Percussionists! - double sticking

A question for the percussionists and mallet players out there:

How do you prefer double sticking to be notated in a part - written out as 16th notes, for example (1), or as an 8th note with a slash (2)(with or without the abbreviation dots above the note)?
or

Either way, would including R and L indicators above the notes for the first few notes be appropriate?
or
Also, I know this works very well on xylophone and marimba, but I was wondering if there's enough bounce-back to do this for vibraphone as well.

Thanks for responses!

Should work fine on the vibraphone.

Just notate it as semiquavers - it's standard in any piece I've played, and unless you got 200 bars of straight semis then it's unneccesary to abbreviate.
Also, don't put in R L indicators unless there's a specific effect you need to achieve - anything else is over-notating. The percussionist will almost surely know the best way to play any standard passage.

I would prefer an 8th note with a slash if you specifically want the percussionist to use double sticking. If you use 16th notes, I might end up choosing a single sticking technique. I might even switch between the two depending on the direction the music is going.

For vibraphone, my experience is that double sticking does not sound as good as single sticking because the second note comes out less defined. I would try and use single sticking as much as I can with the vibraphone. You could have the vibraphonist use hard mallets but in my opinion, the harder the mallet, the worse the tone quality (to many over-tones).

I added visual examples to clarify. Percussionists, which way is the way you would prefer seeing, 1, 2, 3, or 4?

Bonus points to anyone who can figure out what piece of music that quote is from.

Personally, #3, as in retrospect, if you must have double sticking, then you should indicate it for the first few notes.

I'd take 2, unless there was a specific effect you're looking to achieve, in which case 4.

Anything else just looks annoying and cluttered on the page.

The percussionist will almost surely know the best way to play any standard passage.

Yes, thank you. And even a non-standard passage we can most likely figure out - that's why we're called percussionists

Originally Posted by Daniel

Personally, #3, as in retrospect, if you must have double sticking, then you should indicate it for the first few notes.

Yes, I definitely want the percussionist to use double sticking.

My main goal is to make it as clear as possible with the least amount of clutter on the page.

If it's a double here and there I think it should be noted that way.

But if it's a double stroke roll, like for snare drum, I like it with the slash marks. I think it's easier to read a triplet roll when it's triplets with a slash rather than 24 6th notes.

In drum notation, I almost always prefer it slashed I guess.
I've never seen it outside of that. I would be kind of taken aback if I saw that on let's say, vibes or something.

When I'm writing for drums, I sometimes switch depending on what's going on. If the tenors have scrapes which can't be notated with slashes, I would notate all of the battery with open nation, no slash. But if it was a union roll, I will almost always use slash.

Same with bases. Individual rolls get slashes, but bass splits are always written out.

I just do whatever feels right, as long as it means the same thing, you can notate it however you want, but I obviously some ways are going to be more logical than others.

Thanks for everyone's input, here a sample from the piece that my question was addressing.



Is this clear? If not, what would you personally change to make it clearer?

I see nothing wrong with that aside from the fact I'm not accustomed to mallet percussion being noted that way.

But I've seen it that way before. I know what one of those slashes mean. Others may not if they've never been exposed to different types of percussion. (Honestly, I've never seen it outside of a marching percussion venue.)

But at that dynamic, I doubt anyone would even attempt to stick it otherwise. That would be quite difficult and awkward.