60 Second Guide to the Percussion Section

The Percussion Section

The percussion section is one of the four instrument families in an orchestra. Typically, the percussion section is divided into three sub-sections: pitched percussion, auxiliary percussion, and the timpani.
Pitched percussion includes instruments that can produce musical notes or pitches. These include the xylophone, glockenspiel, marimba, and tubular bells, to name just a few. Auxiliary percussion consists of unpitched percussion instruments, such as those found on a typical drumkit. Auxiliary percussion instruments include the bass drum, snare drum, clash symbols, and smaller instruments such as whistles, shakers, bells, and the triangle. Finally, despite the timpani being pitched, it is often grouped into its own section when discussing the percussion instruments in an orchestra, because the timpani player is usually devoted entirely to that instrument as a specialist performer.
A typical orchestra will have between 3 to 5 percussionists, most of whom will be multi-instrumentalists, capable of playing more than one percussion instrument.

[debbiewainwright]

Are you planing on doing Strings and Woodwind soon? These videos are a really great teaching resource, thank you.