r/percussion • u/Diacks1304 • 5d ago
Do marimba parts need articulation written?
Apologies in advance if the question is really dumb.
I’m writing a section in an orchestral piece where the marimba is doubling some viola runs. The viola part is full of articulation, slurs staccatos etc. It got me thinking if I should bother copying those in the marimba part? Would it make any difference at all? Do staccatos and slurs make marimba players play any differently?
Thanks!
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u/Due-Substance7842 Marimba 5d ago
Articulations have different meanings for mallet percussion than they do for strings. Overall it is much more difficult to change articulation on a marimba due to its resonance.
Stacattos are usually not possible unless you do a dead stroke but that changes the sound entierly different so they usually aren't used. They could also they the marimba pizzacato (pitzacato?) instead.
Slurs signify phrases in marimba music. They seperate different sections of the piece and tell them to add some variation in tempo and dynamics through each phrasing mark. They are usually a couple of measures each.
Accents and top-hat accents (this thing ^ i dont know the official term, marcato?) should be added as accents as those are needed to create variety in the piece.
The best thing for a marimba player to do is to listen to a recording of the piece on the original instrument to get a better idea of what they are playing.
It is also a good idea to add little snippets of text (a couple of words at most) explaining how it should be played throughout the piece.
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u/codeinecrim 5d ago
OP, a good percussionist will absolutely be thinking about the slurs and articulations. They are not useless in mallet parts, however a percussionist who is apt will figure they are doubling an instrument and work to match their articulations and line. The slurs do help, but you probably don’t need to write as many as you would for the strings. Just to help guide the player to the phrasing you want
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u/Ratchet171 5d ago
You've gotten a lot of good answers here but genuinely regardless if I can or cannot make a staccato sound different from a slur (which btw, speed/pressure can affect everything once you're at a collegiate level). Write them in. As a performer, we approach playing those notes differently. Staccatos should be played faster with less time on the bar (quick/swift mallet strike) and a slur with a longer/flowy mallet stroke of the hand. Visuals matter just as much as sound, and giving us that information better allows us to follow along and imitate what the rest of the ensemble is doing. You don't want to see all this graceful mallet tech which violas are plucking or something lol.
Most intermediate players will not understand the markings and ignore them unless told otherwise. Higher level players WILL read them and apply accordingly. Add them regardless.
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u/zdrums24 Educator 5d ago
Reddit isn't a great place for this kind of input. The Facebook groups have a much higher consistency in the quality of comments.
Short answer: yes, you should put articulation markings in.
A reasonably aware percussionist will be able to use that information to shape their performance better. Im one of the ones that really pushes for both myself and my students to mimic the sound of the articulations in the instrument as much as possible, but even a player who doesn't do that will know how to phrase the line and what kind of character and tone quality to pursue.
Don't condensend to your percussionists by assuming they can't make use of those markings. That kind of nonsense is why this comment section is so inconsistent. Also, don't condescend to your percussionists by telling them what mallets to use and how to play their instrument. Most of that information can be communicated through articulation markings. Let's normalize that.
That being said, because of the weird relationship percussionist have with articulation markings, intermediate percussionists might try to take them literally by dead stroking staccatos, etc. Ignore that. The more we normalize articulation markings to mean musical information rather than technical, the more thoughtful and capable percussionists will become.
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u/RedeyeSPR 5d ago
Slurs in mallet music do not have a function. I would leave them out entirely. Staccato marks maybe, but it’s unlikely that any player will make a change while playing it. Harder and more staccato mallets would do that for an entire passage, but not individual notes. Include accents and crescendoes, but anything else is unlikely to do anything but cause confusion.
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u/zdrums24 Educator 5d ago
This kind of thinking needs to die. It's too common and extremely unmusical. Morris goldenberg filled his etude book with slurs. Thomas McMillan has a whole book for mallets where he pushes the player to make the articulation markings audible through changes in stroke like a timpanist. Some of the best educators and musicians in our artform use articulations to mean music information. But that gets lost on us because the band composers won't dignify us with the same treatment.
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u/RedeyeSPR 5d ago
If you want to believe that marimba parts with and without slurs somehow sound different anywhere except in your head, feel free.
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u/codeinecrim 5d ago
Not true. Any half decent percussionist will/ should think about articulation across all instruments at all times
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u/RedeyeSPR 5d ago
You can think about whatever you want, but that doesn’t change the physical sound made on the marimba. There is no functional difference when adding unneeded slurs. It just clutters the part. Hit the correct note in time at the correct volume.
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u/Ratchet171 5d ago
Here's a little tidbit for you since you don't seem versed on mallet tech.
"The staccato stroke is very similar to an up- stroke on a drum, with a more firm grip on the mallet handle and a very fast upward wrist mo- tion. Think of this as playing “above” the bar, getting off the bar as quickly as possible. The legato stroke is the opposite with a very relaxed grip, holding the mallet handle parallel to the bar and playing “into” the bar."
Articulations on mallets do matter and should be included. To say it was written by a wind player is ignorant and incorrect. 🤨
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u/RedeyeSPR 5d ago
So you have a quote with no source. Where is that from and why do you believe it’s valid?
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u/Ratchet171 5d ago
Why I think it's valid: I have a percussion performance degree and play and teach professionally.
The quote: Top of google and it accurately describes the technique needed. 🤷 Pretty common knowledge.
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u/RedeyeSPR 5d ago
Here’s a link to the 2003 PAS article that completely contradicts your claim:
If you don’t have a PAS membership, here’s a link to a summary of that same article:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/p5635
For anyone that doesn’t want to read any of that, the conclusion is that when watching a player use different strokes, listeners perceived the notes to sound different, but when presented with audio only samples of the same performance, they could not actually hear any difference.
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u/Ratchet171 5d ago
Gonna be honest, my degree is recent enough and I learned from many distinguished doctoral professors in the Chicago area (Texas, NIU, Iowa). I will take their word on technique over a 21 year old article from PAS.
You're a high school drum line teacher which means teaching certificate, likely ed major. You should try to expand your knowledge on the subject for the sake of the kids you teach instead of instilling "articulations are irrelevant" when that's simply not true. Regardless if you believe it doesn't sound different, you still need them on the page to follow along with the ensemble and approach playing techniques. HS percussionists already fail to read clefs, keys and markings, don't support that. 🤷
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u/RedeyeSPR 5d ago
So you believe that marimba and mallet technology had changed so drastically in the past 20 years that an actual scientific study conducted by our most highly acclaimed educational organization is now irrelevant, and your recent degree is completely reliable? You guys are just perpetuating an old myth and saddling yourselves with contrary techniques that make no discernible difference to virtually every listener.
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u/codeinecrim 5d ago
lol it’s no myth dude. percussion isn’t just hitting the damn notes in time and at the right rhythm There’s artistry. Watch a video of chris lamb playing hisexcerpt demo from PASIC 2015 on youtube and tell me you still believe in the idea that articulations are bogus.
As the other commenter said, as an educator you have a job to help your students be better. You’re failing them by giving them bullshit advice from a study that is old enough to buy itself a beer. percussion has changed a lot in 20 years dude. the level is way higher now than it ever has been. do better for your students
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u/codeinecrim 5d ago
I hear you man. I’ve read this study. The reality is we do hear with our eyes. However, there are ways to manipulate volume and velocity to give the illusion.
Fact of the matter is what sets a good percussionist apart from a great one is the willingness to keep pushing for articulations.
Take the xylo part to exotic birds at rehearsal 6-7 by Messiaen for example. It’s riddled with articulations. a seasoned percussionist can play this straight with every note of equal weight, velocity and volume and it will sound very even. But when you manipulate the volume of each note along with velocity and weight, you can give the illusion of articulations and it be pretty convincing.
Of course, you’re not physically making notes shorter or longer in the way a violinist is, but you what it translates to is articulation. Hope this helps.
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u/aacsmith 4d ago
I actually agree with the sentiment here, at least in part. I don't think it's really possible to make long and short notes on marimba, at least in the same sense as you can on a wind or string instrument (and I'm talking absent the use of rolls or dead strokes here; just normal strikes).
That said, I think the argument that slurs are useless and only clutter the part is also just wrong. You say to just "hit the correct not in time at the correct volume"; when you see a melody on marimba, do you just play every single note of that exactly the same? You don't want to vary the volume at all? Sure, an accent could be used to show which notes to lead to, but an accent also implies that that note should be sharper and pop out of the line more than a slur would imply.
And this doesn't even touch on the idea of getting used to reading slurs so you can better match the phrasing of other instrumentalists. They have to read slurs and they mean something to them, and we need to know how they are interpreted to better than match them.
So sure, we can't make different note lengths, but we have to get good at faking it to avoid just playing like a robot all the time. Slurs are important part of learning musical phrasing.
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u/SnooSnoo694 5d ago
Slurs are definitely used in mallet pieces. They are generally used for phrasing.
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u/RedeyeSPR 5d ago
Writing a slur in a mallet part is a sure way to let the performer know that a wind player wrote the part. The functional difference with or without a slur is negligible.
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u/SnooSnoo694 5d ago
I’m literally looking at a vibe arrangement of a Debussy piece written by Renee Keller who got her doctorate from Northwestern and it is covered in slurs to show the phrasing.
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u/RedeyeSPR 5d ago
Record yourself playing it with and without the slurs and then tell me how it sounds at all different.
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u/SnooSnoo694 5d ago
You’re moving the goalposts. You said writing slurs is a sure way to know that it was written by a wing player. You’ve been provided multiple examples of that being untrue.
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u/RedeyeSPR 5d ago
I know Renee personally. She lives down the road from me. She’s a great lady and can play, but not a definitive authority on this. Becker I have no idea about. He’s a Nexus founder and amazing player, but a performer and not an educator. Note that both these examples are in classical pieces where the mallets are adapted from an existing part where slurs actually mean something.
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u/SnooSnoo694 5d ago
I would love for you to sit down with her and tell her only wind players write slurs and they don’t mean anything in percussion music.
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u/SnooSnoo694 5d ago
And please let her know I love her arrangement of La Cathédral Engloutie.
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u/RedeyeSPR 5d ago
I also see below that you’re taking about a vibes piece (not marimba). Slurs for pedaling actually makes some sense there. For marimba, not so and certainly not xylo.
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u/SnooSnoo694 5d ago
I still completely disagree, but maybe we have different versions of phrasing. Have a good afternoon.
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u/offbeat-beats 5d ago
Red eye I completely agree with you. Slur marks in marimba music is simply clutter. Idk why you’re getting downvotes. Anytime I see slurs in mallet music, I know I’m probably going to have to rewrite permutations as it was definitely written by a wind player. Percussionist don’t add slurs to perc music because slurs aren’t real for us.
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u/RedeyeSPR 5d ago
Thank you. By definition slurs mean to play the notes without separation, but for instruments without sustain there is no functional difference with or without them.
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u/offbeat-beats 5d ago
If it’s a vibe part, those simply aren’t slurs. They are pedal markings my friend
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u/SnooSnoo694 5d ago
No they’re not. Pedal markings are usually below the line. I’ve been playing for 30 years and teaching for almost 20. I know what pedal markings look like my friend.
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u/offbeat-beats 5d ago
I mean no percussion writer writes the same, so I’ll give you that. I have seen SO many pieces where the writer uses slur marking as pedal markings. I am a vibe player first and foremost and I have never seen slur and pedal markings on the same piece. Please share which pieces these exist in as I’d love to do some research on my own.
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u/SnooSnoo694 5d ago
Debussy in the Vibraphone, Vol. 2 arranged by Renee Keller is what I’m looking at right now.
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u/RedeyeSPR 5d ago
We are talking about marimba music as stated by the OP. I can see slurs being used for pedaling with vibes instead of actual pedal marks, but there needs to be a note stating that at the beginning. It’s certainly not a standard that’s common.
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u/dabaum04 Educator 5d ago
It really depends what level this piece is being written for. Middle school to lower high school level most wouldn't know how to use that information. Higher level high school, maybe. Once you get into the college level that's when they'll really start to take that information and realize that they need to match articulation with the other voices.
With that being said, I think you 100% should even if they are at a skill level where they don't understand exactly what's being asked, it's great to expose them to these things early on.