever the materials of which they are constructed are easily obtainable. ”

“ The percussion on the keys is effected solely by the fingers, which, without any actual blow, must press each key firmly down; and in doing this, neither the hand nor the arm must be allowed to make any unnecessary movements. The thumb should always strike the key with its external narrow surface, and in so doing it must be but very little bent. ”

“ So far as the elementary principles which govern its action are concerned, the violin follows familiar laws (see Sound) . The different notes of the scale are produced by vibrating strings differing in weight and tension, and varying in length under the hand of the player. The vibrations of the .strings are conveyed through the bridge to the body of the instrument, which fulfils the common function of a resonator in reinforcing the notes initiated by the strings. So far first principles carry us at once. ”

“ The tapping or sounding can be done in the way usual with dealers and repairers, that is, by the knuckle joints of the hand rapping round the instrument, but this is sometimes deceptive, the tendons over the bones of the hand interfering and occasionally causing a double sound, and so defeating the efforts at discovery. A more delicate and therefore better means of testing is by the use of a felted hammer of the kind and size acting on the bass string of a grand pianoforte ”

“ To rouse the dormant action of cold skin and flabby muscle, percussion will be of the first importance, and will alternate with friction and manipulation. Percussion is in massage what faradization is in electricity, and will often answer the same purpose; manipulation, or deep-kneading, is to massage what the constant current is to electricity, and the ultimate effects of each are very much alike. ”

“ In his third paragraph he claims that he has merely suggested that friction and percussion may often be one and the same thing; and immediately claims that in the case of the polished button rubbing a planed pine board, the force which overcomes and levels the undulations of the wood, is percussion, and that percussion is also the cause of the heat; the microscopic hills and hollows on the shining brass button skipping and jumping along the pine, produces little infinitesimal bumpings, and so pound out the heat. ”

“ For convenience of holding, the tubing is bent in a spiral form. There is a tuning slide attached to the body, and, of late years, valves have been added to the horn, similar to those applied to the cornet and other wind instruments. They have, to a considerable extent, superseded hand stopping, by which expedient the intonation could be altered a semitone or whole tone, by depression of the natural notes of the instrument. In brass, or other instruments, the natural harmonics depend on the pressure of blowing ”