A pitched percussion instrument is a percussion instrument used to produce musical notes of one or more pitches, as opposed to an unpitched percussion instrument which is used to produce sounds of indefinite pitch.
The term pitched percussion is now preferred to the traditional term tuned percussion:
- Many untuned percussion instruments, such as the snare drum, are tuned by the player, but this tuning does not relate to a particular pitch.
- Untuned percussion instruments can and frequently do make sounds that could be used as pitched notes in an appropriate context.
This second consideration also means that the traditional division into tuned and untuned percussion is to some extent oversimplified:
- Some percussion instruments, such as the tympani and glockenspiel, are almost always used as pitched percussion.
- Some percussion instruments, and particularly many types of bell and closely related instruments, are sometimes used as pitched percussion, and at other times as unpitched percussion.
- Some percussion instruments, such as the snare drum, are almost always used as unpitched percussion.
Pitched percussion includes the overlapping classes of:
- Mallet percussion, instruments such as the glockenspiel and chime bars, played in a particular way.
- Keyboard percussion, instruments such as the glockenspiel and tubular bells arranged in a particular way (but not including the celesta and other keyboard instruments despite the name).
- Melodic percussion, instruments used to produce several different pitches.
Famous quotes containing the words pitched, percussion and/or instrument:
“At no time in history ... have the people who are not fit for society had such a glorious opportunity to pretend that society is not fit for them. Knowledge of the slums is at present a passport to society—so much the parlor philanthropists have achieved—and all they have to do is to prove that they know their subject. It is an odd qualification to have pitched on; but gentlemen and ladies are always credulous, especially if you tell them that they are not doing their duty.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)
“We got our new rifled muskets this morning. They are mostly old muskets, many of them used, altered from flint-lock to percussion ... but the power of the gun was fully as great as represented. The ball at one-fourth mile passed through the largest rails; at one-half mile almost the same.... I think it an excellent arm.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)