November 19, 20178 yr I was contacted a couple weeks ago about a project in Belgium which intended to get 25 composers to each write a 2 minute piece in any style for a certain percussion setup (choice of three), and a 50 minute piece would then be strung together. This is what I came up with! It's for marimba, bongos, and temple blocks (all one player). I had a lot of fun writing for my native instrument for the first time in a few years. Unfortunately I don't have access to a marimba to test out the part on, but I air-marimba'd a lot of it to make sure it was theoretically doable. Doing the notation in Sibelius was a pain but I felt that it was worth making sure the marimba part looked intuitive.
November 21, 20178 yr Charming with a good atmosphere. The setup is going to be annoying, but I'm sure they thought of that. There are a couple spots where the natural/sharp switches with two hands - mostly just the ones with straight eighths, but you planned it out very well. The main thing is that it's annoying to read sometimes. Two staves with cross voiced notation is more standard, but probably easier to read.
November 21, 20178 yr Author The main reason for putting it all on the one stave was to make sure there weren't any page turns, because there aren't any opportunities for any! Two staves is often what composers will use, but for me this is still mostly pretty readable, and in the times where it's a little less so hopefully the percussionist will get plenty of opportunity to learn it before the performance.
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.