7/24/2019 Idiomatic Writing for Percussion
1/4
Idiomatic writing for mallet instrumentsThumbs and pinkies
Composers often write with a piano and are therefore thinking
with ten ngers. A percussionist
can hold up to four mallets comfortably and has quite a bit of
freedom, but certainly not as much
as a ten-ngered pianist. The dexterity that composers enjoy on
piano can easily result in thecomposition of keyboard percussion
music that is extremely difcult. By composing on piano with
just thumbs and pinky ngers, the logistical problems that
keyboard percussionists face will become
immediately apparent.
One will rst notice, when playing piano with only these ngers,
that only four notes can be
articulated simultaneously. This may be obvious, but with ten
free ngers, composers can forget
and occasionally slip in a ve or six-note chord. Playing a
simple scale with one hand is not nearly
as easy - C major with alternating thumbs is actually
appropriate. If the four-ngered pianist wants
to pivot between two adjacent minor thirds in one hand (e.g.,
C-E and D -F ) the whole arm has to
swivel back and forth. In addition to these limitations, imagine
that each thumb and pinky are 16
inches long and the piano keys are three times as wide!
As silly as it may sound, this thumbs and pinkies technique is
rather accurate. One is able
to imagine how percussionists move across the keyboard, and this
can help the composer write
idiomatically for these instruments.
Percussionists can, however, play larger intervals than the
thumbs and pinkies will usually allow.
The interval stretch in one hand varies with instrument (the
largest interval on a vibraphone will
be much less than the largest interval on a glockenspiel) and
with placement in the range of the
instrument (the bars get wider on the low end of the
instruments). For these reasons, it is hard to
give an exact limit on interval size. The limit in the lowest
octave of a ve-octave marimba wherethe notes are largest is about
an octave, comfortably. Larger intervals are possible as one moves
up
in the instruments range, but it is best to speak with a
percussionist about a specic example.
Excerpted from How To Write For Percussionby Samuel Solomon
7/24/2019 Idiomatic Writing for Percussion
2/4
Below is a list of the largest intervals in one hand for each
instrument. Slightly larger intervals are
possible but should be used carefully.
marimba and vibraphone - octave
xylophone and glockenspiel - 11th
crotales - major 6th
Percussionists can play any smaller interval down to a unison.
Articulating two adjacent notes withone mallet is not
practical.
The composer must keep in mind that mallet instruments are large
and awkward. A ve-octave
marimba is over eight feet long! The size of a fth on the low
end of a marimba is about equivalent
to two octaves on a piano, so one can take what is known about
accuracy problems with large leaps
and runs that quickly span large distances on piano and apply
that four-fold to keyboard percussion
instruments.
There is one important limitation that the thumbs and pinkies
technique does not address: mallet
instruments are never touched like a piano so the performer has
no way of feeling his or her wayaround the keyboard. Percussionists
rely entirely on being able to see the keyboard to locate the
correct notes. Of course muscle memory is in play which helps
with interval sizes and distances
across the keyboard, but this is very abstract. Most
percussionists are required to play on many
different instruments - not just marimba, vibraphone, xylophone,
and glockenspiel but different
brands of marimbas, vibraphones, xylophones, and glockenspiels
where bar size can vary slightly.
This has a considerable effect on ones ability to become truly
familiar, as a pianist would, with the
distances between notes and the sizes of intervals. There are
some solo marimbists who play nothing
but marimba and always play on the same instrument; for the rest
of the percussion community, the
ability to see the instrument is very important.
As a result, if the two hands are playing very far apart from
each other, accuracy problems are
created. The reader may try the following exercise: sit at a
piano with your eyes focused on middle
C and notice the span of your peripheral vision. Without moving
your head, observe the range you
can comfortably move your hands in both directions and still see
what notes you are playing; now,
divide that interval by four. This is the range in which a
passage could comfortably t on a mallet
instrument - probably not much more than an octave. The composer
can, of course, expand beyond
that but must keep in mind that the player may only be able to
look at one hand at a time. For this
reason the composer may want to have difcult large leaps in only
one hand at a time while the other
plays tighter passages.
Here are some more specics that one can discover with the thumb
and pinky technique:
Fourths, fths, and sixths are the most comfortable
intervals.
Just as in piano playing, shifting ones whole hand around is
difcult while gures that
move each hand smoothly around the keyboard are much easier.
Keeping one hand on each keyboard - naturals or accidentals - at
a time is preferable
(like the piano part in Stravinskys Petrouchka).
The reader may try the following passage (Figure 6.8) on piano
with thumbs and pinkies to get a
feel for keyboard percussion playing. This passage is very
idiomatic. Mallet indications are 1, 2,
3, 4 from left to right (see Figure i.1) - that is, 1 is left
pinky, 2 is left thumb, 3 is right thumb, and
4 is right pinky. R and L mean right and left when both mallets
(ngers) of the same hand are usedtogether. (Mallet indications are
rarely included in scores.)
k e y b o a r d p e r c u s s i o n
Excerpted from How To Write For Percussionby Samuel Solomon
