percussion

«percussion» in Mova's school dictionary: musical instruments that you play by hitting, shaking or… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (percussion; uncountable); adjective (percussion instruments)

meaning for a pupil

1) Percussion means musical instruments that you play by hitting, shaking or scraping them, such as drums, tambourines, triangles, cymbals and xylophones. tree →

2) The percussion is the part of an orchestra or band that plays these instruments. tree →

3) Percussion means the hitting of one thing against another, a sharp knock (formal). tree →

sense in the lessons

In music lessons, children play percussion instruments to keep the beat and learn rhythm; percussion is one of the orchestra's four families (strings, woodwind, brass, percussion). «Body percussion» is clapping, clicking and stamping to make music. Phrases: «percussion section», «percussion instruments», «body percussion», «tuned percussion».

examples

• The drum is a percussion instrument. tree →
• In music we played percussion with shakers and drums. tree →
• The percussion section sits at the back of the orchestra. tree →
• A xylophone is tuned percussion, because it plays notes. tree →
• Clap and stamp for body percussion. tree →
• My brother has percussion lessons on Saturdays. tree →

note

Uncountable: «She plays percussion», not «a percussion». Someone who plays it is a percussionist. Tuned percussion (xylophone, glockenspiel) plays notes; untuned percussion (drum, triangle) does not.

In the corpora

• Orchestras usually seat the quieter strings at the front and the louder brass and percussion at the back, to balance the sound.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «percussion» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.