Unpitched percussion
As mentioned earlier there are many other instruments which can be seen in the percussion section such as the tambourine, triangle, maracas, claves and castanets. Many of these instruments have been borrowed by western music from different traditions around the world, particularly Latin America.
The percussionists also get to play many other instruments from their “toy box” – sirens, car horns, whistles, starting pistols, rainsticks, bull roarers, sandpaper blocks, and anything that doesn’t fit anywhere else in the band. These can produce a whole plethora of sound effects and other silly noises.
 
Well that’s the instruments covered but we still have one very important member of the band yet to be mentioned, this person is the one who stands with their back to the audience waving their arms about, gesturing to different sections of the band with their hands, can you guess who that is….?

Pitched, or mallet percussion instruments have many differently tuned wooden or metal bars arranged like a piano keyboard, generally covering about 3.5 octaves. They are sounded by beating the bars with mallets, with between one and three pair of mallets in the player’s hands at once, which allows chords to be produced. A variety of sounds can be made from each instrument by using different mallets, hard or soft.

​The Glockenspiel's bars are made metal plates or tubes. A pair of hard, mallets, with of plastic or metal heads are used to strike the bars, which give a very pure, bell-like sound.

The Xylophone consists of hard wooden bars, which gives a bright and penetrating sound when played with hard beaters, or more mellow with soft beaters.
Fact: The great Romantic German composer Felix Mendelssohn stated that the xylophone was "the most perfect instrument".

​The marimba has wooden keys like they xylophone, but made with softer wood, which gives it a softer, richer timbre. It also has a wider note range of up to five octaves. The mallets heads can be wooden or rubber or wrapped in yarn, to give different effects.

​The vibraphone has metal bars like the glockenspiel, but is lower pitched. It produces a haunting sound due to resonating lids in the tubes underneath that are opened and closed by an electric motor, creating a vibrating effect. The bars are hit with rubber or yarn-covered mallets.

​Tubular bells are vertically hung metal tubes of steel or brass played with wooden, plastic or rubber mallets, and are often used to simulate the sound of church bells.

​A percussion instrument is defined as a musical instrument sounded by striking, shaking, or scraping. Percussion instruments are made of many different materials, such as wood, plastic, or metal, and they come in all shapes and sizes.
Percussion sticks also come in a variety of shapes, sizes and materials. The most general purpose drumstick is a simple wooden stick with a shaped head. Kit drummers often use brushes instead of sticks – wire or nylon bristles held in a metal or wooden handle. Mallets are drumsticks with a larger head. Heads of mallets, or beaters, come in a whole range of materials – from small wooden, nylon or rubber heads to those wrapped in softer materials such as yarn or latex, right up to larger ones made of felt.
Percussion is used by virtually all types of music, from classical to pop, and in most types of ensemble from large orchestras and wind bands to smaller groups such as pop bands and jazz ensembles.