Talk:Unpitched percussion instrument

This article is made up

All instruments have pitch, how on earth can you say a cowbell does not have pitch? Snare drums, bass drums, toms etc all have pitch, some things have more obvious pitch like a cowbell or triangle.

So this appears to be original research possibly based on classical musical theory, but as far as I was aware classical musicians knew about this to and tuned their drums. I'd love to challange this article but well how could we (aside from no citations) because it's not science it's just opinionsDarkShroom (talk) 21:42, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Agree the article lacks and needs citations, and is vulnerable to a charge of WP:OR without them. Care to help?

But it's a very important topic, and one widely misunderstood. You say as far as I was aware classical musicians knew about this to and tuned their drums. Yes, and so do we rock and jazz musos, we even commonly call a drum key a drum tuning key, but that doesn't make our drums tuned percussion.

Keep reading and wrangling. But this isn't just opinion. You'll find no support, for example, for regarding timbales as pitched percussion. You will find many people confused on the subject [1].

I don't say a cowbell does not have pitch, and neither I hope does the article. But it's often not perceived to have pitch. Listen to Wishing Well; What note is the cowbell? But agree Snare drums, bass drums, toms etc all have pitch. Some day I'd like to find time to set up a scale of tuned snare drums and video myself playing a tune on them and put it on YouTube, just to show it's possible. Andrewa (talk) 11:41, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

For well over two hundred years orchestration texts, and teachers of orchestration have divided percussion instruments into two basic categories: pitched, and unpitched. With the few exceptions of special drums specifically designed to have clear pitch (timpani; roto-toms), most skin-head drums are, and have traditionally be considered "unpitched".

Clearly, though, it is possible to play most of these instruments in such a way as to emphasize what pitch characteristics they /do/ have, and from the early 20th century onwards a number of composers have done just that. This does not, however, necessarily invalidate the earlier classification, any more than preparing a piano means it should be classified as "unpitched," or playing a guitar with a bow means that it's now some kind of violin.

And, there have always been percussion instruments of definite, yet ambiguous pitch. Timbale instruction books, for example, usually specify that the two drums be tuned a perfect fourth apart -- yet the reference pitch for tuning them is not fixed. You /could/ however, tune then to a specific pitch and use them as pitched percussion; however, that is not their *usual* function, *most* of the time.

I suggest sticking with the traditional pitched/unpitched categories, but adding a section on "Contemporary Techniques," in which mention is made of the use of these instruments as "pitched" by some composers, perhaps with links to a few good examples.

Finally, the article, while far from complete, represents neither "original research," nor personal opinion. It is an accurate representation of orchestration practices and texts going back at least to the time of Mozart. Some good references that would support it include the orchestration texts of Berlioz and Piston, and "Percussion Instruments and Their History", by James Blades. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.92.174.105 (talk) 03:22, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Good observations. Sorry I missed them back in February. You obviously know a great deal about percussion, and I hope you might consider joining WikiProject Percussion.

But a few replies. First paragraph: With the few exceptions of special drums specifically designed to have clear pitch (timpani; roto-toms), most skin-head drums are, and have traditionally be considered "unpitched". Perhaps. Some kit drummers do tune their toms and even bass and snare to definite pitches; Phil Treloar introduced me to this concept in the late 1960s, at that time he tuned his bass drum to G and then went up in fourths, floor tom C, hanging tom F, snare Bb. Many players of very large kits tune their smaller toms at least to definite pitches, even if the rest of the kit is not so structured. Personally, I tune the heads of my toms to the shells, so to no particular note of any scale; I think this is by far the most common approach, although most drummers who adopt it have no idea that this is what they are doing!

Disagree that the prepared piano and golpe on the guitar can be considered as pitched anything. What notes are they playing? What pitches do these notes represent? If we can't answer these questions, then how can it possibly be pitched?

Agree that the awesome 1971 standard text of James Blades and the arrangement and orchestration texts of Hector Berlioz, Walter Piston and others are key references. But they do not tell the full story. Berlioz and Piston are firmly anchored in the western orchestral tradition, as was Blades at the time of writing Percussion Instruments and their History. These days there are many serious students of, and writers on, percussion and its theory outside of this particular genre... a movement in which Blades himself was of course a key player, and the teacher and inspiration of many significant rock and jazz drummers (and similarly Vic Firth and many if not most other important orchestral percussionists of the time... I can remember when there were just two significant grades of drum stick, Vic Firth and others). Blades' later works reflect this.

More to follow... Andrewa (talk) 21:34, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Re: prepared piano picture

I see no knives. I see a dinner fork and what looks like a fondue fork. They do not appear to be interferring, though perhaps this is a musical term I am not familiar with.Gimelgort (talk) 04:52, 18 January 2014 (UTC)