Welcome to Percussion@UAMA! Upper Arlington Music Academy is unfortunately not providing percussion lessons at this time, however, as demand increases we will be providing for this need in the future. Check back for details!
Availability
UAMA is not currently offering lessons in percussion. Please check back in the future.
Resources
UAMA is not currently offering lessons in percussion. Please check back in the future.
About Percussion
Percussion has been around as long as human beings have, and probably before hand as well. Percussion is a close front-runner with voice as the first human method of creating music. Drums have existed virtually unchanged for at least six thousand years! They've been used for worship and long distance communication as well as entertainment since their invention. They are an extremely persistant musical instrument, existing in some form in all cultures worldwide! The drum at left is an Ntama, or a talking drum, commonly found in Senegal and Nigeria, but also found throughout the African continent. It gets its name from its remarkable range of sounds which often
mirror speech patterns of the early tribes who initially designed it.
The drum belongs in the membranophone family. Membranophones produce sound via a vibrating membrane stretched over a sounding chamber for amplitude. Not all percussion instruments are membranophones though. For instance the piano can be considered a percussion instrument despite belonging in the chordophone family! There are as many types of drum as there are cultures in the world. Some of the most popular include the bongo, the conga, the timpani (or kettledrum), the taiko, and the tom-tom. Almost anything can be used as a drum, from the body of an acoustic guitar to
an overturned trashcan! In fact, entire musical styles rely on this including, industrial, stomp, some folk and most bluegrass!
