Welcome to the Percussion Play Blog
We hope you'll be a regular visitor as we share stories about the instruments we make and the people who play them.
This is where we share our passion for music in the great outdoors! We'll share with you details of exciting new outdoor music projects and designs from around the globe. We'll share with you information about the instruments we sell and a little about the inspiration behind them
Most importantly, this blog is about what we love to do the most - help you create new and exciting ways to bring music to the great outdoors.
Thank you for reading, visiting, commenting and contributing - we’re excited to have you here!
New White Paper Published - Five Notes For All: The Power of the Pentatonic Scale
We are pleased to announce the publication of our newest white paper Five Notes For All: The Power of the Pentatonic Scale and what better day to share this than International Make Music Day?
Wherever you are in the world on the 21st June, the chances are you are never too far away from some great music as the annual Make Music Day grabs the world by storm. But here's a great leveller: all of the fantastic musicians you'll hear were amateurs once and the beauty of the pentatonic scale is how easy it is to play whatever your level. Consisting of five notes and found in practically every form of music in the world, the Pentatonic scale contains almost no clashing or disonant notes. Put another way, you can play almost any notes of a pentatonic scale in almost any combination, and they’ll sound great together.
It’s wonderful to improvise using a scale which always sounds good. So, what is a...
New showroom & Product Demonstration Room Opens
Percussion Play is excited to reveal that the new showroom and product demonstration room in our Hampshire office is complete and open for visits!
Percussion Play has opened the doors to our new showroom facility following the recent relocation to our Froxfield site. The 400 sq ft space, at the very heart of our production facility in Hampshire, will provide us with a fantastic environment to showcase our products going forward.
The showroom features a demonstration area that will enable visitors to see and play on a number of instruments from our extensive range.
Robin from Percussion Play commented 'Our showroom is designed to illustrate to people what is possible to do with our outdoor musical instruments. The space will also be perfect for sales training sessions, events and customer meetings, additionally it will also serve as a flexible working space for the sales and marketing team.'
'Future...
Just Visiting - 'Mitchellville Prison For Women' to Improve Facilities for Visiting Children
On a recent trip to the USA, Robin Ashfield from Percussion Play, along with Larry Rife representative of ABCreative, took some time to visit the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women (known as Mitchellville Prison for Women). They were to meet with Iowa State University Landscape Architecture Students, Prison wardens and inmates to discuss the creation of a new play area and music garden to focus on improving the experiences of children visiting the prison.
Located in the town of Mitchellville, this medium security institution is Iowa’s largest female prison that can house over 890 female offenders. Many different sentences are served here from minor convictions through to the most serious; some of the women will be incarcerated for the rest of their lives.
The issue has been that many of the women serving sentences here have children, who through no fault of their own, now do not have Mom around at home....
New South Wales Public School Enjoy New Music Garden
The Children of Mount Pritchard Public School in Mount Prtichard, NSW Australia are making some great music together in their new music garden.
Principal Natalie Piccinin says “The musical garden give students another outlet to be creative and they are creating some wonderful music which is nice to hear."
“They are not only collaborating with each other musically, but they are learning to share the space with each other and they enjoy taking care of the equipment.”
Recognising the benefits of music-making in the sunshine, Natalie confirmed “Studies have shown there is a correlation between music, mathematics and learning,”.
The school's music garden - the first in the area - features eight outdoor musical instruments nestled in among the playground.
Installed last December, the pupils have been enjoying playing and creating their own music during their break times mastering the Tembos,...
New White Paper Published - The Benefits of Music-Making Within the Community
We are pleased to announce the publication of our newest white paper - Come One, Come All: The Benefits of Music-Making Within the Community
This FREE white paper explores the multifaceted and wide-ranging benefits of community engagement with music. We now live in a new global era where social isolation and anxiety is becoming increasingly common for people of all ages and backgrounds, contemporaneously there is growing evidence confirming that music can help promote individual confidence, reduce anxiety and improve social relationships, which is why, when you want people to bond, music is a natural resource for making that happen. Music can bring us together.
About Our White Papers
With fresh and engaging content, our collection of white papers are the result of extensive research. Serving as a knowledge hub, we are pleased to present this area for those...
Southeast Outdoors Solutions Joins Percussion Play Team
It has been an exceptional year for welcoming new distributors into the Percussion Play family and we are delighted to share the news that Southeast Outdoors Solutions based in Canton, Georgia has become our latest distribution partner in the USA.
A family-owned business since 1989, Michael and Karrie Poole became the new owners in 2016. They have recently rebranded the business in early 2018 and were looking to extend their range of outdoor playground solutions to include outdoor musical instruments. The Poole family strongly believe in providing playgrounds and play components that spark curiosity, imagination, and strengthen social, cognitive, emotional, and physical abilities and this seemed a natural fit with the Percussion Play range.
“We’re very pleased to add Southeast Outdoors Solutions to our growing family of international distributors,” says Robin Ashfield, Sales Director. “They have a solid track record of success in building outdoor play solutions and bringing...