Musk! for Percussion Quartet

Musk! is a rhythmic driven piece that portrays an elephant in the state of "musk". Often when this happens, towns are destroyed, people are killed, and the usually gentle giant is put down by human force. The piece eventually goes through a breakdown ending with a rumble and crash of a fallen beast.

Musk! for Percussion Quartet

I enjoyed this, some nice work here. I thought it lacked some direction, although I could imagine the elephants stampeding as I listened. Would you think about replacing the piano for marimba to give a more "African type feel?

Thanks for the feed back... As far as the piano to marimba... No... I use a lot of pedaling to have the "Doppler effect" sustained in the piano... that wouldn't be nearly as effective on marimba. Also at the tempo given... the piano struggled with fingers as is... I would imagine it to be nearly impossible on a mallet instrument.

An idea: if the part really is too much for one person, the piano part could be scored for 2 (bass) marimbas. A lot of percussion pieces do that.

Marimba would be too soft.

I don't agree with the comment on lack of direction, I felt like everything made a lot of sense, pro grammatically at least. The performance sloppiness I think caused the piece to sound confused.

If you would upload a score, that would do a lot for me, as I can't hear one bit. Might help other people too.

Thanks Peter... but again... I want the piano. The parts not impossible but just challenging. Might I add in this recording, the pianist only had 2 days to learn it. Excluding some timing issues and minor mess ups, he did a pretty good job. So I'm convinced to keep the orchestration as is.

Marimba would be too soft.

I disagree. I see what Ritchie is saying about wanting the piano, the doppler effect he's talking about wouldn't be the same on marimba. But while you can't sound like a piano, you can get nearly unlimited sounds with different mallethead material selection. A harder yarn head mallet would cut through the other things going on, and if that isn't enough a rubber head mallet would definitely do it.

By the way, nice work.

Thanks Peter.

I disagree. I see what Ritchie is saying about wanting the piano, the doppler effect he's talking about wouldn't be the same on marimba. But while you can't sound like a piano, you can get nearly unlimited sounds with different mallethead material selection. A harder yarn head mallet would cut through the other things going on, and if that isn't enough a rubber head mallet would definitely do it.

By the way, nice work.

But when you're using the harder mallets to get a louder sound, the part that cuts through is almost entirely attack noise-with very little pitch. A lot of that nice harmony would be lost. And of course the effect also.

As for the performance, I think the players did very well, I don't mean to be insulting; it's just that the possible confusion of the linear narrative doesn't seem to a fault of the piece, but the execution. I don't find it to be confusing personally, but I could see how it would be for some people. It's hard to say where the confusion came from without a score though.

I get what your saying LastLife... the piece was to designed to play with the listeners ear (even mine when conducting it) because there are parts where ill have the meter of 7/8 with a very strong 2+2+3 feel and on top of that ill had the cymbals playing a straight 4/4 groove which makes u go "Hold up.. wheres the beat?!?!? Its grooving but I dont know how"... When there are timing issues (which there were) and errors (which there were) on top of the written multi-rhythms, then it could be to much for one who is not really into music. Or any listener for that matter. I was very scared for it to be performed because I felt it was very daring with the breaking down in the end and the irregular pulse but I'm happy with the end result.