On Friday, November 8, 2002, at 09:00 AM, Andrew Stiller wrote:
You're right, that's an an open question -- but my instinct is that even a classical percussionist would probably be more familiar and comfortable with standard jazz/pop drumset notation than with the notation you suggest. Of course I could be wrong.My experience is that most drummers find the jazz/pop convention of regular noteheads for the drums and X-noteheads for the cymbals much easier to read than regular noteheads for the entire kit.I'm sure you're right, but I'm not so sure it's true in the case of a classical percussionist asked to play the traps.
This is especially true when representing a hihat stomp -- which would normally be notated with an X-notehead at the bottom of the staff. Without the use of X-noteheads, this can be easily confused with bass drum notation (especially since the exact placement of drum kit elements on the staff is not fully standardized).
I always notate the hi-hat on two lines: notes on the bottom line are played with the cymbals closed, and if such a note is preceded by a slur, it's a stomp. Very readily understood and easily read, in my experience.I can see how that would work well for a piece where the percussionist is *only* playing the hihat, but I'm not so sure it's feasible in a drum kit situation. For starters, hihat stomps are incredibly common in jazz and pop (in jazz, they are normally on beats 2 & 4 of practically every bar), so the slurs would create a lot of clutter, especially when there's a lot of activity in the rest of the kit. Also, the slur is, I think, visually a little misleading when representing the very crisp, quick stomp characteristic of jazz/pop. The convention here (and I think it's a good one) is to represent hihat notes played with the sticks above the staff, with "+" articulations for closed and "O" for open (I also use "�" for half-open), and hihat notes played with the feet (i.e., stomps) below the staff.
- Darcy
-----
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Boston MA
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
