Gerard Hoffnung, musician and humorist, organised a series of 'Hoffnung Music Festivals' in the 1950s which embraced music-making in a very broad sense, with liberal use of unconventional instrumentation, not least in the percussion section. Which of these was 'scored' at one time or another during the Festivals?

On which form of percussion instrument might you find a snare?

Who was the zany bandleader that had so big a percussion section, that the whole outfit had its own special touring train to bring all the 'hardware' with it?

Francis Poulenc wrote an unusual and memorably atmospheric concerto for Organ, Strings and ... ( ... which percussion instrument/s ?)

Sometimes, as in restaurants and other venues in central Europe, you may hear a folk band playing which includes a sound very like a piano, yet with no acoustic piano visible. The strings are being hit by hand (with felted hammers) rather than from the keyboard of a machine. What is the instrument in question?

How is the sound produced on a tam-tam?

Percussion instruments (after the human voice itself) are almost certainly the oldest category in terms of musical and technical history, and have grown up in all sorts of styles in different parts of the world, depending partly on what materials come to hand locally. Their distinctive contribution to a combination of sounds is almost an 'aural shorthand'. The use of castanets is usually evocative of what country?

Which of the following is the odd one out?

What kind of percussionists would perform 'off the table' or 'four-in-hand' music?

Composers of exotic and other operas have gone to ingenious, even gruesome lengths to specify the inclusion of not-conventionally-musical sounds in their works, often in an age before (and in some ways anticipating) films with soundtracks. Which of the following is NOT factual?