Membranophones and Chordophones

Simen Johan - from Evidence of Things Unseen (2001)

It was always strange to me that the piano was categorized as percussion. For one who both practiced running the complexity of piano scales in mandated early-age lessons and mindlessly beating drums in high school, the comparative difference sounded overwhelming. The only real similarity, it seemed, was a practically invisible mechanical detail; the categorization being evidence of things unseen. Drums were a passionately loud teenage refuge from the nerdy piano cliches written on the staffs of my practice books. The subdued accomplishment of a goofy sticker was no longer a match for the immediate reward of a deafening blow to the bass. After a few years, however, the blunted dexterity of experiencing only indefinite pitch bores and a return to the piano was invevitable.

Paper Airplanes - The Fences (mp3): Hearing and understanding this song in fifth grade would have assured my upright piano as inherently percussive, helped me see the misguided violence of searching for an expressive outlet in drums, and ushered my pounded chords into indie-rock heaven (and perhaps the 2000 equivalent of Smoosh's pants). Alas, I only found it today.