I once had to play the cymbal in an orchestra, for a Shostakovich piece, but there was no sheet music for it. The piece only had like four or five crashes but they were like ten years apart. The conductor told me that he would just cue me for each crash. I didn't miss a single one! He was so impressed that he had me demonstrate that for his college students.
I had that same problem with Bolero. I had to play crashes one time when we lost the mallet part, which I was supposed to play. Except, I only crashed 3 times, exempting the finale. So, I had to memorize my part.
Visual loudness is actually a thing in auxiliary percussion. It just adds to the performance when you can see the small percussion parts being played. And is it just me or is the percussion section the most visually interesting section of an orchestra to watch?
I had a fairly simple part on claves for a performance. It repeated for a while, and the sheet said “Joyous Energy”. I pretty much just danced and jumped around with my claves for most of a piece.
@@rawhidelamp literally the same thing can be said for percussion then, they're doing the same thing in different ways. I think the only really interesting one is timpani, just cause rolls are cool.
Lol I’m no olympic gymnast, but I can confirm you can tune Timpani 1 and Timpani 4 at the same time(both balanced action and clutch), all though it can be very challenging - highly recommend getting a Roc-N-Soc Bicycle throne for this as your legs have the best mobility for this type of throne.
Hahaha I came here to say this, glad you’re already here Kyle. Here’s an example of me doing a simultaneous drum 1-4 pedal change (both went from E to E-flat): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-x1oxR_xvoIM.html (1 minute, 5 seconds in) Also want to add that Eric, you sound about 30 years older than you are when you talk about timpani tuning changes. I love the challenge of a good pedaling timpani part. I haven’t encountered anything unplayable with enough practice. Then again, I think a lot of 4-mallet marimba solos are virtually unplayable, but I know that I don’t put enough time on my 4-mallet chops.
I played viola in an orchestra.....all I have to say, if it didn't have a cue, I wrote my own after counting it out once. The librarian knee which music was mine and kept it labeled for the future for me. We did the nutcracker every year with the local ballet. I am with you my friend on it.
as a brass player whos looking to get into composition in the future, this was really helpful as I have no idea how to write/notate percussion parts, and it gave me lots of tips on what to avoid. In return please stop giving us massive jumps and awkward fingerings.
I couldn’t agree more with the marimba and vibe dynamics. I’m playing Music for Prague on the vibraphone and the conductor wanted me to play as loud as humanly possible that I broke my mallets on the first rehearsal. And they were rocks
10:30 Yeah not gonna lie, ive always been my ensembles "Percussion II" guy, so I usually end up with a pile of stuff in front of me lol. it gets stressful really quickly, but like a fun stressful. Thankfully we only ever have to switch intruments inbetween songs, so what we do is we actually just pick up some things and move the stuff around inbetween songs. So for example right now for one song im on the Timpani, one song im on the triangle, and another I have all the symbol parts (yes all of them) I keep the timpanis the whole concert. The triangle starts with the girl next to me, who is giving me a break from P2 parts for a song. While I focous on my Timapani. The second song the triangle moves to me, and I keep it. Then for the 3rd song every single cymbol has to move from literally one side of the stage to another. Every. Single. One.
Don't forget about mallet changes! When the composer gives you 1 beat to throw down your mallets and pick up different ones, or when the expect you to somehow play a bunch of different instruments all at the same time that each require different sticks/mallets. We only have two hands!
Dude I have this problem all the time in jazz band. I would just be playing my part and suddenly see “switch to brushes”, but I can’t because I’m busy drumming. And then the brush part comes up and I frantically try to switch in a picosecond. Really annoying
I decided for the concert band's end-of-the-year talent show, in my senior year of high school, to set up a foot pedal and used it with the medium marching bass we had. Then I set up the high-hat and its pedal on the other side of my glock. The first Halo game had come out the previous year, so I planned a really funny one-man-band routine for it... But I don't think I could manage those, a triangle, blocks, or anything else in that setup. lol
My sophomore year of highschool, my friend and I were brand new tenor players. (I had switched over from snare and he had switched over from bass) Our band was playing Thanks for the Memories by Fallout Boy for the halftime show. When we got the music, we were blown away at how difficult it was! For a song that is fairly straight forward and easy on drum set, this score was wild! It overwhelmed both of us since we were brand new to tenors and we had to dumb some parts down a little. Man do I wish I still had that sheet music so I could assess whether it really was super hard or if our inexperience on tenors made it hard
My first or second year of percussion we had like 3 percussionist and I had to change 6 instrument changes, they were mostly small instruments like the tambourine or cymbals, but it was fun and I think it definitely helped expanded the range of instruments I could play somewhat well
This was my experience all through middle and high school bands. By junior year I was first chair and there was only one or two other full time percussionists depending on the time of year, and we never had more than 4. Wasn't uncommon to go from snare to traps to marimba to concert toms to sus cymbal to timpani over the course of three pieces, often multiple in one piece. Perc 1 parts were split between bass and snare drum, usually me and 2nd chair, and then we all filled in parts 2 and 3 (or 4) as much as we could. Sometimes it was just me on all of perc 2/3/4 which was mostly toms, traps and various cymbal parts - one piece in middle school had a trashcan solo which was really fun - or back and forth between glock/marimba/vibe and timpani since I was the only one who could read pitched music. It was actually a fun challenge. Getting the hang of timpani (especially retuning the base note between pieces in concert, quickly and quietly) really enhanced my ear for harmonics, which is constantly useful from drum tuning to synthesis and sound design.
I like to tell people how many instruments I switch from I'll tell them "so straight after this song I run over to the xylo to the snare then after that I have to step to the bass drum..."
The timpani section was so relatable but as someone who has perfect pitch, it was tolerable. Except Havendance by David Holsinger, that was a nightmare I'll never forget
@@Oracleswrath9999 especially when it's clearly designed for 5 timpani and my high school had 4 timpani, it was a agonizing process to covert to my playing standards but it was worth it
Thank you. I hate the way many of the parts for percussion are written. Especially the dang grace notes after a roll! Hopefully many more composers will take note!
Oh! This is definitely a video I need to see. I always try to at least make page turns not awful, but learning other things to make playing my music less painful is very good.
Yes, I had logistics and instrument problems in high school concert band. We were entered into the Music Festival, sometimes called Solos and Ensembles, and sometimes called Contest. I couldn't play trombone due to a facial accident and broken teeth, so I played the keyboard instruments: chimes, marimba, triangle, and glockenspiel. Glockenspiel was mercifully short for our piece ( _Novena_ by I don't know who), and so was the marimba-whose part was played at a mostly bare part of the piece. What my favorite part was the chimes. We had a beautiful set of chimes that would ring forever! The notes had a wonderful crescendo like ring ring ring RING!!! and the chimes would ring forever, filling the transition part of the piece, I think a dal signa. It was a glorious sound. We went to Solos and Ensembles and played our piece. I wondered where our chimes were. There was one on stage. I inspected it: it was old brass with the damper dropped, which meant every note was going to be very short. I hated it. Instead of ring ring ring RING!! It went clunk clunk clunk CLUNK. I was mortified! How did people use this in concerts?! I was devastated. I thought for sure that would lower our evaluation. I was wrong: our rating was "Superior," The highest rating possible. Still, to me, my memory of that day will always be as tarnished as the stage chimes.
The switching instruments is particularly real for me. I was playing a piece several years ago and had a switch from bass drum on one side of the stage to tubular bells on the opposite in the space of 2 bars. This was one hell of a sprint down the narrow percussion riser dodging the cymbal stands and other percussionists. Come performance day some of the other percussionist decided to pull out chairs for their rest parts of the concert. Turned my sprint into hurdles on the spot. Felt damn sure I could compete with some olympians after that concert.
We had one fantastic piece I remember playing my Junior year of high school. It had 4 percussion parts. My percussion part covered marimba, bass drum, crash cymbals, suspended cymbal, and bass drum. Another part was timpani and triangle. Another part included vibraphone, suspended cymbal, wind chimes, gong, and bass drum. Another part featured chimes, marimba, crash cymbals, slap stick, glockenspiel, and wind chimes. So the bass drum, marimba, suspended cymbal and wind chimes repeated. No part had more than a 2 bar transition between instruments, so what our percussion section did after hours of trying to figure out ways to share instruments, we decided that each of the 4 parts would have all we needed in a little cage/area. My school was fortunate enough to have so many percussion instruments that we could set up these 4 sections that took up most of the stage, and then still have a few other setups made for the 2 other pieces we had for the concert without having the majorly rearrange the stage during the concert. Fun times!
I currently have a part in wind ensemble where I switch from one snare stick in each hand playing on concert snare to one stick in my right hand and two brushes in my left hand using Stevens grip, where the left hand plays a little piccolo snare drum lick and the right hand plays a field drum note two counts later. Granted the part is meant for multiple people, but I have to make it work on my own.
There was this one song where I had to play toms, triangle, and crash cymbals, all in the same beat. Obviously I don’t have 5 arms so I had to get two people from out other band to cover for me.
In our high school band one time we had 6 of our 13 percussionists were out. One of my friends was a percussionist who was there and he was jumping between instruments to cover parts.
THE INSTRUMENT SWITCHING IS SO TRUE! I had a piece where I played snare, timbales, ratchet, triangle, sus cymbal and gong. To be fair ratchet triangle gong and sus were very short but they were so close together if I didn’t have everything right next to me I wouldn’t have been able to play it (for the concert we had 2 people missing so I got dumped a lot of extra parts).
We were talking about the spacing thing in class the other day about how the judges didn’t recognize the spacing on any of the tapes and how it is harder to play. so this video is pretty relatable
my band instructor told me to play the vibraslap part louder (aux. percussion instrument that you slap against your hand, and it makes a rattle noise) 💀 i had a literal bruise on my hand for a few days from trying to play it louder and you still couldn't even hear it soo 🤷♀
7:22 It's happening! You're FINALLY talking about MY percussion instrument! 8:10 YES!!! THANK YOU!!! I had to play some Japanese piece that wanted 5 timpani heads (4 is normal, and my band only has 3 so I ALREADY have to double up on one...) and it had me changing THREE OF THEM (which in my case was ALL) at a time...with a few second before the next runs of notes...of which there were 5 so I had to modify the run because it was SIXTEENTH NOTES. REALLY? SIXTEEN NOTES??? ON A TIMPANI?? AT AN ALREADY BREAKNECK SPEED???
We were playing the great locomotive chase and I had no rests to switch from the train whistle to the suspended cymbal to do a roll, so I was tought four mallet technique so i could roll with one hand and blow in to the train whistle with the other.
Cues are usually written in by the orchestra members themselves but in a school setting, that is not usually going to happen. I stopped playing in our local orchestra years ago for the same reason-nothing much to play but you still had to attend the rehearsals to play your "one note". Such a boring endeavor.
I appreciate this video. I’m a composer, and learning to write for percussion has been the trickiest for me. I’m definitely someone who is prone to making these types of mistakes, so it’s good to hear someone call us out on it.
So we had UIL music to perform and i was snare on all pieces. And so i remember when i had like 30 measures of rest, i had to run all the way to the other side of the stage to get to the bells and play. After i was done, i only had like 2 seconds to get back to the snare and do rolls. It was challenging but yey we got 1st division
on a more positive note (get it), the award for best percussion composition goes to malcom arnold for grand grand overture, 3 hoovers, a floor polisher, 4 rifles, snare drum, tam tam, glock and tubular bells *chef's kiss*
Last year for wind ensemble there were only 4 percussionists including me, and my director split up the parts to vesuvius by Frank ticheli among us. I wound up getting Xylo, Vibes, Bongos, Ratchet, Triangle, Suspended cymbal and bowed vibes. It was the most fun I ever had playing anything at a concert, since it was split up really well, enough rests in between instrument switches, except for the very end when I had to basically throw down the ratchet, pick up drum sticks and slam the bongos.
It's like when someone ask you to come in for a drum audition playing drum set and they hand you a triangle a pair of maracas or wood block. And want you to play on 1 of each measure. And ONLY that for an hour.
One time my band director didn’t tell us we already had someone playing the bass drum part of one of our songs so I had to learn the snare drum part in one night
For marching band practice, when there's ANY part of the entire performance that has someone turning around and having a brief moment where they're not staring directly at a drum major, the metronome is turned up loud enough to cause hearing damage and kept at that volume for the entire practice.
Bro I HAAAATE this. Back in band I had a tendency to lose track during long rests. Had a cowbell feature in the middle of a song, was two measures short, screwed the entire piece up, and got read the riot act from everyone after the show. Never again lol
i'm actually so glad that our school's techs write all of our parts out. yes, the arrangers for our band pieces suck really bad, but for our drumline shows, our techs are working hard at it. appreciative of our techs, they're the best!
I once had a timpani part where I rolled 3 times in the whole song, every time being piano or lower. To help us keep time, the composer wrote flute and clarinet cues in the music. The problem? I can’t hear them because the trumpets and trombones are blasting out.
I’m the only permanent auxiliary percussionist in my schools orchestra. Before my freshman year when I actually DECIDED I wanted to be the auxiliary percussionist (I’m a drummer and have a bunch of percussion instruments at home) it was just where the teacher put kids when they had nothing else to do. And when I would make up my own rhythms because of the stunning lack of actual parts my teacher would get mad at me ☺️ (she was a choir teacher who was forced into orchestra and didn’t know shit about any of the instruments or the music). Sophomore year got a new orchestra teacher who actually knew what she was doing, and now I’m allowed to improv with anything I want lol.
I've got another one in the vein of instrument switching... stick switching. I have 2 examples of this. One piece had a single score for drumset, which was my responsibility, and the some other percussion scores. The opening of the song was roll with crescendo on the cymbals with soft mallets and then long rest where I have time to switch to regular drumsticks and about half the piece continues to be regular drumsticks. Sure, nice no problem. But then comes the Da Capo where I have just under a second to play the last note with regular sticks, switch from regular sticks back to soft mallets and start playing the roll with crescendo again. It was possible, but it was always a scramble to switch in time. Another example was a piece that starts with silence, then with brushes (thankfully obvious queue in the music) and then in the middle of playing switches to regular sticks as the rest of the harmony orchestra also grew louder. Then came a Del Segno (?) (never wrote this only pronounced it tbh) back to the start of the brushes and then later back to sticks again. I solved this by holding one of each in each hand like a marimba player would hold 2 mallets in each hand and then just dropping the brushes on the floor once I no longer needed them for that song. So again, it's possible, but please... no!
The first complaint is basically my entire music life as a flute, tons and tons of rests no cues except for the ones previous flutes wrote in it is hell
me playing godzilla eats las vegas we literally had to put our scores together and give the instruments back to the person who mainly plays it. what the hell.
When I was in high school band, the worst part was the songs that just didn't include more than 3-4 percussion parts. And even ones that did, often didn't have enough for everyone to play a whole part, so we'd split up the different instruments in a single part to multiple people.
I remember that stupid Christmas Song from sixth grade. While we were learning it, we actually played the note (yes, singular) in class about 6 times total before the concert because it was at the end and the rest of the band kept screwing up.
Instrument switching was part of the spectacle of pit percussion in the marching band back in my High School days. It was playing more difficult music, lots of switching instruments, and lots of fancy waves that let our pit-only band compete strongly with all the other schools who had both pit and marching percussion.
Last thing, regarding measures rest. I’ve had one timpani part for a short ballad (Balladair) that had literally nothing until the last measure 🙄 I also remember freshman year I believe the piece was called Oachita or something like that. Grade 4. Anyway, the percussion part was tacet until a certain point and I don’t even remember how we knew. I was in percussion ensemble so I didn’t get concert band parts until later than the in class concert band percussion. In college I played in the orchestra for a weeklong Ireland trip, and I had mostly timpani parts with lots of rests, some as long as 84 measures (but that part was great otherwise so it’s fine. Plus there was a meter change before I came back in so that helped)
7:54 This happens to me all the time in band since I’m the “Timpani guy”. I have to re-tune the drums on timpani every 13 to 15 measures and that’s not an exaggeration. Also, having to tune a different timpani drum while playing and you just have to hope for the best that the drum you just tuned is at the right note.
This isn't anything about the composing, but there's only 5 percussionists, so 1 does snare, 1 does mallets, 1 does bass drum, and then there's 2 playing auxiliry (in this case 5 instruments), and when 1 auxilary player messes up or gets lost, it's over for the auxilary bros.
7:15 Another problem with timpani tuning is when you need to tune a different timpani at the same exact time you are playing notes. I play timpani for one of our upcoming spring concerts and at one point in the song I need to tune the 2nd timpani (we have 4 timpanis) at the same time I'm playing the 4th timpani.
The oldest roll into a grace note that I can think of is from 1777, Kurze Anweisung Zum Trommel-spiel. Rolls right into flams. I do not get what they actually want. But it’s stupid looking and people still do it 250 years later. Also I was once paid to play all the non-timpani and non-keyboard parts of Carmina Burana by Orff at the same time. By myself. It’s written for more than one person, for sure. That was a crazy day.
Your style, and personality seems to have evolved like my BD’s did, his graduation photo looks kind of like what you looked like in a few videos, and now he looks like how you do in this video
I only do indoor percussion, but yesterday (a week before state championships) my director added in a part where I (a bass 5 player) has to jump onto a prop that is about 1 1/2 feet tall and wide. I suffered
i remember a few years ago i had 3 beats at 120 bpm to switch from a crash cymbal to a suspended cymbal which meant i had to put down the crash cymbals and pick up the yarn mallets from a rack tray and begin a role in just 3 beats. keep in mind that 3 beats at this tempo is less than a second
Came across a “tacet jusqua” in opera rehearsals last month. One was from a Verdi and the other a Puccini. Pretty common on some of these older publishers. Important to note that for most classical masterworks where this occurs it’s not the fault of the composer, but their copyist/publisher. Especially in the 1800s those composers weren’t engraving their own parts. They got paid to scribble out their genius on some manuscript and then a copyist and engraver would create readable scores and parts. Most legit composers even today aren’t engraving their own parts.
I was asked to play drums for a show - The Sound of Music - and it was only the second time I'd done a show, but ok, no prob - except we were playing in a smallish space, and the director said can I use rods. Fine, no prob - except there's one spot where I have a snare roll. I can't do a closed roll with rods !! So - I had time to switch to sticks just for the roll, then I continued the beat for 2 bars (fast tempo) just on bass & hi-hat while I dropped the sticks and picked up the rods. Also, there was a cymbal roll and a timpani roll wanted (no timpani, so floor tom) - I said which one do you want, I can't do both - she said But I want Both !! So I did both. It was fine :o)
Having composed music that was published and also transcribing A LOT of music for all part, you are describing a problem that is a transcription and/or publication problem. To save space and time and money, I would put this single note for cymbal on another part. But that is not the most common technique as you are presently aware. I encourage you to be a leader and gather all your section's printed parts and combine (cut and paste) or even hand write single note parts in a way that combines other parts to minimize long measures of rests. I played (French) Double Horn in college orchestra and it was the same for me. So, because I could play piano, trumpet, obey, bass, and guitar, I told my prof that I was medically unable to sit for 105 measures and remain on campus, BUT if he would permit, I can cover another part so I won't have to sit and pick my nose for all the audience to see. Well that was all it took.
Using hard mallets on the Vibraphone, in my sheetmusic for a piece I play with my enseblme there is written to play it with triangle sticks if you know what I mean
