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What is This Percussion Instrument?

25K views 25 replies 21 participants last post by  romboid 
#1 ·
Something I'm curious about: what is that percussion instrument that sounds sort of like the sound you would make by clicking your tongue (but much better, naturally :lol:)? It it some kind of wood block? I've heard it used in classical music. There's so many percussion instruments out there that I find it kind of dizzying. But I'm interested in using percussion in my compositions, and learning about what's out there.
 
#2 ·
I know just what you speak of. It also sounds like a horse clip-clopping along, right? I have heard them reffered to as just "wooden blocks" before, or just "the blocks." Maybe there is a real name for them, but if there is I don't know it.
 
#9 ·
It may well be claves, which have a range of sounds because they may be solid or hollow, and can be made from wood, plastic or fibreglass. Hollow wooden blocks are used too, and you may see them in the shape of a skull.
 
#17 ·
A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement, shaken, rubbed, scraped, or by any other action which sets the object into vibration. The term usually applies to an object used in a rhythmic context or with musical intent.

The word "percussion" has evolved from Latin terms: "percussio" (which translates as "to beat, strike" in the musical sense, rather than the violent action), and "percussus" (which is a noun meaning "a beating"). As a noun in contemporary English it is described in Wiktionary as "the collision of two bodies to produce a sound". The usage of the term is not unique to music but has application in medicine and weaponry, as in percussion cap, but all known and common uses of the word, "percussion", appear to share a similar lineage beginning with the original Latin: "percussus". In a musical context then, the term "percussion instruments" may have been coined originally to describe family of instruments including drums, rattles, metal plates, or wooden blocks which musicians would beat or strike (as in a collision) to produce sound.
 
#19 ·
A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement, shaken, rubbed, scraped, or by any other action which sets the object into vibration. The term usually applies to an object used in a rhythmic context or with musical intent.

The word "percussion" has evolved from Latin terms: "percussio" (which translates as "to beat, strike" in the musical sense, rather than the violent action), and "percussus" (which is a noun meaning "a beating"). As a noun in contemporary English it is described in Wiktionary as "the collision of two bodies to produce a sound". The usage of the term is not unique to music but has application in medicine and weaponry, as in percussion cap, but all known and common uses of the word, "percussion", appear to share a similar lineage beginning with the original Latin: "percussus". In a musical context then, the term "percussion instruments" may have been coined originally to describe family of instruments including drums, rattles, metal plates, or wooden blocks which musicians would beat or strike (as in a collision) to produce sound.
 
#24 · (Edited)
Something I'm curious about: what is that percussion instrument that sounds sort of like the sound you would make by clicking your tongue (but much better, naturally :lol:)? It it some kind of wood block? I've heard it used in classical music.
Now if you mean something like that wooden sound in Prokofiev's orchetral works, it's simply indicated a Legno (wood) in the score ... listen to Alexander Nevsky Cantata for example ...
 
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