Top 10 Mistakes When Writing for Percussion
10. Indicating the wrong mallets for an instrument.
Brass mallets on vibes? Try a hammer on a violin!
9. Writing the glockenspiel part as heard.
You shouldn't have to climb a ladder of leger lines to read a glock part. Keep it in the staff.
8. When in doubt, adding more suspended cymbal.
This is a huge mistake made by arrangers. Yep, cymbals add automatic intensity to a piece, but so can a bass drum roll, a rousing hand drum part, exciting mallet licks, or a hundred other combinations. Well-written percussion parts stand out in the band and church repertoire.
7. Better means more complicated, right?
This is my main mistake. A percussion part can be simple enough for a middle school, but it is the ability to use the different tone colors of the percussion palette properly that indicates a maturity in writing, not that impossible part for the timpanist that has them playing timpani, gong, crash cymbals, and triangle in the span of two beats.
6. Never trust Band-in-a-Box to write the timpan…
Brass mallets on vibes? Try a hammer on a violin!
9. Writing the glockenspiel part as heard.
You shouldn't have to climb a ladder of leger lines to read a glock part. Keep it in the staff.
8. When in doubt, adding more suspended cymbal.
This is a huge mistake made by arrangers. Yep, cymbals add automatic intensity to a piece, but so can a bass drum roll, a rousing hand drum part, exciting mallet licks, or a hundred other combinations. Well-written percussion parts stand out in the band and church repertoire.
7. Better means more complicated, right?
This is my main mistake. A percussion part can be simple enough for a middle school, but it is the ability to use the different tone colors of the percussion palette properly that indicates a maturity in writing, not that impossible part for the timpanist that has them playing timpani, gong, crash cymbals, and triangle in the span of two beats.
6. Never trust Band-in-a-Box to write the timpan…
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