Percussion Request Form
BEFORE FILLING OUT THE FORM, PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING GUIDELINES
SPECIFIC INSTRUMENT CONSIDERATIONS
- If including concert Tom Toms please note either size or pitch range.
- If including Gong, please note octave and pitch and general area or country of origin (Please note, a Gong is not a Tam-tam).
- If including Marimba please include full range needed.
- If including Tam-tam please include size range.
- If using Vibraphone, please indicate the need for a motor.
- If using Timpani, please limit to 4 Timpani MAX. 2 timpani is MUCH preferable for moving and logistical purposes.
- Please ask yourself, do you need glockenspiel AND crotales. Yes we percussionist respect and value the compositional differences, but are you fully aware of those differences and do you need both?
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
Keep hardware in mind! This coincides with "Be concise in your writing." Writing for one percussionist to play 6+ instruments that all require their own stands in not conducive to efficient set-up/tear-down time. If you're not sure, please ask!
In terms of all of the above, even including all of the instruments mentioned under SPECIFIC INSTRUMENT CONSIDERATIONS would be a huge challenge for a percussion major hoping to collaborate with a composition major. Therefore, please keep overall instrumentation size and instrument needs to an amount that is able to moved and set up without an overly excessive time commitment. Some moves and set up can take an hour. You will find greater success in engaging a student percussionist if you take this into account, AND, this will facilitate more potential performances of your piece.
The most challenging instruments to move, and to find appropriate rehearsal space for, are as follows:
- Chimes
- Timpani
- 5.0 octave marimba
- Chromatic Almglocken
- Multiple gongs on a rack
- Vibraphone with motor
- Drum set
- Concert bass drum
- large tam-tam
- 4+ concert toms
- Octaves or crotales (we may not have enough to service 10 X40 large ensembles at the same time)
Also consider any racks special hardware set ups or stands.
FURTHER ADVICE
From a percussionist’s perspective, less is more. Please be both decisive and concise in your percussion writing. This will allow for more performances of your work and a more smooth and stress-free collaborative process.
Please keep the percussionist’s personal time in both practicing, preparation, logistics, and moving in mind. Here again this will allow for a more successful collaboration and you will be able to find more available players.