Play percussion? Good cord mallets in your bag.

February 17, 2009

Earlier today I had a music ed. student come into my office and ask for another copy of the Percussion Ensemble course syllabus since he had lost his and was wanting to finally purchase the items he needed for that course i.e. stick bag, timp. mallets, concert snare sticks, etc. Well, part of that list of needed items are two pairs of marimba mallets. He also asked if he needed vibe mallets, a very valid question since he is taking a course that revolves around playing various percussion instrument. He learned a very valuable lesson today-invest in some good cord mallets!

With cord, you'll have greater durability than yarn and you can have a great range of uses as opposed to just vibraphone or just marimba. With cord, you can easily segue from vibes to marimba to a nice suspended cymbal roll.

Pros:

• durability
• different choice of sounds
• versatility-marimba, vibes, cymbals, blocks, etc.
  

Cons:

• vibe mallets are shorter and a slight disadvantage for larger intervals on the marimba
• doesn't allow you the fullest of range from the needed lushness of the lower register to a full articulate sound on the upper register

I'm sure there are more pros and cons to using vibe mallets, but I must admit that I am a huge fan of the Mike Balter Pro Vibe Series, especially his medium blue and soft red mallets. While in college I started a farily large collection of mallets for my bags and I would find myself constantly returning to a select few models for general work-Balter blues, Balter reds, Leigh Stevens line and now...the Gifford Howarth line through Vic Firth.

When I started learning the Bach Cello Suites on marimba, I went through every possible combination of mallets to make sure I had an even sound across the instrument, but I found myself coming back to the Balter reds of the Pro Vibe Series. I love the warmth, yet articulation of the reds during the lower third of the instrument.

As I mentioned a little earlier, the Malletech Leigh Stevens and Vic Firth Gifford Howarth Series are amongst my favorites to use, particularly in a solo setting.

The Recording-When To Use It

February 11, 2009

I've been talking about this topic with my wife recently and the pros and cons of a recording in terms of preparing music for performance. Of course, there are millions of recordings of just about anything and they all serve various purposes, the most common of course is for listening pleasure.

So, when to use it? Recordings are an ideal source of listening pleasure but then can also be used as a learning tool. How it should be used as a learning tool should be carefully thought out. I am a firm believer that a recording should be used for stylistic examples and interpretations in preparing for performance.

I find, in the college setting, that a good portion of my students are still learning and exploring much of the repertoire that we perform. We are gearing up for our next performance (March 1 at the Indianapolis Artsgarden!--shameless plug) entitled "Big Music Downtown" and are performing Mussorgsky's famous Pictures at an Exhibition arranged by John Boyd from Indiana State. Since this is my first time conducting the complete work I have been studying this piece for a while now and became a little worried when I encountered No. 6 Two Jews, One Rich, The Other Poor. I knew that there would be a few raised eyebrows when they saw the amount of 32nd notes, especially with a pick up of a 64th note.

Let's use recordings in the classroom for examples of other interpretations and styles and not as a tool to help them "learn the music". Sure, it's fine to play a recording of the piece once at the beginning, but don't constantly reference it to demonstrate how they should be.

Let's do our best to cultivate the process of discovery in music and not be so quick to give them the answers. Maybe that concert won't be as stellar as you hoped, but I bet they really learned something and I know that your next performance will be that much better.