John Howell gave you lots of good advice. My experience has been as
well that drum arrangers guard their secrets and scores like the Holy
Grail. All field drummers play by memory. Some styles are complex
(like American drum corps; they typically spend the whole year
learning an 11-minute show that hardly has any repeated sections)
whereas some are relatively simple (I understand that Highland pipes
and drums groups have repeating patterns with "turnarounds" that,
once learned, are easier to retain.)
Whoever said "know who you are writing for" was spot on. It is hard
to know exactly what to write unless you are in the group. When I
wrote for American-style drum and bugle corps (Les Étoiles de Dorion
in 1981 and 1982, Connexion Québec in 1983, for those who know the
subculture) I wrote the brass arrangement completely, but for the
percussion I wrote a single staff with punches in rhythmic notation
and handed it to the drum arranger with a tape. He elaborated on it
(that's an understatement) and taught it to the players himself. I
never saw the scores he wrote.
As an aside to all the discussion about standard band instruments now
marching in competition; I was disappointed somewhat to learn that. I
always thought that as weird as they were, the bugles in G were
better-sounding instruments for outside playing. Standard band
instruments sound thin by comparison. Although there is a much larger
pool of players to recruit now as a result...
christopher
On Aug 17, 2008, at 7:51 PM, shirling & neueweise wrote:
can anyone here offer any advice on writing for an ensemble of
field drums (eg. basel; highlands)?
how much of this repertoire is normally learned by rote and how
much from the score? obviously for competitions it is all
memorized, but in non-competitions is it played live from scores?
what format of score would they perform from?
any score examples would be appreciated. especially traditional
works, but also more modern writing: american drum corps, basel's
"top secret drum corps", etc. the more the merrier.
your ideas on differences between writing for military-type bands
and ensembles of percussionists playing field drums would also be
appreciated.
i know about snare techniques and performance practice, but is
there anything specific to military bands that is different? any
references to books or websites would be great.
and who writes this stuff!?!!
ah, there's nothing like swiss precision:
http://www.drummerworld.com/watchlistdrummers/
Top_Secret_Drum_Corps.html
thanks,
jef
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