(Meredith Music Percussion). Former timpanist of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Indiana University Professor of Music, Gerald Carlyss has provided a comprehensive performance analysis for the timpani parts of the Brahms and Tchaikowsky symphonies. His easy-to-understand explanations are based on countless performances under many of the world's finest conductors. Includes complete parts for practice and performance.

Timpani Tone and the Interpretation of Baroque and Classical Music explores the nature, production, and evolution of timpani tone and provides insights into how to interpret the music of J. S. Bach, Handel, Haydn, and Mozart. In drawing on 31 years of experience, Steven L. Schweizer focuses on the components of timpani tone and methods for producing it. In so doing, he discusses the importance of timpani bowl type; mallets; playing style; physical gestures; choice of drums; mallet grip; legato, marcato, and staccato strokes; playing different parts of the timpano head; and psychological openness to the music in effectively shaping and coloring timpani parts. In an acclaimed chapter on interpretation, Schweizer explores how timpanists can use knowledge of the composer's style, psychology, and musical intentions; phrasing and articulation; the musical score; and a conductor's gestures to effectively and convincingly play a part with emotional dynamism and power. The greater part of the book is devoted to the interpretation of Baroque and Classical orchestral and choral music. Meticulously drawing on original sources and authoritative scores from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, Schweizer convincingly demonstrates that timpanists were capable of producing a broader range of timpani tone earlier than is normally supposed. The increase in timpani size, covered timpani mallets, and thinner timpani heads increased the quality of timpani tone; therefore, today's timpanist's need not be entirely concerned with playing with very articulate sticks. In exhaustive sections on Bach, Handel, Haydn, and Mozart, Schweizer takes the reader on an odyssey through the interpretation of their symphonic and choral music. Relying on Baroque and Classical performance practices, timpani notation, the composer's musical style, and definitive scores, he interprets timpani parts from major works of these composers. Schweizer pays particular attention to timpani tone, articulation, phrasing, and dynamic contouring: elements necessary to effectively communicate their part to listeners.

This volume contains the complete timpani parts for three Mahler symphonies, as well as extensive discussion of performance and overall place in the music.

(Meredith Music Percussion). A unique text providing information on the background, selection and fundamental performance techniques for 17 accessory instruments including wood block, claves, antique cymbals. temple blocks, cabasa, castanets and more. It also provides skill development exercises that cover the essential techniques for each instrument and, includes a list of selected literature from the band and orchestra repertoire. Each musical exercise includes a description of the technique being taught as well as a clear, instructional diagram.

The actual daily practice routines used by professional symphonic and jazz drummers. The many variations of basic rudimental patterns make snare drum practicing a joy.

While composers and percussionists are working more closely than ever with one another, there are few resources that address this collaborative relationship in depth. Samuel Z. Solomon, himself a percussionist and teacher, offers How to Write for Percussion to fill this longstanding need. The first edition, self-published in 2004, provided musicians and music programs the world over with practical and indispensible information about issues of notation, concert production, and much more. This new edition expands the survey of behind-the-scenes processes-from instrument choice and notation to logistics, execution, and concert production-to uncover the tools a composer needs to comfortably create innovative and skilled percussion composition. Featuring an extensive Online Video Companion containing over nine hours of videos with demonstrations, performances, interviews, and analysis, How to Write for Percussion is sure to appeal to a wide swath of musicians and composers. Those familiar with the first edition will welcome the upgrade, and those who have yet to benefit from Solomon's perspective will find his insights illuminating. Book jacket.

This is a complete and extensive method for timpani. Each essential skill is covered: basic theory (the building blocks of all music) * technique and facts (from sticking, muffling, and rolls to instrument care) * intonation (tuning of intervals, scales, glissandos, three and four timpani exercises) and a large selection of standard symphonic timpani repertoire (from the classics of Beethoven, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, R. Strauss, Tschaikowsky, Wagner, and more).

Revised and expanded, A Performer's Guide to Seventeenth Century Music is a comprehensive reference guide for students and professional musicians. The book contains useful material on vocal and choral music and style; instrumentation; performance practice; ornamentation, tuning, temperament; meter and tempo; basso continuo; dance; theatrical production; and much more. The volume includes new chapters on the violin, the violoncello and violone, and the trombone—as well as updated and expanded reference materials, internet resources, and other newly available material. This highly accessible handbook will prove a welcome reference for any musician or singer interested in historically informed performance.

"Kick It, the first social history of the drum kit, looks closely at key innovators in the development of the instrument: inventors and manufacturers like the Ludwig and Zildjian dynasties, jazz icons like Gene Krupa and Max Roach, rock stars from Ringo Starr to Keith Moon, and popular artists who haven't always got their dues as drummers, such as Karen Carpenter and J Dilla. Addressing a seeming contradiction--the centrality of the drum kit on the one hand, and the general disparagement of drummers on the other--author Matt Brennan makes the case for the drum kit's role as one of the most transformative musical inventions of the modern era. Tackling the history of race relations, global migration, and the changing tension between high and low culture, Kick It shows how the drum kit and drummers helped change modern music--and society--from the bottom up"--Back cover