Percussion

“ 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. ”

“ But the percussion produced in us when we, by the utterance of a voice, cause a disengagement of certain particles, constitutes a current resembling a light whisper, and prepares an acoustic feeling for us. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Instruments of concussion and percussion, like drums and cymbals, and also wind instruments of shell or horn, and rude forms of bagpipes, are inventions of most savage races; but the production of even the most elementary form of stringed instrument is a distinct advance, showing an understanding, however faint, of the use of vibration in developing and strengthening an original note. ”

“ 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. ”

“ During the three years that I have experimented in psychology with Dr. Puel and his friends, there has been no seance where we have not been able to determine more or less important phenomena of percussion. An experiment I love to make is that of striking my fingers on the table, either to imitate the music of a band with drum accompaniment with some known air, and the same sound is immediately produced on the under surface of the piece of furniture, with the same rhythm appearing to be invoked by an invisible hand performing under the table. ”

“ The instruments used are chiefly of the percussion type and are powerful sound producers. Amongst them are drums, cymbals, tom-toms, gongs and bamboo dulcimers. Stringed instruments are represented by a few squeaky one-stringed fiddles and an instrument that resembles a zither. A terrible wind instrument is sometimes employed when it is desirable to produce a sound that can be calculated to rival that of the bagpipes when played by a zealous but unmusical amateur. ”

“ The percussion instruments, including kettledrums, bass drums, and cymbals, are the least important of all the musical instruments; and are usually of service merely in adding to the excitement and general effect of an orchestra. ”

“ Pfund's tuning device.
Pitch of the drums.
Qualifications of a drummer.
The percussion apparatus of the modern orchestra includes a multitude of instruments scarcely deserving of description. Several varieties of drums, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, steel bars (Glockenspiel) , gongs, bells, and many other things which we are now inclined to look upon as toys, rather than as musical instruments, are brought into [Pg 111] play for reasons more or less fantastic. ”

“ In order to study intelligently the mechanics, or, if you will, the art of touch upon the piano, and in order to comprehend the variety of tone-color which can be produced from it, one must recognize at the outset the fact that the piano is an instrument of percussion. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Personally I have found that by light percussion I can limit with much accuracy the upper, right, and left borders of the heart.
There is much to be gained by using light percussion. Strong blows set in vibration not only the underlying structures, but also more or less of the chest wall. ”

“ Every nation had its own peculiar instruments. Those of percussion seem to us particularly characteristic. Such Oriental coloration as has been applied to our modern music has been usually in the way of rhythm emphasized by strange instruments of percussion. Drums, tam-tams, gongs, etc., do not fail to suggest at once the spirit of barbarous or outlandish peoples. The Peruvians and Aztecs had a variety of drums. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ The principle of the barrel operating by friction, by percussion or by wind on reeds, pipes or strings governs carillons or musical bells, barrel organs, mechanical flutes, celestial voices, harmoniphones, violin-pianos and the orchestrions and polyphons in which a combination of all orchestral effects is attempted. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Instruments of percussion of definite sonorousness are chiefly met with in China, Japan, Burmah, Siam, and Java. They not infrequently 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ A percussion figure consists of linear cracks radiating from the point of impact, which in their number and orientation agree with the symmetry of the face. Thus on a cube face of a crystal of salt the rays of the percussion figure are parallel to the diagonals of the face, whilst on an octahedral face a three-rayed star is developed. By pressing a blunt point into a crystal face a somewhat similar figure, known as a “pressure figure,” is produced. Percussion and pressure figures are readily developed in cleavage sheets of mica (q.v.) ”

“ 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 ”

“ Percussion should then be performed with the woman upon her back, upon the right side, upon the left side, sitting up, and upon the hands and knees. An encysted fluid accumulation will give practically the same result in percussion in all positions, while free fluid will gravitate to the most dependent portion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Two varieties of indirect percussion are illustrated in Figs. 28 and 29. The first is practiced by the Wintuns of California and other tribes. The drawing is made from a very careful description by B. B. Redding. The second is derived from the observations of George Catlin. According to Catlin, the point is sometimes carried to a finish by the indirect stroke, two persons being employed in the operation, as shown in Fig. 29. As a rule, however, the method of manipulation was changed at the proper stage from percussion to pressure.
75
Fig. ”

“ In the second group (the wood-wind) are found the flute, piccolo, oboe, bassoon, English horn, double-bassoon, [Pg 116] clarinet, and bass clarinet. The English horn, double-bassoon, bass clarinet, and piccolo are not called for in the older compositions, hence are not always present in the orchestra.
10. In the third group (the brass choir) are found the French horn, (usually referred to as the horn) , trumpet (sometimes replaced by the cornet) trombone, and tuba.
11. The fourth group (percussion) consists of kettle drums, bass drum, cymbals, snare drum, triangle, bells, etc. ”

“ As rhythm is the heart pulsation of music, [69] it naturally took hold of the first singers of in any measure formulated melody, leading to swaying of the body, clapping of the hands, stamping of the feet, and quickly suggested the employment of other resonant means for marking its progress. Our drums were at first only hollow pieces of wood, our cymbals, triangle, and gong may have had double duties,—musical and culinary,—and our harp and piano were anticipated by single strings stretched to yield a sonorous tone regardless of pitch. ”

“ The string then presses intermittently on the bridge, and this again turns, so to speak, round one foot as round a pivot, and presses intermittently on the elastic wooden belly. The belly takes up these vibrations, and the air in the interior is thrown into sympathetic vibration by resonance. The sound escapes by the ƒ-holes in the belly. The extraordinary thing about the violin is that the shape of the box permits it to take up vibrations lying between all the range of musical tones. The air-cavity does not merely resonate to one note, but to hundreds of different rates of vibration. ”

“ Our churches and theatres are yet much too large, though we do not need pipes or speaking tubes. If we rub our moistened finger along the edge of a drink-big glass, or draw a bow across the strings of a violin, we can in both cases procure sounds which remain undiminished in intensity as long as the operation by which they are excited is continued. If we strike two bells, one of lead, and the other of brass, the sound of the former is feeble and momentary, compared with that of the latter ; so we see, that, though bodies all sound, yet the sounds produced are not all alike. ”

“ It is that which first receives concussion as the bow strikes the strings, which shock travels down the upper surface of the gut from the bridge until the nut at the end of the fingerboard be reached, when it flies under the said string to the bridge again, which communicates the shock to the belly, the belly to the back by soundpost, ribs, neck, scroll, and all about it, to the mass of air in the body of the violin, when comes what we call tone, and rightly do we call it so, if pure vibrations have been brought into play, otherwise noise would be a much safer word to use. ”

“ Where Stringed Instruments Came From We have seen the stringed instrument developed from the bow when primitive man winged his arrow in the hunt, and heard its twang. Later desiring fuller tone, the sounding board grew, when early peoples sank bow-like instruments and reeds into a gourd which increased and reflected the sound as the metal reflector behind a light intensifies it.
308Strings to produce sound, must be rubbed, like the bow drawn across violin strings, plucked as the mandolin or the harp is plucked, or struck with a hammer as was the dulcimer. ”

“ The violin family, the harp, piano, organ, and harmonium, are examples of instruments capable of being tuned. The accordance of the violin, viola, and violoncello, as is well known, is in fifths which are tuned by the player. [1] The harpist also tunes his harp. But the tuning of the piano, organ, and harmonium, is effected by tuners who acquire their art, in the piano especially, by long practice, and adopt tuning, particularly in this country, as an independent calling, having little to do with the mechanical processes of making the instrument. ”