Guitars, Drums, and Music

There isn’t a culture in the world that doesn’t have its own style of music; it truly is the “universal language.” However, there are so many types of music that trying to keep up with them can become dizzying. For instance, Western music is based heavily on guitars, but African music relies on drums and percussion. Besides enriching our daily lives on an aesthetic level, it has been shown to actually have beneficial health benefits. A recent study conducted by the Medical Science Monitor states that those who play musical instruments experience less stress on a genomic level. Exposure to music has been known to improve a child’s reading age and IQ, as well as stimulating certain parts of the brain that are ignored most of the time. Learning an instrument will increase an individual’s rhythm, creativity and overall well-being.

Peacockmusic.com is an informational site devoted to spreading our love of music and the instruments that create it. Although we may mention specific brands we are not sponsored by any specific company or manufacturer. Rather, we try to point aspiring musicians toward the right track with our own tried-and-true recommendations.

There are many types of music instruments to satisfy a variety of sounds. String instruments make up a large part of all music worldwide ¬– from the violins and cellos found in classical orchestrations to the sitar which is a prominent Indian instrument. String instruments are played with a bow or with fingers; guitars are also played with a pick – a small, triangle-shaped plectrum that gives power and preciseness to a player. Throughout the last hundred years, guitars have become the most popular stringed instrument because of the instrument’s prominence in popular music (rock and roll, jazz, etc.). Electric guitars use pick-ups (silver devices found at the base of strings) to translate vibrations caused by strumming and turn them into electric sound current; these guitars require separate amplification. Acoustics, on the other hand, are hollow and require no external amps.

Percussion instruments are excellent for learning rhythm, time and improving your ambidexterity. These include anything played with a stick or used to create rhythm, which can be as diverse as timpani, conga drums or mallet percussion (xylophone, vibraphone, Glockenspiel). Drum sets, which are prominent in rock, blues, and jazz music, consist of many different types of percussion instruments. Like guitars, drum sets can come in electric or acoustic models. While purists will claim that no machine can reproduce the sound of a genuine set, electronic players can practice in close quarters without disturbing neighbors because external amplification is required to hear these drums.

Woodwinds are also very popular instruments. These include the flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon. These instruments provide a somber, muted feel to a piece of music. Players blow into these or over them to produce sounds, closing airways to change the pitch. Although the flute is considered a woodwind, it is actually made out of metal and it doesn’t have a reed (common feature of a woodwind instrument).

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