# Is anyone aware of a detailed guide to percussion notation?



## Virtual Virgin (Nov 10, 2020)

I am looking for a thorough guide for best practices on a wide range of percussion instruments.
I am currently programming a plethora of percussion maps for Dorico and would like to get detailed with the articulations/techniques.
Thanks!


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## Bollen (Nov 10, 2020)

Yes! This is the one I use and I love it! Even has a companion website to hear all the instruments and examples...


http://szsolomon.com/write-percussion/



I emailed the author a few times and he was super friendly and helpful.


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## Virtual Virgin (Nov 10, 2020)

Bollen said:


> Yes! This is the one I use and I love it! Even has a companion website to hear all the instruments and examples...
> 
> 
> http://szsolomon.com/write-percussion/
> ...



Thanks!
I love Oxford University Press. I'll be checking this out.


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## Virtual Virgin (Nov 12, 2020)

So I actually found this book to be very disappointing for the purpose of notation.
There are detailed descriptions of a good range of percussion instruments, including photos, but the author does not give notation details for each (only a few instruments, sporadically). 
I was expecting a reference like this to show examples of all of the basic techniques with the common notations for each of these instruments in each of their respective entries. 

Take bongos for example. If you want to notate music for bongos, you should start with its common appearance on a staff and examples of its common articulations shown in notation. 
Here we don't get that. We get a picture and a paragraph description. 
Scouring around for "bongos" will get you examples of bongos used in kits, where the composer will assign any space or ledger to the drums. 

Another example. Snare drum.
Nowhere in the book does it actually present common usage of cross-stick, rim, rimshot notation (circled X, X, and slashed notehead respectively). It does suggest that rimshot is written often written with "R.S." but I've never even seen that used once.

Later on the book has an emaciated legend for drum kit.
It is missing 3 toms, any snare variations, multiple cymbals and puts the ride on the wrong note (ledger line A instead of top F).

Somewhere else in the book it suggests beater changes are notated with notehead changes, (which certainly you can if you want to) but it makes no mention of the most common score indicators which is just a text directive (usu. "w/hard mallets," "hard mallets" or "to hard mallets").

That misses the major elements needed.

What are we missing? We need two things here.
1) To start with how the instrument appears on the staff if it is the default instrument (i.e. what note on the staff = what drum)
2) Standardized notation of the most common articulations for that instrument (i.e. hits, finger taps, slaps, center palm, w/sticks etc.)

Now, *some* of these things show up for *some* of these instruments, but in unpredictable places around the book, making this a slipshod reference book given the methodology.


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## JohnG (Nov 12, 2020)

maybe buy the score for "How to Train Your Dragon" by John Powell, from Omni Publishing? That has quite a lot of percussion in it. Or possibly Edgar Varese's "Ionisations?" 

I have an old book called Eclectic Drums by John Perett for drum kit; there are plenty of pictures on the internet of how to notate for kit.


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## Virtual Virgin (Nov 12, 2020)

JohnG said:


> maybe buy the score for "How to Train Your Dragon" by John Powell, from Omni Publishing? That has quite a lot of percussion in it. Or possibly Edgar Varese's "Ionisations?"
> 
> I have an old book called Eclectic Drums by John Perett for drum kit; there are plenty of pictures on the internet of how to notate for kit.



I'm so glad another person on the internet has come along to answer a question I didn't ask.
I'm looking for a reference on best practices for percussion notation.


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## JohnG (Nov 12, 2020)

Virtual Virgin said:


> I'm so glad another person on the internet has come along to answer a question I didn't ask.
> I'm looking for a reference on best practices for percussion notation.



Um, yes it would answer your question. The score is full of "notation" for "percussion." Sorry I bothered.


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## Gene Pool (Nov 12, 2020)

JohnG said:


> Um, yes it would answer your question. The score is full of "notation" for "percussion." Sorry I bothered.




Um, no, really not a good idea to use Hollywood _ad hoc_ notation as a reference.


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## Virtual Virgin (Nov 12, 2020)

Yes, I'm trying to start with the perspective of one stave : one instrument (or in the case of obvious sets like bongos, temple blocks etc. each being one stave).

I have a preference towards using different notehead types, rather than lettering above/below, so if there is no real "consensus" for hand drum notation what I will do is make my own legend and try to be as consistent as possible retaining a sound : icon correlation.

Definitely + and o for mute and open.

Now, what is the standard notation for a dead stroke? I couldn't find one but saw both staccato and tenuto being used. Also, for that matter, what is a proper dead stroke? I've seen demonstrations (on snare) where it is treated as a press mute, and another where it was played as a one-handed fading buzz roll.

Now for ghost notes, the most common I have seen are in () or small noteheads.
X's on drum kit I see as rim (rim click, not to be confused with rimshot).

As for style improvisation, my first priority in the percussion maps here is for mock-up programming, so everything is either meticulously notated, or I am playing it in.

I just want to keep things coherent between libraries so that I'm not using any old symbol for similar techniques, with hopefully having the added benefit that it would be well organized enough for actual percussionists to interpret if need be.


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## JJP (Nov 12, 2020)

Percussionist here. Aside from some of the references above like the PAS drumset book (which interestingly has been more widely accepted in academic than performance circles for various reasons), I'd also recommend Behind Bars by Elaine Gould. It has an entire section on percussion notation. It won't get too much into notating specific techniques for different instruments because most of those are not standardized, but it does do a wonderful job of sorting out several conventions. It also hints at why there are multiple methods for notation. Some work better in certain situations.


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## Virtual Virgin (Nov 12, 2020)

JJP said:


> Percussionist here. Aside from some of the references above like the PAS drumset book (which interestingly has been more widely accepted in academic than performance circles for various reasons), I'd also recommend Behind Bars by Elaine Gould. It has an entire section on percussion notation. It won't get too much into notating specific techniques for different instruments because most of those are not standardized, but it does do a wonderful job of sorting out several conventions. It also hints at why there are multiple methods for notation. Some work better in certain situations.


Ok, looking into this. The paperback fetches $80!
I'll see if I can find one on Ebay.


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## Bollen (Nov 13, 2020)

Virtual Virgin said:


> So I actually found this book to be very disappointing for the purpose of notation.
> There are detailed descriptions of a good range of percussion instruments, including photos, but the author does not give notation details for each (only a few instruments, sporadically).
> I was expecting a reference like this to show examples of all of the basic techniques with the common notations for each of these instruments in each of their respective entries.
> 
> ...


Oh dear! I felt terribly guilty when I received this notification considering I recommended this book. But going through your criticism, with the book in hand, I realised (and please don't take offense) you're reading it wrong... If what you wanted was a quick reference guide, I'm sure I can find a PDF somewhere in my computer which I will post here. I thought you wanted a detailed explanation of every aspect of percussion, in that case this marvelous book has you covered!

I refer you to the index and chapter 3, this will explain everything about notation, good practice and things to avoid. Furthermore, appendix C covers extended techniques. Specifically bongos, page 56. You really need to give it a once over to get the general idea, but I have never encountered a better book about all percussion practices in 30 years of composing professionally...


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## Lea1229 (Nov 14, 2020)

Bollen said:


> Oh dear! I felt terribly guilty when I received this notification considering I recommended this book. But going through your criticism, with the book in hand, I realised (and please don't take offense) you're reading it wrong... If what you wanted was a quick reference guide, I'm sure I can find a PDF somewhere in my computer which I will post here.



Greetings! I would love to see that pdf. I'm interested in the book based on your description, but I think a quick references are really handy too. Listening to percussion writing by Saariaho and Unsuk Chin lately has me intrigued.


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## Lea1229 (Nov 14, 2020)

JohnG said:


> maybe buy the score for "How to Train Your Dragon" by John Powell, from Omni Publishing? That has quite a lot of percussion in it. Or possibly Edgar Varese's "Ionisations?"
> 
> I have an old book called Eclectic Drums by John Perett for drum kit; there are plenty of pictures on the internet of how to notate for kit.



I appreciated your suggestions, John.


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## Bollen (Nov 16, 2020)

@Virtual Virgin and @Lea1229 here's a link to a quick reference, there also some good ones in the aforementioned book and pretty much any orchestration literature.

https://web.mit.edu/merolish/Public/drums.pdf


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## Virtual Virgin (Nov 16, 2020)

Bollen said:


> Oh dear! I felt terribly guilty when I received this notification considering I recommended this book. But going through your criticism, with the book in hand, I realised (and please don't take offense) you're reading it wrong... If what you wanted was a quick reference guide, I'm sure I can find a PDF somewhere in my computer which I will post here. I thought you wanted a detailed explanation of every aspect of percussion, in that case this marvelous book has you covered!
> 
> I refer you to the index and chapter 3, this will explain everything about notation, good practice and things to avoid. Furthermore, appendix C covers extended techniques. Specifically bongos, page 56. You really need to give it a once over to get the general idea, but I have never encountered a better book about all percussion practices in 30 years of composing professionally...



Oh no! I wasn't saying it was useless, but just that presentation system was not good for the specific kind of reference I am looking for. I quite like the book and will look into it more about general creative outlook on those instruments. At one point it mentions roto-toms as being the upper range of the timpani family and I thought that really made sense and gave me some ideas to make more continuity between them.


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## Virtual Virgin (Nov 16, 2020)

JohnG said:


> Um, yes it would answer your question. The score is full of "notation" for "percussion." Sorry I bothered.


Sorry, but the it's like the difference between "anecdote" and "data".
I was asking for a reference to notation, something that would effectively be a metastudy.
One score is just one person's notation methods. I have plenty of those and consult them.
Reference material would be something like a survey of hundreds (or thousands) of scores and observations on the most common practices and options for extended techniques or unconventional notation.


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## youngpokie (Nov 16, 2020)

Virtual Virgin said:


> ... I was asking for a reference to notation, something that would effectively be a metastudy....



This is a fascinating topic. Not to derail the thread, but have you (or anyone else) come across a meta system of articulations for orchestral instruments?

For example, I find the articulation terms and systems used for strings are all over the place. Some people use French terms, others use Italian. Some mix them up based on colloquial usage, others insist the actual articulations are different based on the fact there's a French and an Italian term for it in common day to day usage. Sautille vs Saltando? And so on... It's a nightmare.

I have a ~70 year old book on violin techniques that attempts to set up a classification of string articulations, but would appreciate it if you came across anything modern and comprehensive... Cheers!


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## Bollen (Nov 16, 2020)

youngpokie said:


> This is a fascinating topic. Not to derail the thread, but have you (or anyone else) come across a meta system of articulations for orchestral instruments?
> 
> For example, I find the articulation terms and systems used for strings are all over the place. Some people use French terms, others use Italian. Some mix them up based on colloquial usage, others insist the actual articulations are different based on the fact there's a French and an Italian term for it in common day to day usage. Sautille vs Saltando? And so on... It's a nightmare.
> 
> I have a ~70 year old book on violin techniques that attempts to set up a classification of string articulations, but would appreciate it if you came across anything modern and comprehensive... Cheers!


What @Gene Pool said... People have tried to standardised it for ever, but it's never caught on. I just tend to use what's more typical and speaks better of the sound I want. I also mix Italian, French and even English, since Jazz has contributed a myriad of extra 'useful' terms. My advise for every composer is write what is nearest to your heart and if it's _too_ specific then add glosary or explanation of terms at the beginning of your score.


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## Kent (Nov 16, 2020)

There is _always _a relevant XKCD.














Standards







xkcd.com


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