Aside from human voice and animal sounds, percussion seems to be the oldest means of producing music. Virtually every culture and ethnicity has independently developed, adopted, adapted, and evolved percussion instruments and their playing techniques to express itself through sounds of music that signify its identity and its heritage. Percussion, thus, plays a pivotal role in almost every style and genre of music, often serving as the metronome that provides the heartbeat of musical pieces.
Most western classical music of the 18th and the 19th centuries uses percussion instruments only sparingly, merely in order to accentuate melodies, rather than giving percussion a continuously playing voice. Percussion instruments appear more frequently in the western classical music of the 20th century. Throughout, however, percussion has concurrently retained its prominent presence, not only in the music of other parts of the world, but in other styles of western music, such as folk, pop, rock, and jazz, as well.
