As many percussionists may tell you, most of the reason playing percussion in orchestras is difficult (assuming for the sake of argument that it can sometimes be, if one chooses to define it as such), is simply that the time-keeping in an orchestra usually leaves something to be desired, so to speak. String players, especially, since they have never (in many cases) played instruments that have a clearly defined attack as a matter of course, simply are not as sensitive to slight fluctuations in the beat. percussionists, comparatively, are under a tremendous amount of stress to try to fit in with the quirky time of an orchestra, and such quirks are basically never predictable. Not knowing what is going to go wrong next with the rhythm day in and day out can be exhausting and frustrating, and some of the finest percussionists just don't play with orchestras because of it (and the whole conductors-are-disrespectful thing). Bob Becker is someone, for instance, who is "too good" to deal with the crap in the orchestral environment. Very good conductors can make it all worthwhile, though, like Stokowski, and Casals. Their time is better and they are more respectful. perhaps, even, the two things are related.
i don’t think that percussionists have to have more rhythmic skills than string players, or to put it differently, string players have to have less rhythmic skills than percussionists. The main difference is that as a percussionist everyone notices if youre off.
All things considered, who cares? What tiny percentage of those among us have the least bit of concern for the plight of the lowly and wretched orchestra percussionists?
This thread belongs on the Mailbag Message Board. I’m gonna close it here and move it there, where Ian can knock your block off for dissing percussionists.
Jill
indeed yes, my boy. I suck. I have no musical ability. You are most correct, and I am most wrong. Please, enlighten a blunt sword such as myself with your superior knowledge and abilities, so that I may improve. Surely that is possible?
To be fair, popular percussionists generally have to deal with more cross-rhythms than anyone else (except a conductor). Even a basic rock beat requires maintaining four separate rhythms, one with each limb. (Organists virtually never play with both feet.) Orchestral percussionists don’t generally play with their feet, though.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
here we darn well go–orchestras are having trouble these days because no one goes to see them. No one goes to see them because people get bored listening to musicians who don’t keep good time (play with metronomic accuracy, with Occasional, gradual deviations that are under control). Orchestas have grown and grown and become more numerous, had longer seasons and paid better as their time has gotten better. Listen to recordings of them from the early twenties. The time SUCKS, and back then, very few people went to see orchestras play. Seasons were half the length or less that they are now. Player had other jobs nearly always during the off-season. There is no off season now, in any full-time symphony orchestra. Why? Time is better, and great music played with good time, whether it is Gershwin, Brahms, Cole Porter, the Beatles, or traditional music from any culture, is what folks will pay to listen to. End of story. Great music, played with poor time, is what most orchestras play (conductors are at fault here too, but percussionists are guilty generally only through association), and they are losing money left and right. Look, I’m just saying that string players focus on everything but what matters, good time, and everybody on stage suffers because of it. They sometimes even talk about how unimportant good time is. I don’t hate or blame string players any more than I do percussionists, though, for the troubles of the orchestras. Why? They don’t make any more money than anybody else, and when the orchestra goes under, so do they.
Mike, I’m not disagreeing, but you think attendance is down because of the time/rhythm?
I think attendance is down because people sit at home and watch TV, or listen to CDs, insteda of going out. When they do go out, they go to movies (sound! colours! big explosions! special effects!), not to someplace to sit and just listen.
Or they sit around online, typing inane comments in chatrooms or on message boards.
Can’t agree about orchestras making more money as their time gets better. But I can say that if nothing else we’ve learned from exposure to Afican music over the last century would show (I include Afro-Cuban, etc.), European music has about 0 sophistication rythmically.
Thank god for cultural insemination - otherwise it’d be polkas and lieder for all of us!
Can’t agree about orchestras making more money as their time gets better. But I can say that if nothing else we’ve learned from exposure to Afican music over the last century would show (I include Afro-Cuban, etc.), European music has about 0 sophistication rythmically.
Thank god for cultural insemination - otherwise it’d be polkas and lieder for all of us!