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For Thanksgiving, the Other Kind of Drumsticks

A timpanist with Don Rico and his 16 Gypsy Girls, ca. 1932.
Getty Images
A timpanist with Don Rico and his 16 Gypsy Girls, ca. 1932.

If it's Thanksgiving, it must be time for another musical pun from Miles Hoffman. Last year, the music commentator chewed on musical leftovers. Before that it was symphonic turkeys. He's even demonstrated the art of plucking. This year, Hoffman beats a path into the studio with — what else? — drumsticks.

Hoffman joins Renee Montagne for a holiday review of drums, triangles and other percussive instruments.

"The first drums that were used in Western orchestras were the timpani, or the kettle drums," Hoffman says. They first appeared in Europe in the 1400s, and they had been imported from (drum roll, please....) Turkey, where they had been used in cavalry bands.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Miles Hoffman
Morning Edition music commentator Miles Hoffman is the author of The NPR Classical Music Companion, now in its tenth printing from the Houghton Mifflin Company. Before joining Morning Edition in 2002, Hoffman entertained and enlightened the nationwide audience of NPR's Performance Today every week for 13 years with his musical commentary, "Coming to Terms," a listener-friendly tour through the many foreign words and technical terms peculiar to the world of classical music.

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SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

The independent journalism and non-commercial programming you rely on every day is in danger.

If you’re reading this, you believe in trusted journalism and in learning without paywalls. You value access to educational content kids love and enriching cultural programming.

Now all of that is at risk.

Federal funding for public media is under threat and if it goes, the impact to our communities will be devastating.

Together, we can defend it. It’s time to protect what matters.

Your voice has protected public media before. Now, it’s needed again. Learn how you can protect the news and programming you depend on.