Timpani were originally tuned manually with rim lugs in the manner of tom toms and snare drums, but a design breakthrough in the 1870s enabled players to set pitch with a pedal attachment, which also made comedic glissando effects possible. A pedal attachment enables these tuned drums to change pitch quickly during a performance. Timpani play a vital role in orchestral music. The drum evolved from 12th-entury military ‘kettledrums’ to become the aristocracy’s cavalry signalling instruments, thereafter rising even higher up the social scale to symbolise the power of the crown: players were regarded as equal in rank to officers and dressed in the same way as knights (no kitchen duties there, then). The principal orchestral percussion instrument is the timpani, a large, resonant, thin-shelled metal drum made in various sizes which plays in the bass register and can be tuned according to the needs of the music.
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In this article we’ll explore the role of traditional symphonic percussion and explore how it’s been supplemented by non-Western instruments in film and TV soundtracks. Thankfully, despite such outdated stereotyping, percussion has thrown off its chains, broken out of the imaginary ‘kitchen’ and now occupies its own suite in the palatial mansion of modern orchestral music. Unsurprisingly, the BBC’s ‘Orchestras and Singers - Guide to the Orchestra’ archived web page perpetuates this old-fashioned attitude, adding the off-colour aside, “What is a percussion instrument? Well, in the simplest terms it’s something you hit that isn’t your brother or sister!” Other descriptions from the same source include: “The piano was originally used in the orchestra to add strength to weak bits of music,” and “The xylophone is made of bits of wood that are tuned to different notes.” Dumbing down, or what? This highbrow take on today’s ‘three musicians and a drummer’ joke likened percussion to the noisy clatter of pots and pans, a view I doubt Evelyn Glennie would share.
Symphonic percussion joins forces with ethnic drums in the modern Hybrid Orchestra.Ĭlassical musicians of yesteryear used to refer jokingly to the percussion section as ‘the kitchen department’.
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