Category talk:Percussion instruments by playing technique

This category was nominated for deletion on 11 November 2024. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

Cajón

Unsure as to how to deal with the cajón.

It is in a very rare category of instruments that are neither hand drums (it's not a membranophone) nor hand percussion (it's not held in the hand) but are played by hand rather than with a beater. The only other instruments I can think of in this category are suspended cymbals played by hand (Paiste make some, as I'm sure do other makers) and the mounted castanets used by some jug bands and occasionally in the orchestra.

Even the mounted castanets seem a stretch... I'm sure there are stands for many other hand percussion instruments too. Surely, if I build a stand to hold a güiro (and surely someone has) it doesn't change the nature of the handheld instrument? But the cajón is intrinsically unholdable, and intrinsically hand-beaten, and not a drum. And possibly unique in this.

There seem to be two options:

Make a separate category for it (and possibly others)... but what to call it. Cajón?

Make a separate category for all instruments played by hand, with hand percussion and hand drums then subcategories of this rather than being directly in Category:Percussion instruments by playing technique, and as this new category would not be a container category these oddments can be in it directly... but much hand percussion is not played by hand eg the triangle, and this seems overcategorisation.

Watch this space, and comments welcome. Andrewa (talk) 21:36, 27 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going with Category:Struck idiophones played by hand for now, it seems the least controversial. But changed my mind about castanets, even machine castanets are struck against each other rather than by a hand. So it's just cajón and hand cymbals, so far. Andrewa (talk) 01:23, 28 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]