Small Ensemble Research Task

The type of small ensemble I have chosen to research is the percussion ensemble. This is an ensemble entirely made up of instruments coming from the percussion family, such as the xylophone, woodblock, snare drum or timpani. 

The type of music that is played varies, some ensembles are made up of classically trained musicians playing orchestral chamber music, some are very traditional to their culture and use their countries traditional instruments and music as it is part of their customs or religion (many of these are found in Asian countries such as Japan and Taiwan), while others take a non-traditional approach and use creative objects such as furniture or kitchen appliances as their instruments. 

Percussion ensembles are also very commonly found in schools. In America this is largely because after World War II a man called Paul Price, a percussionist, composed percussion music for his students, who then went on to be an award winning composer, since then it’s stuck into the music academic system. In other countries like China they are prominent in schools because they are in the country’s culture and history from thousands of years ago.

There are also professional percussion ensembles that get commissioned to play and compose, such as Nexus, So Percussion and Stomp. Stomp is a brilliant example of a non-traditional percussion ensemble because they almost never use actual drums! Instead they use everyday items such as brooms, newspapers or basketballs and create pieces of music with their different sounds.

Percussion ensembles are truly one of the more unique small ensembles as you can use almost any object in the world as your instrument and get really creative, as long as it’s played as a percussion instrument.