Life as a percussionist in an orchestra is both the best and worst thing in the world. We are generally having fewer notes (literally) to play but getting nearly the same wage as the other players in the orchestra. On the other hand, it is still challenging to play fewer notes as it also meant that it is important and shouldn't be missed. But that wasn't the worst thing possible to be happening on an orchestral percussionist. Often, the conductor is the worst to deal with, just like the video above.
I believe most of the conductors nowadays are rather still lacking of knowledge about percussion (except Simon Rattle, as I know he has studied and played percussion in an orchestra when he was young.), and that they have really limited amount of suitable vocabularies, which the percussionist will understand, to express what specific kind of sound they want. However, I do also think that we as the percussionist should also be able to "translate" the conductor's abstract wordings.
Take the example of the above video, I guess what Bernstein actually means is quite simple. He simply wants a brighter and clearer sound from the triangle, but I don't think the percussionist in the video has done any other thing to change apart from the beating spot. What I will suggest for that is to simply change a smaller triangle, and preferably made of bronze for brighter sound, then use a smaller diameter triangle beater for clearer sound.
But what if you already have already done the above and were still getting complaints from the conductor? Well, you have to know that sometimes is just the matters of wanting changes and you just have to get use to it.
No comments:
Post a Comment