What type of percussion instrument are these?

Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a semi-spherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper.

Timpani is an Italian plural, the singular of which is timpano. A musician who plays timpani is a timpanist. There are actually two different ways to set up the timpani: the American way and the German way.

The German setup makes way more sense if the player is right handed, the largest drum is placed on the right, so that the timpanist can easily access the pedals and tuning gauges.

Each drum in a set of timpani has a different pitch, which is surprising, since most people think drums have only one pitch, which sounds like: 'boom'. Each timpano (singular), timpani (plural), has a pedal that controls which pitch the drum is on. Among these pedals is the mechanism called the “ratchet clutch system.”

Typically, timpanists will use real animal skin for the drum heads, like calf or goat. . It can take up to one to two years to build a complete set of timpani and they probably cost to $50,000 (46,000 (€)) to make.

A single timpano drum (pedals and all) can weigh as much as 140 pounds. Before timpani were used as an orchestral instrument, they were played on horseback during the Civil War.