Suspended cymbal

At times, a score also calls for hitting the cymbal with a stick or scraping it with a triangle beater.

The timpanist is instructed to roll ad lib on the suspended cymbal while moving the timpani pedal up and down as a glissando.

Film composer Danny Elfman has made great use of this technique, which needs to be performed in a more "transparent" orchestral setting to be heard.

Other composers will use a sample, or recording, of the cymbal struck by a mallet with a long, natural decay.

This is used to great effect for film and pop music to punctuate scenes in many reality television shows.