Body percussion

Last autumn my friend R. asked me if I wanted to play with his wind orchestra for the Christmas’ concerts: they needed somebody who could play the glockenspiel. The glockenspiel is a delicious instrument that can easily hurt your ears (to the uninitiated it looks like a xylophone, but it is made by metal). It’s a percussive instrument, but it needs a player that can read a musical staff. So my friend thought that a pianist might, after all, get by quite well. And indeed I was quite good, and I became curious about the world of percussions, so funny and varied. 
Having spent years practicing on the keyboard, every time I try to play a new instrument I look for information of all kinds: what is it, how it is used, who plays that instrument and what kind of music ... Browsing YouTube I was literally ecstatic looking at the performances of true masters. 
So today I’d like to inaugurate a series of post on percussion instruments, talking about a curious and interesting practice: the body percussion. Body percussion - as its name indicates- is a rhythmic type of music that uses the body of the musician as an instrument. It is used in schools to drive the children to the world of rhythm, but it has all the characteristics to be considered art. Just look at what Keith Terry does in this video. Enjoy!