Need help with percussion roll

• Dec 31, 2015 - 03:30

Hi, I'm new to all of this so sorry if I sound stupid. I'm wondering if it's possible to achieve the roll at the very beginning of this piece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOn1xdGkyHY

I have another question; what percussion instrument is used in that roll? Any ideas on all the percussion instruments used throughout the piece? All I know is there's timpani. Any help is greatly appreciated!


Comments

That is a suspended cymbal roll. You can notate it easily with MuseScore with a trill sign over the note and a crescendo marked underneath, but I'm not sure playback will be achievable from the default soundfont.

You are correct in recognising timpani, but under them is either a gran cassa or maybe a big Taiko drum there is also a snare drum playing alongside the suspended cymbal in some of the rolls.

Hope that's enough to get you started :)

In reply to by ChurchOrganist

Theoretically, wouldn't a Tremolo be correct? A tremolo means to play a certain note repeatedly at a certain value (eighth, 16th, 32nd) for the duration of a note, while a trill means to quickly move between two notes, usually the written note and the note above it on the scale. You can't raise or lower the pitch of a suspended cymbal because it's unpitched.

In reply to by jacobcshort78

If you are looking at historical scores, you will often see trills used for rolls in percussion parts. Those of us who like to transcribe them accurately like to use the historical notation and get a reasonable playback. This does not currently happen in MuseScore. People who play symphonic music from the past are familiar with this notation and know what to do with it. MuseScore should know what to do with it also.

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