Welcome to my channel. My name is Antonio Gervasoni. I’m a Peruvian composer and university professor,
and this is the fifth video in my series on orchestration, which aims to introduce you
to some key aspects of this wonderful art. In this video, I’ll briefly explain some
fundamental concepts about the role of percussion in orchestral music. One of the roles least understood by my orchestration
students is that of percussion. They rarely have a clue what to do with it
and tend to misuse it. A key aspect is style. If you are orchestrating a piano piece from
the 18th century, overusing percussion is a mistake, not because its constant use is
incorrect but because it’s not appropriate for the music of that period. If, on the other hand, you are orchestrating
something more modern, you can go as far as Limantour did in his version of "La Noche
de los Mayas", by Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas, and ask for 12 percussionists who
play almost all the time.
In his book "Principles of Orchestration",
Rimsky-Korsakov says the following: “As regards expression, the strings come first,
and the expressive capacity of the other groups diminishes (…), color being the only attribute
of the last group of percussion instruments.” As much as I respect Rimsky-Korsakov, I think
he was wrong. There are many different roles that percussion
instruments can fulfill, apart from adding color and, in fact, he used them himself in
his works. This one is obvious. Tuned percussion instruments can be used to
play an important melody on their own, or they can provide harmonic support to other
instruments. A much-cited example of an important melody
on a percussion instrument is Mozart's glockenspiel part in "The Magic Flute." The vibraphone part of Roy Harris' Third Symphony
has moments in which the instrument plays four-note chords to reinforce the harmony
of the strings.
I can't show the music here for copyright
reasons, but you can find recordings of this symphony on YouTube. Unpitched percussion can also have an independent
part, that is, it can have a rhythm that doesn’t coincide with that of any instrument of the
other three families, as in the case of a typical military march rhythm. The most frequently cited case is surely Ravel's
“Bolero”, but there are also even more extreme examples, such as the first movement
of Carl Nielsen's 5th symphony, in which a snare drum plays rhythms at a different tempo
than the orchestra.
In symphonic works influenced by popular music,
such as Bernstein's symphonic suite from “West Side Story” or Lloyd-Webber's “Phantom
of the Opera”, a drum kit is used to provide a rhythmic base, just like in popular songs. As Rimsky-Korsakov pointed out, one of the
most common roles for percussion is, indeed, the simple addition of color to an orchestral
passage. Unlike strings, woodwinds and brass, which
can be mixed to some degree with each other, percussion instruments almost always feel
separate, not so much because of their timbre but because their involvement is usually brief:
notes cannot be sustained and die quickly. (Waveform graphic)
Of course, besides adding color, percussion will also tend to reinforce, so both roles
are always very present, but in some cases one will be more important than the other. In this example, the glockenspiel helps outline
the melody.
It’s like drawing a thin black line on an
image. Aside from timpani, the most common tuned
percussion instruments in the modern orchestra are the xylophone, marimba, glockenspiel,
vibraphone, tubular bells, and crotales. As I just said, the percussion tends to stay
separate so care should be taken when using them as they can easily end up in the foreground
(unless this is what the orchestrator wants). Of the instruments mentioned, only the marimba
manages to stay in the background, although this depends on issues such as register and
dynamics.
In this excerpt, for example, the marimba
is barely heard but the xylophone is very noticeable. Therefore, the percussion is best used when
one wishes to highlight an element in the music. In general, the percussion is the section
with the most precise attack of the entire orchestra. A multi-instrument hit, for example, can dramatically
improve the attack at an important point. In tonal music, timpani are frequently used
to reinforce the bass, especially in cadences. Changing the pitch too quickly in the timpani
can be awkward, so when the bass has a note that doesn’t match the pitch of any drum,
another note from the harmony can be used as well. It’s even possible to use the timpani if
none of them is tuned to a note present in the harmony. Just listen to this example by Rimsky-Korsakov
and you’ll see what I mean: Percussion is especially good for reinforcing
crescendos. There are countless examples of percussion
rolls that help intensify the crescendo towards a climactic moment.
Percussion is also very effective to establish
a pedal, be it harmonic or just pure noise. The typical case of the harmonic pedal obviously
occurs on timpani, but it can also be achieved with other tuned percussion instruments, such
as the xylophone. The noise pedal, of course, is related to
the use of unpitched percussion. This type of pedal is useful when the music
doesn’t have a note that can serve that purpose or when the orchestrator feels that
a pedal is appropriate despite not being present in the original work. In the example already given above, from Rimsky-Korsakov's
"Scheherazade", the triangle and tambourine play a noise pedal in the high and middle
registers, respectively. As with color and reinforcement, pedal and
noise (which I'll discuss in a moment) are closely related.
They are often present simultaneously, although
there are also examples that lean more towards one case than the other. By noise I mean the use of percussion to saturate
a certain register with noise. Of course, this can occur as a consequence
of a pedal, but this case is considered separately because a pedal doesn’t always produce this
effect. A typical example is the use of a triangle
tremolo to saturate the high register, a very common feature in music from the Romantic
period that today feels a bit cheesy. Stravinsky's "Firebird" begins with cellos
and double basses accompanied by a bass drum roll that adds noise in the low register.
Something similar occurs at the end of the
first part of "The Rite of Spring", where a Tam-tam roll completely saturates the middle
register. Listen to this example from Ravel's orchestration
of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition". The cymbal roll is obviously not present in
the original work, but Ravel was aware of the fact that the orchestra would produce
too clean a result compared to the piano version, which is normally played with a sustain pedal. The use of percussion instruments to accentuate
the beat is a rare case in symphonic music prior to modernism. It began to appear more and more frequently
since the early 20th century, especially in the works of Russian composers such as Stravinsky
and Prokofiev and later in those of Latin American composers, such as Revueltas and
Ginastera. In North America, minimalism and post-minimalism
have a great tendency to use percussion instruments to constantly accentuate the beat. An example of this occurs in John Adams' Short
Ride on a Fast Machine.
I can't show this example here for copyright
reasons, but there are several recordings of this piece available on YouTube. Another example is the beginning of Lutoslawski's
"Concerto for Orchestra". If you are orchestrating an old piece, overusing
percussion is probably not appropriate because percussion was sparingly used in the past
but if you’re orchestrating something more modern, there’s no limitation on the number
of percussion instruments you can use. Tuned percussion instruments can be used to
play an important melody or provide harmonic support for other instruments. On the other hand, unpitched percussion can
have an independent rhythmic part. Percussion instruments can add color to an
orchestral passage but they will almost always feel separate because their sound dies quickly. In doing so, they’ll also tend to provide
reinforcement and the result can be compared to drawing a thin black line on an image. Timpani are frequently used to reinforce the
bass, especially in cadences, and although their notes normally coincide with those of
the bass line, they can also be used if they play other notes of the harmony or even if
neither of them is tuned to a note present in the harmony.
Percussion is also very effective in setting
a pedal, be it harmonic or inharmonic. The former is useful if there’s a pedal
already established in the harmony. The second helps create a pedal when there’s
no common note in the harmony. Finally, percussion is also used to saturate
a certain register with noise such as the typical triangle tremolo in many romantic
works or the bass drum roll at the beginning of Stravinsky's "Firebird". Thank you for watching this video and subscribe
to be notified when I post a new one. I give private lessons online on orchestration. If you want to know more, click on the linked
video or visit my website (the link is in the description below)..