Onomatopoeia: What Does the Drummer Say?

Onomatopoeia: The creation of words that imitate natural sounds (or, more simply, words that sound like the noises they describe). Examples: buzz, hiss, hiccup, boom, bang, crack, splash, crash

Want some more examples? Check out this website, which has 101 examples of onomatopoeic words!

Using onomatopoeia in your writing can help your reader imagine what you're describing more clearly. For example, which of the following sentences creates a more vivid (clear and intense) picture in your head?

1. The thunder shook my windows and startled me.
2. The booming thunder rattled my windows and startled me. 

Notice how the onomatopoeia ("booming," "rattled") in sentence #2 helps describe the sounds the thunder and windows made. That helps me imagine that I'm actually experiencing the booming thunder and rattling windows because the situation is described more in more detail.

If you know any percussionists, you might hear onomatopoeia when they "sing" their parts. When we sing through melodic parts (for strings, woodwinds, brass, or keyboard percussion parts), we can sing the pitches using a neutral syllable (like "la," "da," "loo," or something else) or solfege (do, re, mi, etc.). However, what happens when you try to sing parts for drums and auxiliary percussion?

What kinds of alternate sounds can you come up with for some of the sounds you hear in the Eastern Michigan University Drumline's Series?

If you spelled them out, would they look something like the words in this percussion-inspired video? It's a parody (silly version) of "The Fox."

DRUM card opportunity: Email me a sentence or two using at least two onomatopoeic words of your choice. (Check out the link at the beginning of this post for more ideas.)