Composition Study 3 - Drums & Percussion

Composition 3 - Drums & Percussion

The brief for this week's composition is as follows:

Piece using only drums and percussion. No drum loops.

Layered sounds to create textures.
Uses complete frequency range.
Using whole dynamic range.
Using tempo changes.
Use either:
• At least one time signature change, or
• Polyrhythmic time base.
At least one performance element in the track.
Focus on contrasts to delineate structure: light and shade.

Research

Taiko Drums

When first hearing about the composition the first instrument that came to mind were these Japanese drums. Outside of Japan, the word is used to reference a specific kind of Japanese drum called a wadiako. The ensemble of these being played is where the main influence for this composition has been drawn from, having seen them being played live at the Edinburgh Tattoo in 2013.

Kodo - "O-Daiko" - HD (japanese drummers - Taiko - tambours géants Japon)

The composition uses a collection of the musical devices and elements which are describe in the project brief. They are able to layer sounds through having a trio of drummers, while also varying the tempo to create tension when build up to specific parts. The drummers also vary the velocity of their hits to again build tension. In terms of frequency range, even though the instrument is only a large drum they are still able to generate a number of different sounds, which are achieved through hitting different parts of the drum. Because of the composition being based purely on drums, the focus on writing the composition and making it interesting has to come from interesting drum patterns and differences in texture, dynamic and tempo.

African Burundi Drum Music

As opposed to the Japanese drums, which had been used in the feudal era of Japan to motivate troops during battle, African drumming music is much more of a social activity. The style of music contains clapping, singing and dancing, more elements than just using the drum itself. It also usually has a complex texture and rhythm, set by the master drummer who signals dancers or other drummers when to change the beat.

Composition

After searching for a number of different taiko drum vst's it was decided that the toms from the drumming program superior drummer 2.0 would be used, specifically the toms. This included using four toms from the main drum kit, as they sounded similar in EQ to the Taiko drums. However EQ was applied to each of the toms in order to give it more of the sound of a Taiko drum.

Since this composition was going to be completely done using MIDI, care had to be taken to the fine detail of making the piece sound more realistic.

Here is an example of some editing done to the MIDI notes for the drum parts. When changing the velocities, I would usually lessen the impact of everything second hit, because the first hit of the drum is usually the strongest. The second alteration was the different timing of the MIDI notes. For each tom I slightly adjusted the timing so it gives the impression of an ensemble of drummers, rather than it coming from one drum kit.

This is an example of a poly rhythm being played on top of the original drum beat, the china cymbal was suppose to add more frequency range to the composition as opposed to the low sounding drum samples.

 Final Mix

Conclusion

Although I used toms from a regular drum-kit to act as Taiko drums, I still feel that this is piece that somewhat accurately represents some of the musical devices shown within these types of music, as well as addressing some of the aspects of the composition brief.

References

1. AgoraVoxFrance. (2011). Kodo - "O-Daiko" - HD (japanese drummers - Taiko - tambours géants Japon) . Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7HL5wYqAbU. Last accessed Sep 2014.

2.  Traditional Music Channel. (2014). African Burundi Drum Music. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag6y6jz7bQQ. Last accessed Sep 2014.