17/11/00 00:28:46

Percussion Demonstration

snare drum notation:


congas and bongos only use without sticks

Siegfried Matthus - Timpani Concerto
(Mattaeus)

Multi percussion - writing for many instruments/one person...

Large parts - at least a 7 point stave size

Don't use symbols or pictograms for instruments (alla Smith Brindle), Use words.

Compromise between full staves and individual staves.

See score of Xenakis Psappha, written in grid format.  People generally have to write it out again.

Don't:



Multi-percussion is like learning a different instrument for each piece...

Cymbals made to the same specifications by the same family for 2500 years.

Bowed marimba (Percy Grainger)
Bowed vibraphone (Steve Reich sextet)

Tam-tams and Gongs
Tam-tams 32" or 36" and no pitch
Gong has a nipple and a specific pitch

Couleurs de la Cite Celeste for gongs.
Chinese gongs are not pitched (small ones) and the pitches 'bend'.

Splash cymbal is a very small cymbal.
See Debussy La Mer

Crotales
Maxwell Davies Orkney Wedding and Sunrise
bad usage

also see antique cymbals and finger cymbals

Ligeti La Grande Macabre
Tubular bells with metal bars in big clusters
bottom note middle C goes up to f 8ve and a half.
Some American bells go down to f below
american 'bells' = glock
american 'chimes' = tubular bells
campanelli = italian for glock
campane = italian for tubular bells

Glockenspiel
Debussy La Mer
Sometimes you have a pedal glock which you use to cut the sustain.

Vibraphone
motor off or on...

West Side Story
Shostakovich Symphony 14

Metal Marimba (investigate)

Marimba
Quieter than expected
4.5 octaves from C in bass clef
4 mallets:
low roles
beware of chord shapes keep single hands at an octave or less
put an x through the stem implies a stopped tone.  Also in used for vibraphone.

Xylophone
range middle C for xylophone 4 octaves
transposing instrument

Tambourine
Thumb trill Peter Grimes Sea Interludes

Jimmy Holland book on percussion