Young One's Sorrow. Marching Band Field Show

I'm a drumline guy so bear with me:

Okay, I'm not sure why you have both quad and quint toms - generally a tenor line will all have 4 or 5 drums. Plus, for quints, you still write in the spaces, not the lines, and the gock (tiny high pitched drum) sits on top of the staff. As for the snares, all those "X" notes indicate rim clicks, which I'm assuming you aren't intending. Oh, and the quads again - you can't hit all 4 drums at once, as per your final few bars there. And again with the snares, instead of 32nd notes beamed to 16th notes, unless you definitely want them all single-strokes, just make them all 16th notes and add a little slash (looks like /) to the first two to indicate double strokes - you'll hear the same pattern, but it's far easier and more logical to play.

And as everyone else has said - the battery parts are gratingly boring.

Sorry about those, I'm still not exactly sure on how to write percussion parts on Finale 2003.

EDIT: Also, Quads are to represent Bass Drum parts, and the Quints are to represent tenor drum parts. Can someone show me how to actually write the percussion parts on Finale 2003, because I know the / thing, I just can't figure it out. I also know about the x thing. But how do you do it?!?!


Hm... I should rephrase that.

Quads = Bass Drum Parts

Quints = Tenors

X's= Are the only way that I can get anything close to a snare sound on Finale 2003

/ thing= I knew that existed, I just can't figure out how to do it on Finale 2003.

The Gock Block thing, I had to put it where the sound was on the staff, which unfortunately, wasn't on the line.


...If anyone knows how I can get the actual things to work in Finale 2003, tell me... that would be helpful.


EDIT: Huh, just figured out how to change the sound for the Snares. And the note heads. Those are fix'd. Maybe I can use the same process for the Wood Blocks?

If you need any more help figuring stuff out, check this article out.... I wrote it using Finale 2002, so it should be fine with your 2003. It'll help you with setting up your percussion maps and where to find the sounds you want in General Midi. Might also help you get the tenor drums' part fixed up and get the gock in the right place.

YoungComposers.com/articles/Writing Percussion Staves in Finale

And shouldn't you have five bass drum parts as opposes to four?

And the slashy thingy y'all are talking about is an articulation, it should be #32. It will playback when you apply Smart Playback or Human Playback.

I went with four, as to use the concert bass drum as the 5th. (If that makes sense.)

I figured out how to use the percussion map, but I've been using either 42 or 52 for snare.

I looked in the articulation area, but I guess I'll look again.

EDIT: nvm, I was using 40.

Thanks!

I would like to point out that often when a composer writes a show, he will employ a percussion composer to write the percussion parts, generally giving a skeleton of what he or she wants. Subsequently a lot of marching bands throw out those percussion parts, as they have a guy to write the parts for them.
However, even though this is the case, it still would be beneficial for you to learn about percussion parts anyway. I do not have finale and so cannot view this piece, I only know what I know from the posts in the thread.

Just something to keep in mind.


I'm a percussion composer and that's probably the funnest part of marching band for me.

Well, I know for our marching show this year, we did Music of the Day. Most of the percussion was already written, all that was changed was a few parts I guess. Someone who's in our drumline, correct me if I'm wrong!

Plus I don't have anyone I could have sent it to, to write it for me. Plus, I need the percussion practice. I would upload midis for it again, but the problem is that when I did it for the Finale, the flutes ended up weird, and it just sounded wrong.

The ones I have uploaded have not been updated with changes now that i figured out how to do some things with the percussion.

Also, If I want the tenors and bass line to hit the rim of the drum, which line(s) to i put the 'x'?

For tenor drums, use only those five spaces, no matter what type of sound you want. Generally you'll have full noteheads for normal strokes, x's for rimshots, and for rims you could use x's and specify above that they are on the rim, and then say 'on drums' when you want to stop using those. If you are mixing a lot of hitting on the rim with hitting on the drums and/or rimshots, then maybe just use a different notehead, and specify at the beginning that they are rim hits.

For bass drums, remember that you put each bass drum on a space, so essentially it looks like tenor music. However, when you want them all to play at once, you put it on the middle line (treble clef b.) This indicates that they all play. You would use this for rims too, with an x. You probably won't have individual drums playing rims because the sound wouldn't carry.

I'm always down for scoring percussion parts to marching shows. I think it's incredibly fun.

Hm. Well, I was off with writing some things. Could you help me? I can turn the show to pdf file (i think) and send it if your interested.

Sure. Do you need my email?

Also, are you asking me to look at what you have and help with notation issues, or to score some parts?

Anything really. I know I have some notation problems. I could just Pm you. I'll send it if someone is willing to make it pdf.
For those with Finale: This is what I have done so far with updating!