Percussion Instrument - Classification

Classification

Hornbostel–Sachs has no high-level section for percussion. Most percussion instruments (as the term is normally understood) are classified as idiophones and membranophones. However the term percussion is instead used at the lower levels of the Hornbostel–Sachs hierarchy, including to identify instruments struck either with a non-sonorous object (hand, stick, striker) or against a non-sonorous object (human body, the ground) as opposed to concussion which refers to instruments in which two or more complementary sonorous parts are struck against each other, and for other purposes. For example:

111.1 Concussion idiophones or clappers, played in pairs and beaten against each other, such as zills and clapsticks.

111.2 Percussion idiophones, includes many percussion instruments played with the hand or by a percussion mallet, such as the hang, gongs and the xylophone, but not drums and only some cymbals.

21 Struck drums, includes most types of drum, such as the timpani and snare drum.

412.12 Percussion reeds, a class of wind instrument unrelated to percussion in the more common sense

There are many instruments that have some claim to being percussion, but are classified otherwise:

• Keyboard instruments such as the celesta and piano.
• Stringed instruments played with beaters such as the hammered dulcimer.
• Unpitched whistles and similar instruments, such as the pea whistle and Acme siren.

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 a family of musical instruments including drums, rattles, metal plates, or blocks which musicians would beat or strike (as in a collision) to produce sound.