Mallet Instruments
Mallet percussion (also known as keyboard or tuned percussion) is the general name given to the pitched percussion family. The name is a slight misnomer, in that almost every percussion instrument is struck with some type of mallet or stick. With the exception of the marimba, almost every other keyboard instrument has been used widely in an orchestral setting.
There are many extremely common and well-known excerpts for most of the mallet instruments. Gershwin's Porgy and Bess remains the most requested xylophone excerpt at auditions, with Copland's Appalachian Spring, Kodály's Háry János Suite, and Kabalevsky's Colas Breugnon being other common choices, although the list is practically endless.
The glockenspiel has become a staple of the orchestra as well, and, as such, has had many important and difficult parts written for it. Dukas's The Sorcerer's Apprentice as well as Respighi's Pini di Roma are both extremely common excerpts on audition lists.
Another keyboard instrument used in the orchestra, as well as jazz, is the vibraphone. The most commonly requested excerpt for vibraphone at orchestral auditions is from Leonard Bernstein's "West Side Story." The "Little Blue Devil" movement from "Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee" by Gunther Schuller is also frequently requested.
Read more about this topic: Orchestral Percussion
Famous quotes containing the words mallet and/or instruments:
“But the ball is lost and the mallet slipped long since from the hands
Under the running tap that are not the hands of a child.”
—Louis MacNeice (1907–1963)
“Water, earth, air, fire, and the other parts of this structure of mine are no more instruments of your life than instruments of your death. Why do you fear your last day? It contributes no more to your death than each of the others. The last step does not cause the fatigue, but reveals it. All days travel toward death, the last one reaches it.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)