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Re: writing percussion notes


From: Carl Peterson
Subject: Re: writing percussion notes
Date: Wed, 8 May 2013 08:38:44 -0400

(Thinks back to orchestration class four years ago)

The timpani (technically this is a plural noun) will be notated on one staff. If I remember correctly, there are standard-sized timpani, each with its own range. The practice I was taught in orchestrating for timpani (by a percussionist) was to basically assign each drum a pitch in their range (preferably in the middle of the range, for the best sound) as a starting point. You can move from this, but keep in mind that it can take a non-trivial amount of time to change the pitch of a drum, so a good starting place for writing this is (drone on drum 1) | (drone on drum 2 while pedaling drum 1 to a new pitch) | (drone on drum 1 at the new pitch). Silence in the transition period is also good, as it allows a timpanist to quietly play the timpani to make sure the pitch is right

The bass and snare will generally  be written on a single percussion line, particularly since there is one performer (they can. I've not done any composition for percussion in LilyPond (I think I saw documentation for this), but this is notated on a percussion staff where each line and space in combination with a certain notehead indicates the instrument to be played. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percussion_notation.

The end result would be two staves without grouping, one for timpani and another for the bass/snare.

Cheers,
Carl


On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 12:38 AM, Sarah k Alawami <address@hidden> wrote:
Ok. I'v never seen percussion music so I don't even know how to looks. I have to in this final assignment write for 3 timponies, 1 player playing them, a bass drum and symbol, one player playing them and a snare.

I know there are to be 3 percussion lines, but in the case of the timpani's how do I indicate which ones they need, or should I? and in the case of the non pitched instruments how do I indicate those notes, or rhythms that is? Sorry if I'm not making sense. I'm not a band nerd. lol! should I do new staff groups? or is it all 3 lines on 1 staff? if so yuck!

Take care. and thanks all.
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