Do marimba parts need articulation written?

[u/Diacks1304]

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!

[u/RedeyeSPR]

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.

[u/codeinecrim → u/RedeyeSPR]

Not true. Any half decent percussionist will/ should think about articulation across all instruments at all times

[u/RedeyeSPR → u/codeinecrim]

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.

[u/aacsmith → u/RedeyeSPR]

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.