And now we are going to meet percussionists on our symphonic safari adventure.

Lets go!

Hello.

Hello.

I'm Violetta Vibrato but you can call me Vi.

Hi, what's your names?

I'm Ryan Hi, Ryan, I'm Mike, Mike.

I'm Nathan, Nathan.

So nice to meet you.

I am so excited to learn all about percussion instruments.

Now what makes instruments percussion?

So percussion instruments are instruments that you get to strike with a stick or a mallet.

We're usually very sound effect kind of sounds, but we can also make really beautiful kind of lyrical sounds as well.

Well I've learned that there are pitched and unpitched percussion instruments, what are pitched instruments?

well a pitched percussion instrument is something that makes a definite tone the same way that a trumpet or a violin would make a definite tone.

So all of these different bars on the instruments make different tones, and when you strike a certain one, it'll play that certain pitch.

All of these then are part of the pitched percussion instruments.

Can you demonstrate them, absolutely, and tell me about them?

So this is called a glockenspiel or a lot of times you hear it called bells.

And it is a very high pitched percussion instrument that is made out of metal.

This would be the lowest sound it can play.

And this would be the highest.

And you can play all kinds of melodies on it, so something like this.

That was beautiful Can I hear this one now?

Now this one is wood and that one is metal.

So all these kinds of instruments are part of the pitched percussion instruments.

Absolutely.

I mean, we see all kinds of different textures and different kinds of materials on our instruments all the time.

I'm going to listen to you now.

Here we have the xylophone made of wood, as you mentioned, also very high pitched instrument, not as high as the glockenspiel, but here's our lowest note and our highest note, and we can play really kind of all around this.

But if you want to hear that same melody on xylophone, it sounds a little something like this.

That was really fun.

Look at all these different things here, do you use all of these on these?

Yes.

Each instrument kind of has its own category of different mallets that we use and different sticks that we use, and all of them can create different sounds so we can change the way that we sound just by picking up a different pair of mallets and playing the same thing.

So these are called mallets?

These are mallets, and mallets change how the sound is played on this.

That's right.

And so this is another one of the instruments.

This is called a vibraphone.

A vibraphone is another metal instrument, but it's called a vibraphone because it has these this motor that spins a device inside the resonating chamber that makes it wobble if I play it without it.

Then if I turn that motor on So it can be kind of very dreamy.

So it's like when you sing it, it just keeps singing.

Absolutely.

That was really wonderful.

Now whats this one called?

So this is the marimba.

It's like a larger xylophone and a lower pitched xylophone.

And you notice with the xylophone, I had harder mallets.

Now I'm using mallets that have yarn up here.

Can I touch that?

Please do.

They're hard, but I thought it was going to be soft and squishy.

They are, they can be pretty hard.

It can kind of come in a lot of different kind of hardness.

These are kind of hard, so we get the lowest note and the highest note, and we have a very large range here to work with.

So we can.

And now for one, that's a little bit different.

These are called chimes, and if you notice these are all just a bunch of really long tubes.

And that gives you your different pitches.

So for example, here is the low one.

And here's a high one But we can also play melodies on these.

A lot of times you can hear doorbells that sound like chimes.

That's exactly what it sounds like and look who I discovered!

It's Nathan sitting here Hello, Nathan.

So these are also part of the pitched percussion family.

That's right.

These are collectively called tympani.

Now tympani may look like drums, and they may look like non pitched instruments, but they actually have a little pedal down on the bottom of the drum.

And what the pedal does is when I push the pedal in, it pulls down on the head and stretches the head.

Tighter and tighter means higher.

And then when I let the pedal go down, it lets the rim release the pressure and the head gets loose and the pitch is low.

So it sounds like this.

And because we can change the way it sounds, we can actually get specific pitches, which is what makes this a pitched instrument.

I can hear all of that, and I'll tell you a secret.

I didn't know those were pitched because I thought exactly what you said that it was going to sound just like the drums, but it doesn't.

No They are an instrument of their own kind.

You all play so many interesting things.

Is there a leader with all of you people working together?

Is there a leader among you?

There is I am the active principal percussionist for the Tallahassee symphony right now, so I'm the one that kind of helps keep the percussion section organized and makes sure the right things are in the right place at the right time.

Tympani being its own thing, Tympani is kind of its own principal position all by itself.

So I'm the acting principal tympanist of the Tallahassee Symphony.

Tympani, though it is related to percussion and very often works with percussion.

It's actually its own thing.

I control a lot just from where I sit in the orchestra.

That is very notable.

So I learned that percussionists are the oldest instrument family, but the newest to the orchestra.

So I want to learn how it is that you all play with an orchestra.

How many are you in the orchestra and how it is that you all play together.

It can vary in size.

It's all depending on what piece is being played and what pieces are being played in that concert.

But a normal concert would have a tympanist and three percussionists.

Can you play something for me that you would be playing in an orchestra?

Absolutely.

So this is a little small snippet of a piece by George Gershwin called Porgy and Bess, and this is the xylophone excerpt That is beautiful.

And I know that you've been playing pieces or a piece as you've been moving along here and playing all those pieces because it sounded very familiar.

What was that?

We were playing a melody from the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky.

It sounded familiar to me.

So I want to ask all of the musicians that I've met play one instrument.

Usually you play all these instruments.

And you play all of those different types of tympani This is what it's called?

That's right.

Yes.

What made you decide to play all these different things?

Is it really hard?

I don't know if it's any harder than anything else, it all just takes practice, our practice is different because we do have to try a bunch of different things instead of practicing different things on one.

We just have to practice similar things, but on a bunch of different instruments and you're moving around a lot in an orchestra.

And I know, right?

And I think music stands and the musicians are playing the music stands but you are moving around a lot.

How do you keep up with what you have to play?

It takes a lot of practice, a lot of kind of running here, running there until you get the hang of kind of where are you going to go and what notes you got to play and knowing how to look at the right place at the right time is part of what you have to practice if you need to play three different instruments.

But it's all from the same piece of music.

You've got to know where to position that music so that you can see it in all three places.

I think this is so fascinating, and I cannot wait to see you all part of the orchestra.

Thank you so much for being part of my symphonic safari adventure.

It's been really nice meeting you.

Cannot wait to see you later.

Bye bye.

Bye bye.

Bye bye.