Cymbals are one of my favorite percussion instruments. In my studio, I stress the importance of triangle, tambourine and cymbal technique. A couple of months ago, I found this great resource on cymbal playing, CymbalExcellence.com. The site features Thomas Stubbs who is currently the cymbal specialist and associate principal timpanist with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. You can easily get lost in the audio and videos of Mr. Stubbs instructing and playing the orchestral cymbal repertoire. This site is for beginning percussionists as well as professionals. I highly recommend this website and I hope everyone will visit this site. You won’t be sorry and I am sure you will learn a thing or two about cymbal playing.
Zildjian has always been one of the leading cymbal manufacturers and curator of great educational content. In this video, Jake Nissly, Principal Percussionist with the San Francisco Symphony, talks about hand cymbal basics.
Zildjian’s Keith Aleo visits New World Symphony percussionists Brad Loudis and Dan Morris at the New World Center in Miami Beach, FL. In this video, you will hear the cymbal excerpts from Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Tchaikovsky’s Finale from the Fourth Symphony.
Today’s video features Brazilian drummer Christiano Gavalão runs through a Sambass Groove as part of his Creative Brazilian Drumming Series. There are so many good sources of information on the internet and I appreciate companies like Zildjian for posting these videos.
The other day, I went over crash cymbal technique in my percussion methods course at CSULB. There is a good diagram below, but for some reason, it always seems to confuse people. If you were never a scout, I can understand how it can be confusing. I was going to make a video on how to tie the cymbal knot, but after searching YouTube, Keith Aleo had already made a great video. (more…)
