- 1). Strike the instrument and see what kind of a sound it makes. A good example of an idiophone is a musical triangle. It makes a pleasant "ding" when struck. You can use different size beaters for different sounds. A triangle can be struck on the outside or inside of the triangle. The inside is excellent for playing fast passages as the player can bounce between the sides of the triangle to rapidly produce repeated tones.
- 2). Scrape the instrument. An example of an idiophone that's scraped is a musical frog. Scraping the spine of the frog causes the frog to emit a rapid tapping sound. Experiment with different parts of the scraper to make different sounds.
- 3). Shake the instrument. Shakers and maracas are a good example of shaken instruments.
- 1). Strike the center of the membranophone. Most drums will make a nice full sound at this point. You can strike the drum with your hand or with a drumstick, depending on the drum. If you're using your hand, experiment with using different parts of your hand to produce different sounds.
- 2). Strike the edge of the membrane of the membranophone. This will make a thinner sound. You can try striking this with your fingers, palm or drumstick. Both parts of your hand will make different sounds.
- 3). Try rubbing the membrane. If there's enough friction between your hand and the membrane, you can play very rapidly by skipping your hand across the membrane. Doing this with the thumb is a useful tambourine technique. This is generally not an applicable technique for drumsticks.