Orchestral Percusion Techniques, Wierd and Exciting required! Options

[jonscott14]

Hi all percussionists! (and anyone else!)
I have recently been given the go ahead to compose a piece for the schools brass and percusion section. This is full orchestral brass, and orchestral percusion - tuned and untuned.

I wan't to create some unusual sounds, and was wandering if anyone could offer some advice and techniques that are effective - it would be great if they were infrequently used.

Many thanks,
Jon

[sonataform]

First of all, congratulations on being asked to write a piece - that's a wonderful opportunity and the experience will be invaluable.

Two main thoughts here. One is that I'd be cautious about creating a new sound just for the novelty value. As I'm sure you know, there has to be a good musical reason for every sound you create.

The other is based on what other composers have done. The first composer I thought about when I read your post was Britten, who devised an incredible number of new percussion techniques. He was very practical about this - he came up with a basic idea and then got someone (almost invariably James Blades) to come up with a few ways of producing it - and as far as I know he never included in a score any sound that he had not already heard during this process.

This is a very good model, and in your position I think I'd be following it. By all means think up some new techniques, but then get hold of some percussion instruments (and indeed a percussionist or two) to try them out before you introduce them into the piece. That way you'll know if the sound is really what you want, and you'll also be able to give good practical instructions to other percussionists on how to create it.

An alternative to all of this is not to create new sounds but to use existing ones in an imaginative way. What would it be like if, for example, a tune which you want to give to a trumpet is actually played on trumpet and glockenspiel? Would that add to or detract from the piece? Could you enhance the effect of another melody by having the side drum playing the same rhythm? How powerful could a single unaccompanied stroke on the triangle be? Would that "say" something that could not be said in any other way?