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US Copyright law question: How are non-pitched percussion pieces of music protected under the law?

Hello there! This question has been on my mind all week after bringing it up in a class involving copyright in the music industry. I tried discussing it with my professor, who is professionally a lawyer who deals with the music industry, and he could not definitively answer me, and all searches turned up to be dead ends. He and I both are very curious about the answer.

From my understanding, as far as music is concerned, it is the sound recording and underlying musical works (as in melody and lyrics) are all that may be copyrighted. The concern here is not the sheet music, but the actual piece of music. As a percussionist, I was wondering what stops someone from passing off a piece of snare music, or a multi-percussion work as their own for profit as long as they are not photocopying the original publication of the sheet-music.

I've had no luck finding anything definitive and no cases that involve this. The general tone I get is that "drum beats cannot be copyrighted," however I feel that strictly percussive music is more than simply beats, and even at that, a full and intricate drum part in a song should have some protection when it is organized as more than simply a single beat or so.

Thanks in advance for any replies!