Ms. Galligan's Music Class: Hit, rub, scrape, or shake - that's what makes percussion great!

The 4th and 5th graders started their unit on instrument families with the percussion family!

Snare Drum (link to video below)

Bass Drum (link to Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO) Kids page on the bass drum, including a sound clip of it)

Marching Percussion (including snare drum, bass drum, and tenor drums; link to video below - the Bluecoats drumline warming up for a competition in 2014)

Timpani (link to video below)

Xylophone (link to DSO Kids page on the xylophone, including three sound clips of it)

Marimba (link to video below; everything is bigger than the xylophone - the bars, the resonators (tubes underneath the bars that amplify the sound), the range, and the sound, which has longer resonance than the xylophone - a way to remember this difference is "massive marimba")

Also, check out this video of Pulaski High School student Destin Wernicke performing his composition for marimba, "Going Home." (If you search his name on YouTube, you can also find videos of him performing on drumset, piano, and more.)

Vibraphone (link to world-famous jazz vibraphonist Joe Locke's video page of his website. We watched the beginning of "Summertime" in class.)

Glockenspiel (aka orchestra bells or bells) (link to DSO Kids page on the glockenspiel, including three sound clips of it)

Chimes (aka tubular bells) (link to video below)

Piano
The piano is often considered a percussion instrument because its sound is produced by a hammer striking a string when the corresponding key is pressed (link to animated video below).

Want to see other ways the piano can be used as a percussion instrument? This video by the Piano Guys is really neat! (Actually, all their videos are neat - check them out on YouTube!)

Crash Cymbals (watch the video for timpani near the top of this post, and pay attention to the crash cymbals. Remember the purposes for holding the cymbals so high - the sound waves can carry over the orchestra instead of getting blocked/absorbed by the orchestra, and humans are visual creatures, so it's easier to pick out the sound when you can see the instrument creating the sound.)

Tambourine (link to video below)