Composer Resources 2020
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Performance Concerns
Mallets:
Some things you may already know:
We use a variety of mallets to assist us with achieving certain timbres and articulations
Sometimes we do this during a piece.
Hardness and weight help in determining sound. Harder mallets generally produce stronger high overtones and softer mallets generally produce lower overtones.
Sometimes we hold 4 mallets (very occasionally more, if we’re bribed) and “graduate” these mallets to help us with the tendencies of the instruments.
Higher Bars:
Harder mallets help realize clearer pitch
Softer mallets lead to dampening of the bar
Generally shorter durations
Can be softer if played with same velocity
Can be more articulate
Lower Bars:
Softer mallets realize fundamental
Harder mallets lead to higher overtones and possible damage
Generally longer durations
Can be louder if played with same velocity
Tend to be less articulate
Overtones very present (either octave or strong Major 3rd depending on beating spot)
Technique:
Marimbists work hard to play every interval, but generally start out around a 5th because that interval is generally the happy middle between more difficult 2nds and “stretching-it” octaves.
Articulations/phrasing:
I like seeing both articulations and phrase marks. I read them and care about performing them.
Mike's Favorites
The pieces below are a few recommendations I have for pieces that feature specific pitched percussion instruments. Of course there are plenty more, but here’s a brief start. Click on the instrument name to go directly to that part of the section.
Mallet Ensemble
The pieces that Messiaen wrote for his wife, Yvonne Loriod serve as a unique perspective on writing for a section of pitched percussion instruments (he also will include “unpitched” instruments as well, but for now let’s focus on the pitched instruments). Many of these pieces include Xylophone, xylorimba, marimba, almglocken, chimes and show interesting views into Messiaen’s orchestration within the section and as part of the larger ensemble.
Of course we all know and love Oiseaux Exotiques and Turangalila, but check out this beauty!
Marimba
Ton de Leeuw: Midare
This piece has blown me away since I first heard about it. When I learned it for TROMP 2010, I was pushed into new methods and styles of sound creation (including making my own mallets). I think the musical composition is invigorating to explore, the penmanship makes me want to get back in the practice room every day and there is just the right amount of mystery.
Steve Reich: Drumming, Part 2
Among the most beautiful timbral shifts of all time. Softened drum sticks playing tuned bongos moving to rubber sticks on marimba playing the same pitches. Genius.
Jacob Druckman: Reflections on the Nature of Water
I think this might be the most idiomatic piece ever composed for the marimba. Six movements of expertly-crafted music that can ONLY be played on marimba. I love that.
The piece opens with the movement “Crystalline”. High register, small bars, each with a staccato with grace notes? YES PLEASE. It even looks like fissures in a block of ice.
In the second movement, “Fleet” Druckman puts us in a pickle because we are required to make uniform articulations across the entire range of the instrument. This has proved to be quite a bit of work for us and sometimes we use beating spots or seemingly-magical adjustments of touch to make this even.
However, luckily he does write a lot of fifths for us, which are generally comfortable intervals to play in each hand. Also, and this is a stroke of genius, is the bottom of the first page, with a…ahem…fleeting ostinato of 32nd-notes with soaring outlier notes in the bass and treble. Note that the low C is marked sfz and the higher E5 toward the end of the measure is sffz. I believe the intension is equal sound between the C3 and E5, but because of the tendencies of the marimba (higher notes are softer and shorter), he marks the E5 one dynamic louder to compensate. A true marimbophile.
Xylophone
Bartok: Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, Mvt. 2, Reh. 48
I’ve played this piece many times with a number of different groups, including the concerto version. These xylophone notes always are terrifying to play because placement is everything on high xylophone notes with pianos…yikes. I always had played xylophone parts that were virtuosic, doubling a member of the band or orchestra or were some flashy solo moment that needed to cut through. These notes need to disappear into the constellation of texture that Bartok creates (oh, and they have to be perfectly on time too…)
Vibraphone
As you can see, I had a tough time deciding on my favorite vibraphone repertoire. I hope you can stand a few pieces here.
Christopher Deane, Mourning Dove Sonnet
Usually I tend to look with scrutiny upon percussionists composing for percussion. I really think this is a fantastic exploration of sounds on the vibraphone and it doesn’t feel like a juggling “look what I can do” piece. The ability to fuse extended techniques into a piece and make them feel organic is a tall order!
Philippe Manoury: Solo de Vibraphone (from Le Livre des Claviers)
In my opinion, there is no composition that better shows the sonic possibilities of the un-altered vibraphone sound. (Yes, some composers have used motor or prepared the vibraphone…) Finger and mallet dampening mixed with glissandi shows rhythmic realization of resultant harmonies. Nuances of the pedal and various layers of articulations give a 3-dimensional look into the sound of the vibes.
Pierre Boulez: Dérive 1
This piece is a master class in how to write for a Pierrot + percussion ensemble. As a performer (read “not composer) I feel this piece has no wasted information - everything on the page is crucial to the structure of the piece and its integrity. I love the usages of each instrument and the sound both in the audience and within the ensemble. It’s only 6 minutes. You’ve got 6 minutes.
Steel Pan
Steel pan is an instrument that is too often overlooked. It is taught in many schools around the country (even middle and high schools!) and can bring beautiful depth of color to a composition.
Disclaimer: I do not fluently play steel pan even though we do have a steel band at Ithaca College. I know many people who have performed steel pan in public who learned the piece as we would a multiple percussion piece (play that surface, then this surface, etc.). I say this only to let you know that not everyone can play, but we all can learn a part…for instance, see below!
Pierre Boulez: sur Incises
This performance is fantastic (and features Bleuenn Le Friec, who performed the work with me!), but also try to get your hands on the DVD of Boulez conducting and talking about the piece as well.
Here Boulez uses cello and tenor pans to expand the envelope of the harp and low piano sound while fusing the metallic timbre of vibraphone and the warmness of the marimba. This is one of the greatest pieces of the 20th century, in my humble opinion.
Chimes
Chimes/tubular bells are rarely called for in chamber works that I’ve played, but they do have such a beautiful color (if you have any question, visit the Messiaen Couleurs and Boulez sur Incises above). I know many people have a hard time getting over the church-bell connection (Kodaly Hary Janos, etc.), but here is a work that uses the church connotation and goes in a bit of a different direction…
Glockenspiel
There are a lot of beautiful glockenspiel parts in orchestras, both keyboard glockenspiel and hammered glockenspiel. So I tried to pick a couple pieces that are a bit different from the usual Mozart Zauberflöte or Respighi Pines of Rome.
Wuorinen New York Notes - beginning of 2nd movement
Charles Wuorinen’s New York Notes might be among the most difficult and most rewarding pieces I have ever played. The percussion part was written for Dan Druckman (humbly my mentor) and there are not many people who would look at this part and think: “I can play that by myself.” It is a non-stop whirlwind of tuning timpani, blistering mallet parts over stacked keyboards, and virtuosic “ON” and “OFF” of the vibe motor. A true masterpiece.
The moment of focus here is the opening note of the second movement, where the flute and glockenspiel play a note together in true unison. Charles asked me to really give the glockenspiel a good whoopin’ and I didn’t disappoint. I’ve played it with several flute players now, and they all were fantastic at tuning it, but invariably there was a brief moment of not being in tune. I mean, how COULD you!? I think this is the point. Charles knew that with the extreme overblowing of the flute and the slight change in pitch on a forcefully-struck glock note, there would be these beats of sound waves colliding. I mean, within reason…
yup.
Molly Joyce: Head to Toe
This piece was so much fun to learn and play! The piece was inspired by marching band, and the combination with pitched desk bells created a beautiful sound world that was groovy and funky and just a little bit off. When I first got the score I wondered if it was going to be too much of the same tessitura. It kinda was and I LOVE IT! I hope you love it too.
Crotales
Perhaps my favorite moment of all is this coda to Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Kontakte. The tape and crotales join (around 34:32 in the video below) on unison pitch and timbre. When the tape slowly descends in pitch and erupts into a cacophony of sound, I can think of no more rewarding musical experience. This is definitely one to hear live, I know…but in the mean time here’s a performance of which I am very proud with Renate Rohlfing and David Adamcyk.
Scavenger Hunt
For a fun comparison between crotales and glockenspiel in orchestration, listen to your favorite recording of Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun by Claude Debussy…especially the very end. Then listen to the recording by Ernest Ansermet and L’Orchestre de la Suise Romande (starting around 8:40). It seems the percussionists didn’t have access to antique cymbals (crotales), so they used glockenspiel. Same piece, TOTALLY different end!
Articles of Note
Web Links
This isn’t directly related, but just elegantly beautiful speech and performance
Books
Dierstein, et. al: The Techniques of Percussion Playing
Don’t miss the “Multimedia” section!
Reginald Smith-Brindle: Contemporary Percussion
Oh jeez, this is $864 on Amazon! Maybe just get it from your local library!
Warning: Look Before You Leap
The pieces below are AMAZING pieces that I adore playing, but they pose dilemma(s) for the performers that may lead to less-than-desirable performances. Almost all of these pose “impossible” performing scenarios, and composers who put performers in those situations are sometimes not pleased with the decisions that are made…just FYI.
Takemitsu: Rain Tree
Sadly we don’t have comfortable access to crotales below C4 and above C6…
What to do about a 4-note vibe chord followed by a crotale note???
Lesson: some groups of instruments want different mallets and some groups of instruments need different mallets.
Hurel: Tombeau (in Memorium Gerard Grisey)
We’ve learned nothing from Takemitsu…crotale to 4-note vibe
Charles Wuorinen: New York Notes
This is just SO much for one person. Wicked vibraphone and marimba licks, rapid-fire timpani tuning, switching mallets constantly and lightening vibraphone-motor changes make this a piece that is truly a tightrope-walk of choreography.
That being said, definitely pick up the score, study this piece in depth and know that every second of work is absolutely worth it for me. I really have a deep connection with this piece and love rehearsing and performing it!
John Zorn: contes de fées
Like the Wuorinen above, I LOVE playing John Zorn’s music. I just love John Zorn and will fight to realize his art to the best of my ability.
Here’s a tricky vibraphone motor issue of which to be wary. I needed a bit more time to turn the knob on my vibraphone to change the speed. If I did that while the bars were still resonating then the listener would clearly hear the change. My solution was to lightly taper off the top line a bit early to make sure I had a full eighth note to switch the vibe motor. Not perfect, but way better than an accelerando of motor.
Beating Spots and Their Effects
Below you’ll find some videos I made to help you hear the beating spots on xylo, marimba and vibes (on my instruments). Important to note are the overtones vs. fundamental (I’d listen with headphones). I tried to use mallets that are on the medium side and play larger bars so overtones are easier to hear.
Setup of the Instruments
Xylophone, marimba, vibraphone are all larger instruments that are their own supporting structure, meaning that they aren’t placed on a stand to be played (like crotales or glock). This means they are a bit bulkier within setups.
Many composers now are designating their recommended setups in scores, so perhaps here is a bit of helpful info regarding these larger instruments.
Stacking instruments is fine with me (I’m 6’ 3” and have a wingspan that is normal for that height), but even I ran into some trouble with reaching a low C on a 5.0 octave marimba while marimba and vibes are stacked (see Charles Wuorinen’s Xenolith that he wrote for Lois Martin and myself).
It is a bit confusing that the instruments don’t run in parallel lines, but I have gotten used to it.
(hint: I always line up the instruments in the same orientation each time. The high C# and D# on the vibes always go under the F and G on the marimba!)
Making an L is NOT my preferred method because you invariably will, for a part of the piece, not face your chamber music collaborators or conductors.
Additionally, realizing linear motion on both an X and Y axis is quite confusing for my simple drummer’s brain…
Crotales setup
Since crotales are sometimes mounted by the octave (yes you can also mount them individually), you have two main ways of setting them up (see below).
Dimensions
Dimensions:
FYI - dimensions of my personal xylo, vibe and marimba, in case you are interested…these dimensions will vary based on manufacturer and year, but here’s a place to get you started.
Contact Mike!
JEEZ that was a lot. Sorry. I would love to hear from you if you have any thoughts or further questions! Click below.