# Percussion and DRUM, for classical music?



## jurianbai

term: DRUM = modern drum set

Let's talk about Drum again. Here the premise:
Music we know are elements like, melody, harmony , rythms. While classical music success very much in melody and harmony, but rythms part is less exploit by its respective instrument. We got less Trio for Piano, cello AND TIMPANI for example to speak.

Also less rythms part become central of the composition. Instrumental speaking, less having a 'Concertos', 'sonata', etc. I know timpanis are one I found enjoyed this rule, some examples :

Kraft Timpani Concerto





Glass Concerto Fantasy for Two timpanist & orchestra





Moving on, today's modern drum is ALSO less used in contemporary classical music. Here are some videos showing people try to drumming classical pieces, means that actually drum can integrated to classical music. Most example here were done in rock style, but I am sure serious composer can compose a nice Drum score for it.

Rondo alla turca





Marriage of Figaro





Symphony No.5 Beethoven





So is drum one of 'uncompatible' instrument for classical music?? Drum is a successfull instrument in most non classical music. I know I mixed a lot of thing in one post, I just want to see what classical-orientated people thinks about the present of drum in classical music.


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## katanne

percussion i think can be used in a classical music.. but the drums? i dont think so..


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## Tapkaara

katanne said:


> percussion i think can be used in a classical music.. but the drums? i dont think so..


What about bass drums and snare drums?


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## Jeremy Marchant

katanne said:


> percussion i think can be used in a classical music.. but the drums? i dont think so..


Plenty of contemporary "classical" works use a drumkit.
Birtwistle's _Panic _is amongst the best.
The kit is specified as "4 woodblocks, 4 temple blocks, 4 bongos, 4 tom toms, 3 congas, pedal bass drum, hi-hat"
More on _Panic _here: www.boosey.com/cr/music/Harrison-Birtwistle-Panic/3339


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## jurianbai

That's will be close. But with that setup I think more correct to called it percussion-set. What I referred to DRUM here is a standard drum set consist of : 1 snare drum, 1 bass drum, 1 floor drum, 1 or more Tom Tom, 1 hi hat cymbal, 1 or more cymbals.










In brass orchestra I've seen many of its using this drum set succesful. But most are re-arranged composition of famous piece. What I like to see is an original classical composition implemented this drum set. Either as background ryhtm / drumming or as solo (as in my Timpani video example).


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## tgtr0660

I've always wanted to know if a composer has incorporated the typical rock drum set in a classical music work. I think it's difficult, though. The drum set is designed to accomodate the needs of simpler music where one man handles all percussive parts -almost-). In classical rhythm is not held by a steady hi-hat-bassdrum-snare pattern but by the music itself. Classical music rhythm, while less obvious, is MUCH more complicated.


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## romboid

This improvised performance sounds interesting:


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## kv466

Haha,...I am certainly guilty of such pleasures! While I've done it and it is fun, I don't feel there is a true place for the kit in true classical. This guy has some sweet double bass pedal work, though! He's also got his toms arranged in a not-so-traditional way but it works very nicely for him. If you can play drums and know the piece inside out, this is very easy and fun.


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## starthrower

This one features one of the world's top drummers, Chad Wackerman.









Here's another one.


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## Wicked_one

I thought I'd post in which there's an orchestra, a drummer and a guitar player. True, is just a "cover", let's say, but still lovely and yeah, it's just for rhythm.


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## jurianbai

the only "true concept" about drumset in classical music I familiar is Tan Dun's Violin Concerto. It's a new piece, and I dunno if there is recording out there yet.


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## moromr

i am perfectly according with you


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## norman bates

Patrick Zimmerli - the call

Piano, violin, drums and electric bass


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## elgar's ghost

M-A Turnage has written works which feature drum kit - jazzer Peter Erskine manned the traps on at least a couple of these recordings but perhaps these works can almost be termed 'crossover' (in the more credible sense of the word) as they feature jazz guitar as well. Going back further I think a passage from one of Arnold's middle-period symphonies features 'modern' drums as well - if it isn't actually a full kit then there is definitely at least what sounds like a snare drum and ride cymbal being used together in a manner similar to the beat on R & B songs like 'Blueberry Hill'.


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## violadude

What about Schnittke's 2nd concerto grosso?? That piece is genius and it uses a drum kit.


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## LordBlackudder

They probably don't use it because it's not part of an orchestra. Sounds good though.


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## Igneous01

violadude said:


> What about Schnittke's 2nd concerto grosso?? That piece is genius and it uses a drum kit.


Yes, that piece is very unique indeed, some how Schnittke finds his way of incorporating the most different and even polar opposite of classical repertoire into a piece that just works. He has shown us a way to writing new music, that can still be accessible to a certain degree.


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## norman bates

Alec Wilder's Solo Suite for horn and improvisatory percussion


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## maestro267

Bernstein's _Divertimento_ and _MASS_ both make use of a drum kit.


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## Bagnew

John Psathas (A New Zealand composer of Greek heritage) wrote these "Drum Dances" for Drum Kit and Piano


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## JRK

I have written classical music, and I'm also interested in percussion and drum set. I don't have a drum set currently, but someday I hope to add drums to classical music in ways that blend it in smoothly. I think it would be a fun experiment, especially as spontaneous improvisation...I can kind of hear in my head how it would sound, but due to my limited percussion abilities, I'm not sure what it would actually sound like on a kit.


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## Jeremy Marchant

JRK said:


> ...t someday I hope to add drums to classical music in ways that blend it in smoothly. ...


I would have thought _not _blending it in smoothly would be far more interesting.


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## BurningDesire

All a drumset is is a set of percussion instruments arranged to be accessible for a single musician. They don't need to play a standardized pattern. They could perform percussion parts akin to those you hear in older works, where cymbals and bass hits are primarily to add to dramatic hits in the music, or they could play complex rhythms and coloristic things. People assume you can only do one thing because thats what alot of people do. You can do more than just rock riffs and solos on an electric guitar, you can do more than Classical sonatas on a piano, and you can do more than keep a steady, repeated pattern on a drum kit.


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## jwhitney

Wynton Marsalis is currently playing a piece for the Lincoln Center Big Band and Orchestra. It was premiered by the Berlin Philharmonic.


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## niv

I saw earlier this year on Teatro Colon a ballet done around this piece and it was AMAZING. I think the instrumentation is just a string quartet + drumset.


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## starthrower

tgtr0660 said:


> The drum set is designed to accomodate the needs of simpler music where one man handles all percussive parts -almost-). In classical rhythm is not held by a steady hi-hat-bassdrum-snare pattern but by the music itself. Classical music rhythm, while less obvious, is MUCH more complicated.


Hmm? I don't agree with your assumptions here. A great drummer behind the kit can accommodate a huge variety of music. Not all jazz and rock is in 4/4. And with the level of skill that kit drummers possess today, composers can write all kinds of crazy stuff.


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## meredull

Schnittke's Requiem is also interesting in that he incorporates bass guitar, electric guitar and drum set along with a choir. Drums are quite intriguingly used in the Credo part considering the rhythmic syncopations and also the percussive climax that it creates.


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## maestro267

LordBlackudder said:


> They probably don't use it because it's not part of an orchestra.


Ah, but these days, a composer could add it to their forces for an orchestral work and make it part of the orchestra.

As for works that feature the drum kit, I'm aware of Bernstein's MASS and Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. In the liner notes for a Chandos disc featuring Milhaud's La creation du monde, it quotes the composer, having experienced jazz, as talking of "a complicated percussion section played by one man". This was way back in the 1920s, when the drum kit must have been a brand new thing.


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## pianississimo

heard this live a couple of years ago in Leeds. Two pianos and percussion.
You could see the scores from the audience and they had a diagram in the front showing how the various percussion instruments were set up between the two pianos which were set at angles to each other with the pianists' backs towards the audience.
Fantastic sonata.


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## Fagotterdammerung

I'm glad to see Schnittke referenced in here. His Second Concerto Grosso was the first thing I thought of... And sure enough, some else ( Violadude ) had too!  

Though it's by no means a "solo" work for drumkit, it showcases how the drumkit can be integrated into the orchestra.

Though I'm stretching my memory back, I remember an article ( or was it a section of a modern orchestration book? ) that described a number of changes that had to be made to a drum kit to make it work better in a concert hall. It was interesting. The only one I remember specifically was taking the dampers out of the bass drum so it sounds more readily in a large hall.


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## Vronsky

Xenakis -- _Pléïades_ is one of my favorite, especially the fourth movement _Peaux_. Intense, fast, loud. Great work.


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## MoonlightSonata

I'm all for drums in most classical music.
However, drums in chamber music with strings or woodwind is not usually a good idea. I know this due to being put in a chamber group of two violins, piano/viola (me), cello and percussion. It didn't really end well.


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## Morimur

Shepard Fairey said:


> Xenakis -- _Pléïades_ is one of my favorite, especially the fourth movement _Peaux_. Intense, fast, loud. Great work.


Xenakis was a master of percussion. It's rather a shame he's not more popular here, on TC.


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## backlong

DRUM is something appallingly self-regarding about many of those in the classical world because, simply by association, it is assumed to give one a gravitas that is not available to those who listen to other forms of music


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## dgee

backlong said:


> DRUM is something appallingly self-regarding about many of those in the classical world because, simply by association, it is assumed to give one a gravitas that is not available to those who listen to other forms of music


what.............................


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## ramondo

Fagotterdammerung said:


> Though I'm stretching my memory back, I remember an article ( or was it a section of a modern orchestration book? ) that described a number of changes that had to be made to a drum kit to make it work better in a concert hall. It was interesting. The only one I remember specifically was taking the dampers out of the bass drum so it sounds more readily in a large hall.


A bass drum in a modern kit wouldn't normally have dampers built inside the shell - you may find them in old Ludwig drums, but even then they were normally fitted to the snare drum or tom toms. Any damping is usually a pillow, to get that thump in rock and hip-hop etc. Jazz would normally be undampened, and smaller. A typical jazz bass drum is 18" diameter, typical rock is 22", though they can be made up to 26" (John Bonham of Led Zeppelin used one - Ludwig again). This is still smaller than your orchestral bass drum - though I can't remember the typical diameter right now.

Anyway, in terms of drum kits in orchestras, the BBC Young Musician of the Year for 1998 was a percussionist, Adrian Spillett. Given that virtuosity and audience attention in music tends more towards players of melodic instruments, this was a remarkable achievement, and he remains the only percussionist to have achieved this. From what I remember, he performed a recognised scored piece by a modern composer (obviously), on what looked like an improvised drum kit using mostly orchestral percussion pieces. Sadly I can't find this winning performance on YouTube.

And yes, I'm a drummer - in a rock band. I still like and regularly listen to classical music too. Go figure.


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## QuietGuy

Andrew Lloyd-Webber uses MIDI drums in the Hosanna movement of his Requiem (1985)


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## Couac Addict

Drums are cooler when performed by Hagrid & The Hogwarts Orchestra.


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## Carlos C

I'm not really a drummer primarily, but I've recently gotten into percussion and drum set and have a deep love of classical music, so I figured why not combine the two and try to put drums to classical music? Here, I'm playing a kind of "modified" drum set with some Bach violin concerti...I'm trying to follow the music in a way that is unique to the music and just letting my ideas flow.


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## ramondo

Cool. This is the way with a lot of non-rock/pop music too (for example the bodhran in Irish traditional music) where the percussion instrument is played along with the melody, often playing the same notes, rather than as a back beat to tell you where the count is at.


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## tortkis

Bagnew said:


> John Psathas (A New Zealand composer of Greek heritage) wrote these "Drum Dances" for Drum Kit and Piano


Ben Reimer released an album of works for drum set, including Psathas's Drum Dances. Very refreshing. I liked Lukas Ligeti (most pure drum set piece) and Lizée's Ringer. Britton and the title piece by Lizée are a bit too Rock/Pop-ish for me.

Katana of Choice - Ben Reimer (Redshift)








John Psathas: Drum Dances
Nicole Lizée: Ringer, Katana of Choice
Lukas Ligeti: Lakoni in Kazonnde for Two Drumsets
Eliot Britton: Train Set

And Julia Wolfe's Dark Full Ride (2002) for 4 drum sets is a wonderful piece. Love it.
Performed by Ben Reimer, Diego Espinosa, Krystina Marcoux, Alessandro Valiante


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## benreimer

*contemporary drumset performance*



tortkis said:


> Ben Reimer released an album of works for drum set, including Psathas's Drum Dances. Very refreshing. I liked Lukas Ligeti (most pure drum set piece) and Lizée's Ringer. Britton and the title piece by Lizée are a bit too Rock/Pop-ish for me.


Thanks for recommending my album! I've been focused on the role of drumset in contemporary music performance for over a decade. You can watch a short version of my doctoral lecture recital on the topic here:





@tortkis also published a link to the company handling my music.

Best,
Ben Reimer
www.benreimer.com


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## bolchenaro

Drummer here. I am a Jazz drummer. I can tell you the main problem about using a drumset as the modern drumset: What drumset? There's the bop Kit, the Beatles kit, the Heavy Metal Drum kit... What kind of drumset would be the "standard" for Classic Music? Based only on my ears, Rock Drum Kit is the WORST type for this and all this videos use this kind of drumset, sounding, sorry to say, a little awful and cringy.

What kind of cymbals do you want? Something for Rock, like a Avedis A, or more jazzy and dark, like a K?

What kind of snare? Which material? Which size? The sound is supposed to be more open or more like the snare that it's already used?

I don't think that drumset, from rock drum kit to a hard bop, can be anything compatible with classic music.

Maybe, MAYBE, there's only one thing that I think that could suit a little more:

Jazz Kit with high tuning. 20x16 bass drum; 14x5,5 snare drum; 12x8 Tom; 14x14 floor tom. Thin cymbals, with dark sound.

Less Groove, rock, funk or even standard jazz; More "ECM" feel.

I think that's a way to sound less artificial or out of the tone. Sound less Vadrum, to think about lelel


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