According to etymologists, the term percussion derives from the Latin percussio and it means the action and effect of beating or striking repeatedly. Other definitions, specifically referring to the field of music, say that percussion is the effect of striking a soundboard to make it vibrate and emit sound. Human creativity has used percussion to give rise to a family of instruments that comprisesa whole range, from those that are probably more ancient and simple and rudimentary to perform, up to the most modern and complex.
The etymology begins with German organ performer and composer Michail Praetorius, who in 1619 wrote about percussa, klopfende Instrumente ( klopfen is German for beating or striking). As a physical sound producing process, percussion produces the vibration of bodies by means of a strike that shakes molecules violently, shifting them from their previous place, and causing a reaction of the material to return to the original position. These oscillations are transmitted from the particles that are directly striken to adjacent ones, which react in turn, giving rise to wave series that will be uniform when the physical conditions are homogeneous, and will combine in multiple and varied waves in direct relation to the heterogeneity of their constituting properties—such as different densities, stresses, tuning, thickness of the material—and depending on exogenous factors such as the intensity, velocity and location of the strikes.
The molecular sonority of bodies offers interesting singularities for percussion. Without considering factors such as shape, surface area, thickness, tuning, tension, density, etc. that could modify this scale, metals rank first in terms of the sonority of striken bodies. Then come crystals, hide, stone, earthenware, wood and plastic.
Percussion instruments are usually classified into two groups: idiophones, in which their own substance vibrates to produce sounds, and membrane-based, that issue sound based on the vibration of a stretched membrane.
The percussion of the instruments is carried out in very diverse manners: by striking the instrument itself or its parts against each other (for example: castanets, finger cymbals, goat hoofs, tambourines, cymbal, etc.); beating with the hand (for example: tambourines, bongos, etc.); using sticks or drumsticks (for example: drums, side drums, etc.); using large or small mallets (for example: bass drum, timbals, etc.); with metallic rods or felt-covered hammers (for example: triangles, gongs, tam-tams, etc.); by internal clappers (for example: bells); with loose balls enclosed within the instrument (for example: jingle bells, rattles, etc.); using felt-covered hammers that strike on metal chords or reeds (for example: piano, celeste); with metallic reeds struck or rubbed on barbs sticking out from a rotary cylinder (for example: music boxes); with drumsticks that strike on vibrating wood or metal reeds that may be attached or not to resonance tubes (for example: marimbas, xylophones).
Together with string and wind instruments, the group of percussion instruments is one of the three instrumental groups that form the structure of the Western symphony orchestra. The percussion group is usually made up of timbals, drums, plates and bass drums and cymbals, and the performers of the last four instruments are usually also responsible for the so-called accessories.
Although the function of percussion instruments is typically associated to delineating or emphasizing rhythm, many of the idiophones and some of the membranophones can be tuned. Some of them are also instruments with melodic capabilities, endowed with great powers of expression.
Ensemble Percusión Sur plays it music by employing these competencies. The arrangements are based with preference on the quintet of plate instruments
–glockenspiel, xylophne, vibraphone and sharp and bass marimbas– also using a broad variety of membraphone instruments and accessories as required by the score.
This inclination towards plates results from the preference for melodic music. The arrangements are conceived as an orchestration in their instrumentation for plates, with a cuasi-symphonic result. The works of universal musical literature have always been transcribed for the most diverse ensembles of instruments. Why, therefore, not for a percussion group?
Classification of modern percussion instruments
Idiophones
xylophones;
metalphones (sets of tunable metal or wood bars);
percussion tubes (singles and in tunable sets);
percussion vessels (gongs; bells; musical vases; etc.);
shakeable (jingle bells; maracas etc.);
friction (sandpaper; guiro; etc.).
Membranophones
timbals, drums (with defined and undefined tuning);
side drums;
friction drums (non tunable);
mirlitons (non tunable: their membrane sounds due to the vibration produced by an instrument or by the human voice; mirlitons are also added to the resounders of the authoctonous marimbas).
Accessories
They form the most variegated group in the large family of percussion instruments. Seen from the structure of the symphony orchestra (although this classification may overlap with the previous one) they are all those instruments different from the basic ones in the orchestra. Thus we have triangles, tambourines, jingle bells, cowbells, wood blocks, temple blocks, chimes (generally tubular, but also flat and with other shapes apart from the traditional ones), gongs, tam-tams, ratchets, rattles, jaw bones (or their current replacement, the vibraslap), fustas, whistles, swanee (sliding piston whistle), claxons, bells, sirens, wine glasses and many, many more.
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