What Percussion Instruments to Bring to Sessions

Series Summary

The drum is thought to be the oldest of musical instruments—and its basic design has not changed for thousands of years. Over time, drumming has had a significant impact on the history of man, both as a method of communication over long distances and as an implement of religious symbolism. While the modern Western man has largely abandoned a lifestyle that would incorporate the drum in these ways, popular music still realizes some of that original intent, since drums have served as the backbone of just about every song produced in the last 50 years.

In this free video series, learn how to play a variety of drumming and percussion instruments. Our expert, Lennon Leppert, shows you how to play the bongos, wind chimes, shakers, and cymbals. Let Lennon also show you how to play the rainstick. With his expert instruction, you can learn how to play a variety of percussion instruments today!

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Lennon Leppert, and on behalf of Expert Village, this is "How to be Prepared as a Percussionist". So when you go into a gig of any sort, whether it be orchestral, jazz, Latin, or pop, or rock, you want to be prepared, and as a percussionist we have a lot of different instruments. Normal instruments, they walk in with their one, two, maybe three different instruments and they're pretty much prepared. We have to walk in with bags and bags of stuff, and no one knows what we're bringing in and they'll never know, and no one really cares. It's our job to always be ready with the right shaker and the right kind of cymbal and the right mallets. So when you're going in for a pop session, the kinds of things you'll want to have are, probably a good amount of good sounding shakers. If it's recording, then you can go from anything from medium loud, to loud, to soft, if it's a live session you'll want more loud stuff. As an orchestral player, you're usually expected to bring your own sticks, mallets, depending on what orchestra you're playing with and what equipment they already have. Usually they'll have their own timpani, bass drum, tam tam, xylophone, all the normal orchestral percussion stuff. You'll need your own mallets, a lot of different mallets, and you'll need your own sticks, and a lot of different sticks, and any smaller percussion that they might not usually have like toys. As a Latin percussionist, you'll usually be expected to have timbales, bongos, congas, maybe wind chimes, a cymbal on a stand, your own sticks, mallets, you always need your own sticks and mallets because you never know, even if you're a student playing in a youth orchestra or your school band, you'll never know what kind of mallets they have, what condition they're in. I've walked into a lot of different situations where the mallets were bent, where they don't sound right, they're messed up, so you always want to have your own sticks and mallets. And last, with a rock setup, usually the drummer has most of the stuff that would be cowbell, all of his drum set stuff, he usually has all the cymbals you would ever need for a rock setup, and usually you're expected to have shakers, maybe a vibra slap, an extra cowbell maybe, and possibly a cymbal and some wind chimes. That concludes "How to be Prepared as a Percussionist"."