What's new

Timpani: do 7th chords make sense?

In my high school orchestra I only had 2 timpani, but I'd be surprised to see or hear a timpanist playing a chord on 3 or more timpani for a couple of reasons. One reason is that you'd need extra long sticks to reach more than one timpani at a time with a single hand. Second, I'd expect any chord from a timpani to be too low and muddy to sound any good.
 
Was that an English horn? It looked too big to be an oboe and didn't have the bulbous pre-bell space.
 
You can, but, to be honest, it probably won't sound like a chord so much as a crunchy cluster of drums. I've seen that technique happen before but it had no more musical effect than just using two drums, to be honest. Maybe if it's really exposed and quiet it could make sense.
 
I’ve seen this live (with of course 2 timpanist and... up to 4-5 percussionists).

That said, if you really want a 7th on timpani, I’d advise to play is soft (to get more tone and less « slam ») in a exposed passage.
Otherwise this will just produce a mess of rumble.
 
And requiring the timpanist to hold mallets like this for more than about 30 seconds is not a good idea; it's uncomfortable.

I only had a couple of lessons on timps, but I just picked up some drumsticks and held them using a Musser marimba grip (which I also used on vibes back in the day). My version of the grip is closer to the heels of the sticks than that picture.

It isn't uncomfortable for me, even holding them 4 hours apart (e.g. 12 and 4 o'clock, which is more than 70˚), but it would take some practice to avoid flamming with them that far apart. Not worth going into a long explanation, but the point is that with that grip you can reach the sweet spots of two timps.

You could also do ripple rolls with that grip, for those who know what that is on marimba.
 
I found tuning them while counting 50,000 bars of rests the hardest part.

And real timpanists get a great sound out of those drums, in fact they use a special grip for that reason (and I still find that grip awkward). But you're going to be playing softly if you're paying chords, so that may be less of a factor...

You know what? We're talking about samples. You can do anything with timps you want.
 
Studied timpani with the timpanist of the Detroit Symphony for a few years in college. You can hold two mallets in one hand, but it's nearly impossible to get a decent tone on both drums. As people mentioned earlier, anything more than two pitches turns into a rumble, especially if they are any less than a 4th apart. Getting lower in the instrument's range even a 4th become a mess of overtones. That low C on the largest drum often sounds more like a paper bag than a note at anything above mf anyway.
 
Here are two examples from Stravinsky's "Le Sacre du Printemps":

In the first one, there is a 5 voice chord.
In the second one, have a look at the voice of the double bass; E vs. F; that's quite a bit of dissonance.
However, in that range you want notice it that much...;) IMG_4285.jpeg IMG_4287.jpg
 
Stravinsky was always like that!

I mean, The Rite starts with I think a high Bb on bassoon, and of course bassoons don't play that high.
 
Was that an English horn? It looked too big to be an oboe and didn't have the bulbous pre-bell space.


If you're not sure the difference between the two, it might be wise to stray away from 7th chords on the timpani XD

In all honesty, what's stopping you from omitting the 5th?
 
Top Bottom