Over the past 10 years, there has been a lot of pieces composed with an accompaniment track. If you have never played with an electronic backing track (what we used to call a “tape”), you should check out this quick video guide by Francisco Perez. In this video, he quickly explains the gear needed to set up a performance that utilizes a click track.
For more information about Francisco and his compositions for percussion, visit his website.
This is a great interview with Steven Schick and Luis Urrea talking about Stravinsky’s “L’Histoire du Soldat”. I hope there is a recording of the performance. I would love to see the performance with the new text.
From YouTube: “Luis Urrea is a prolific writer who uses his dual-culture life experiences to explore greater themes of love, loss and triumph. Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and American mother, Urrea is the critically acclaimed, best-selling author of 16 books. He talks with Steven Schick about his life and work, and their collaboration on a new version of Stravinsky’s “L’Histoire du Soldat” with texts from Urrea’s writings. Recorded on 2/1/2018. Series: “Helen Edison Lecture Series”
Multiple percussion duo scored for 5.0 octave marimba, 2 sets of bongos, 2 congas, 2 toms, 1 concert bass drum, and 2 splash cymbals. Both performers have identical set-ups and work “as one” by complementing each other with complex hocketed music played on marimba (shared: one player on each side) and multiple percussion.
One of my favorite gigs has always been playing musicals. I’ll never forget my first musical at Solano Community College when I was a junior in high school. I played a musical called Shenandoah and since then, I have been fortunate to play a good number of musicals. The level of complexity has sure increased over the years and the above video is a perfect example of what is expected of the percussionist in a musical.
As I was researching this post, I found numerous videos on YouTube featuring percussionists playing and talking about their set-ups. Dave Roth also has a great website where he features photos of his set-ups and lists of the instruments used. Here’s his set-up for Neverland. Thanks to Troy Wollwage for sending the link to Dave’s website.
Considered one of the first multi-percussion concertos, Darius Milhaud’s ‘Concerto Pour Batterie et Petit Orchestre’ (1929-30) is a masterwork in the percussion repertoire. Joseph Gramley and the University of Michigan Percussion Studio has put together a seven part documentary on this landmark piece. Bravo to Joe Gramley, Jonathan Ovalle and the UM Percussion Studio on this great historical resource.
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