Percussion instruments for kids: what they are and how each one sounds

A percussion instrument is one that a player hits, shakes, or scrapes to make sound. The family includes drums, cymbals, the triangle, the xylophone, and dozens more. Some play notes and can carry a tune. Others make a sound with no clear note and are used for rhythm and color.

A young child can try percussion at home with a pot and a wooden spoon.

Two kinds of percussion

Tuned percussion plays notes. The timpani, the xylophone, the glockenspiel, the marimba, the tubular bells, and the celesta are all tuned.

Untuned percussion makes a sound without a set note. The snare drum, the bass drum, the cymbals, the triangle, the tambourine, the gong, the castanets, and the wood block are untuned.

The main instruments

Timpani. Large copper bowls with a skin or plastic head stretched across the top. They are also called kettledrums. Each drum plays one note at a time, and a foot pedal tightens or loosens the skin to change it. An orchestra often has a set of four, played by one person.

Snare drum. A small drum with metal wires stretched across the bottom skin. The wires rattle when the top is hit, and that gives the drum its crisp buzz.

Bass drum. The biggest drum. It stands on its side and gives a low boom.

Cymbals. Two round metal plates. The player crashes them together, or hangs one and strikes it with a stick.

Triangle. A steel rod bent into a triangle, open at one corner, struck with a small metal beater. Its ring cuts through a whole orchestra.

Tambourine. A hoop with pairs of small metal discs set into it. The player shakes it or taps it.

Xylophone. Rows of wooden bars laid out like piano keys, hit with hard mallets. The sound is dry and bright.

Glockenspiel. Small metal bars laid out the same way. It rings like bells.

Marimba. A large relative of the xylophone, with wooden bars and a tube under each one. The sound is lower and softer.

Celesta. It looks like a small piano. Inside, hammers strike metal bars.

Piano. Hammers inside a piano strike its strings, so in an orchestra it is often counted with the percussion.

A percussion player may play many of these in a single concert, walking from one to the next between entries.

A piece to hear for each one

Timpani. The opening of the Christmas Oratorio by Bach, which begins with five drum strokes alone.

Snare drum. Boléro by Ravel. One snare drum plays the same rhythm from the first bar to the last.

Xylophone. “Fossils” from The Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saëns. See the Carnival of the Animals guide.

Celesta. “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” from The Nutcracker. See the Nutcracker Suite guide.

Triangle. “Anitra’s Dance” from the Peer Gynt Suite by Grieg. See the Peer Gynt guide.

Cymbals and bass drum. The last minutes of the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky.

The whole section. The percussion variation in The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, where each instrument enters in turn.

A surprise. “The Typewriter” by Leroy Anderson, from 1950. A real typewriter plays the solo, bell and all.

Things to do together

Kitchen band. Gather a pot, a pan lid, a wooden spoon, and a jar of dry rice with the lid on tight. Sort them into things you hit and things you shake. Play along with a march.

Water glasses. Line up five matching glasses. Fill each to a different level. Tap each one with a spoon. The glass with the most water gives the lowest note. Put them in order and try a tune.

Echo. Tap a short rhythm on a table. Your child taps it back. Make each one a little longer.

Loud and soft. Play the same rhythm as soft as you can, then as loud as you can. The words for this are in dynamics in music for kids.

Keep the beat. Set the metronome for kids to a slow speed and tap along. Then speed it up.

Spot the player. Watch a video of an orchestra and find the percussion section at the back. Count how many instruments one player uses.

Print and play

Print the instrument families listening chart and tick the percussion each time you hear it.

For the other three families, go back to instruments of the orchestra for kids. Children who like rhythm instruments often enjoy classes in the Orff approach, which uses xylophones, drums, and other percussion.