Percussion mallet

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A percussion mallet or beater is an object used to strike or beat a percussion instrument to produce its sound.

The term beater is slightly more general. A mallet is normally held in the hand while a beater may be a foot or mechanically operated, for example in a bass drum pedal. The term drum stick is less general still but still applied to a wide range of beaters. Some mallets, such as a triangle beater, are normally used only with a specific instrument, while others are used on many different instruments. Often, mallets of differing material and hardness are used to create different timbres on the same types of instrument (e.g. using either wooden or yarn mallets on a xylophone).

Some mallets, such as vibraphone mallets, are normally just called mallets, others have more specialized names including:

• Drum sticks, of many types, some used with a wide variety of instruments,.
• Rutes, used with many instruments.
• Brushes, used particularly with snare drum but also with many other instruments.
• Tippers used to strike a bodhrán.
• Bachi, used with Japanese taiko drums.
• Hammers, used to strike tubular bells