Tuned & Non-Tuned Percussion Instruments

Percussion family can be divided into two children, or branches, tuned & non-tuned.

Tuned means the tones of the instruments produce particular notes of the musical alphabet &/or contain a musical scale.  Xylophones & vibraphones are examples of tuned percussion; generally, they possess all notes of the musical alphabet, A-Ab, the entire chromatic scale.  Steel pan, chimes, gongs & bells are also tuned percussion instruments.

Conga, bongo, drum sets, cowbell, clave, djembe, ashikos, doumbeks, timbales & certain chimes, gongs & bells are common examples of non-tuned percussion.  However, unknown to many people most of these so-called non-tuned instruments can be tuned.  Sometimes a drummer will tune their drum head or choose an percussion instrument, such as  chimes, gongs & bells, that was made in a particular key. 

Aside from tuning their instrument to a particular key, one basic technique most percussionists use is to tune their drums to one another - called Interval Tuning.  As with using tuned instruments, this technique harmonizes the various sounds from each drum or percussion instrument. 

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