Percussion instruments by grouping
A great many successful percussion pieces and orchestrations work because the composer has thought about the instruments that can work well together. Treating the percussion department as a toy box to be dipped into with all the discrimination of a toddler high on Sunny Delight is usually the route to a messy, unstructured and wasteful bit of writing.
These groupings are not prescriptive, nor are they meant to be a substitute for imaginative colouring. However, thought put into the timbral palette will lead to a more satisfactory outcome.
Let’s take, for example, the following list of 26 fairly random percussion instruments. I’ve provided links to the Bell Percussion website (an invaluable source of reference for many things percussion related) for instruments that might not be so familiar to you.
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