Tremolos and Dynamics in Percussion

• Jul 10, 2020 - 16:09

I was writing a part for timpani and I saw that there were no dynamics in individual notes (and that's ok, since a percussionist can't do crescendo on a single note) but a percussionist can do crescendo or decrescendo in tremolos, and i think that is important to notice and apply to the program


Comments

The conventional approach to doing cresc/dim on a tympani roll is to use two separate voices. Voice 1 shows the note as it would be printed, but with "Play" unchecked in the Inspector. Voice 2 has the note broken up into e.g. successive quarter notes, each with the tremolo applied, but with "Visible" unchecked. The cresc/dim will then sound as a change in voice 2 in dynamic level from one note to the next. The general approach is to distinguish "played as" from "shows as" by using the two voices to represent a single voice.

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