The Friction Drum – Percussion Instruments

The friction drum is a type of musical instrument that can be found throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America in various forms. It first appeared in Europe in the 16th century and supported certain religious and ceremonial activities. Actually, its ancestral...

The Conga Drum – Percussion Instruments

The conga belongs to the percussion family. It’s a single-headed drum that originated in Africa. However, it was only when Latin music, namely mambo and salsa, became popular in the United States around the 1930s, when the conga drum started to receive a lot of...

The Tambourine – Percussion Instruments

The tambourine is a percussion instrument consisting of a frame, commonly made of wood or plastic, paired with metal jingles called “zills”. These sit on the frame’s outer edge. The instrument may or may not include a drumhead, and in most cases, it...

The Bongo Drum – Percussion Instruments

The Bongo drum, better known as the bongos, is a type of Afro-Cuban percussion instrument made up of two small open-bottomed drums of different sizes. The larger drum of this pair is called “hembra”, female in Spanish, and the smaller drum...

The Didgeridoo – Woodwind Instruments

The didgeridoo, typically of wood construction, is an end-blown wind instrument from the northern Australian Aboriginal people. This instrument is also known as a ‘drone pipe’. The term didgeridoo has an ambiguous origin. It’s widely assumed to be a...

The Duduk – Woodwind Instruments

The Duduk, a woodwind instrument, originated about a thousand years ago in what we know now as Armenia. Performances often present it in pairs. While the first player performs the melody, the second player plays a constant drone tone called “dum,”. The...