Lessons learned from non- notated music remind us that music is inherently social.
Even composing by oneself in front of a computer or a piano is a social activity. The moment a single notation is made, the composer has entered into a relationship with his or her performers. Those performers will then have specific relationships with each other and with their audiences as a result of that notation. To care for the passage of information from the composer’s imagination to the audience’s ears is to honor these social interactions.
Figure 1.14 Third Stravinsky adaptation
This is important to consider when writing for any instrument or ensemble, but it is especially so for percussion. Because of the inherent indeterminacies and the logistic and notational complexities of percussion music, composers must rely more heavily on percussionists than they do on other instrumentalists to be responsible for the success of their music. It is not enough to know how to write for percussion;
one must also know how to write for percussionists. Some examples follow, but the composer should apply this mindset to every page of this book and every interaction with his or her collaborators.
Write for People, Not Sounds
Because percussionists are able to play a dozen or more instruments from one standing position, it can be easy to think of the percussion sounds as disembodied from the people creating them. In some pieces with multi- percussion setups, music is notated for a large number of instruments, with little indication or care for how the instruments are set up in relationship to one another. In some ensemble scores, each non- percussion player or section of players will have one staff (one staff for violins, one for second trombone, one for third flute doubling piccolo, and so on), but the percussion staves in the same score indicate one instrument with no guid-ance as to which player is responsible for what staff, or even how many players are needed.
Notations like these are unfortunately all too common. Besides creating extra work for the performers, they can sabotage the composer’s efforts, as logistic and notational difficulties will impede the performer’s ability to make good music. The composer will certainly face limitations when holding a composition accountable for the reality of performance, but acknowledgment of these limitations will yield better and more accurate performances.
Specifically, when writing for a multi- percussion setup, the composer should start with a list of instruments that fulfills the musical requirements of the composition;6 for example:
6. While a predetermined instrumentation will yield many compositional and logistical benefits, it may better suit a composer’s process to choose instruments fluidly at the whim of his or her imagination. If so, it is still recommended the composer move in the direction of this example during the editing process.
The composer should then collaborate with a percussionist to determine a setup that makes physical, logistical, and musical sense (figure 1.15), determine a system of nota-tion that relates to the setup (figure 1.16), and then write with these realities in mind.
When writing an ensemble piece, the composer should not write for a large list of instruments; for example, avoid:
four players timpani marimba vibraphone xylophone glockenspiel crotales
2 suspended cymbals tam- tam
3 tom- toms bass drum 5 templeblocks tambourine guiro triangle vibraslap
Vibraphone
Tom-tom Woodblocks Cowbells
Snare Cymbals Woodblocks Cowbells
Cymbals
Figure 1.15 Example setup
Figure 1.16 Example Notation
Instead, the composer should decide exactly who plays what, and write for those peo-ple standing in front of those specific setups:
player 1 timpani player 2
marimba 3 tom- toms bass drum
2 suspended cymbals player 3
vibraphone 5 templeblocks tambourine guiro tam- tam player 4
glockenspiel crotales xylophone triangle vibraslap
In both cases, these preparatory steps will reduce or eliminate unworkable and confusing notations, logistics, and setup/ beater requirements. Moreover, these steps can considerably reduce the amount of non- musical work required of the performers, giving them more energy and time to devote to making the music sound good. (These points will be addressed further in the next two chapters.)
Write What Is Wanted, Not What to Do
The job of the performer, more or less, is to do what the composer says. There are many instances, however, when the details of percussion playing are best chosen based on elements that are beyond the composer’s control— for example, the spe-cific instruments, the performance venue, the spespe-cific ensemble, or even the weather.
Therefore, it is often more effective if the composer indicates what he or she is hop-ing to hear rather than exactly what the percussionist should do to achieve it. The former more abstract notation allows percussionists to find solutions specific to their
equipment and their environment. Such notations encourage the performers to make good decisions; more specific indications may limit their good sense.
The key to evoking these good decisions is to use prose descriptions that guide the performers’ ears toward the conceptual musical material beyond the music notations on the page. Some examples: