Monday, December 15, 2008

Music Monthly - November 2008

Instrument Families

Did you know that musical instruments are categorized by “families?” Well, they are! There are four basic families; string, woodwind, brass and percussion. Instruments are placed in these families because they share certain characteristics such as how they make their sounds, how they are made and what materials are used to make them. Let’s start with the percussion family this month. Percussion instruments are those that are struck, shaken or scraped with or without mallets. Now let’s test you percussion instrument savvy with a little game:

1. List one percussion instrument that is shaken: --------------------------
2. List one percussion instrument that is scraped: --------------------------
3. List one percussion instrument that is struck with a mallet: --------------------
4. List one percussion instrument that is struck without a mallet: -----------------

See a list of possible answers below.


1. Tambourine, maracas or bells
2. Guiro or sand blocks
3. Drum, gonog, wood block, glockenspiel or xylophone
4. Drum such as a conga or bongo, cymblas, piano or harp

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