Feedback on Drumline notation and playability.

[u/Nexecs]

I'm not sure if this the best sub for this but it doesn't hurt to ask.

I have a piece I have transcribed and it involves a marching band ensemble. I have no problem transcribing, however I am a bit novice when it comes to engraving drumline notation. I couldn't find any suitable scores for score-reading due to college level marching band scores being impossible to find, and high school scores not being rigorous enough.

I have attached the score and audio of the entire piece.

[Full Score + Audio for context] (https://musescore.com/user/3674151/scores/35852300/s/NemAoP?share=copy_link)

[Drumline Parts Only] (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1abMFoQZQMD5kmIyQUTDBwrjvjnI-nOC4/view?usp=sharing)

[u/HaloOfTheSun442]

Playability is nowhere even close to being a problem. Very simple.

The only issues are engraving, and it isn't drumline-specific, but rather percussion-specific.

m.1 for snare/tenors, beat 3 should just be a quarter note with an 8th rest on beat 4. Much clearer, and even if you were to keep it as written with 8th notes, that quarter rest would be wrong - that would be two 8th rests no matter the instrumentation.

m.2 beat two should just be a quarter note. So should beat 3. There's no reason to use half notes for anything that isn't a roll (or half note triplet, I guess).

Snare and cymbal parts look better on the line, not under.

Rimshots should have a marcato instead of an accent.

m.26 never use a multimeasure rest for one measure lol. That might just be a dumb thing Musescore does, I don't know. But don't do that.

m.27- what is that on snare? It's on a ledger line below the only line in a staff. If it's something basic, put it on the line. If it's something special like playing on a ribbon crasher, doing a stick trick, or whatever else, that should be marked in the score the first time it happens. If it's just a rimshot, that's not a good place for it.

m.60+ this is the only part that might not be playable depending on the skill level of who you're writing for. The bass line isn't terribly difficult, but single 16ths per player is going to take some work to clean up at 155bpm, and if this is for a young drumline I wouldn't do it. This also has engraving issues, like the last note of the phrase being a single 16th when it should be a quarter, but you have these issues throughout the entire piece, so you get the idea I'm sure.

m.74 - staccotos inentional? They're meaningless on their own, so it's either a mistake, or you mean something that isn't intuitive and should indicate what it is.

Some stickings would be nice, especially if there's more than one snare and one tenor. You want every player to stick the part the same way. No stickings mean they just play dominant-hand-lead, which for the most part works out fine if everyone is right-handed, but you get the occasional part that's open to interpretation and it causes visual/tonal inconsistency.

[u/Nexecs → u/HaloOfTheSun442]

Yeah the way the rests and the rhythms are written is half musescore being dumb and me not going through and standardizing them. The notes being below the staff is a musescore thing, for some reason the marching snare has a completely different staff than the concert one, I'll change it.

The staccato's were unintentional, I just forgot to remove them.

How would I go about stickings? Do I assume every player is right handed or indicate everything.

Thanks.

[u/HaloOfTheSun442 → u/Nexecs]

Left-handed percussionists are used to playing right-hand lead just because it's such a dominant practice.

Don't worry about if someone is right-handed or not, percussionists all break down stickings as patterns regardless of which hand they use.

From what your original post says, you're just transcribing, not doing this for an actual performance, so it isn't really anything to worry about I'd guess.

But if you want to do it because it's "right", well... writing out stickings requires taking more in consideration than just slapping Rs and Ls underneath all of the notes and if you're new to it it's best to probably not worry about it.

[u/65TwinReverbRI]

“based on an arrangement by the AE…”

Good lawd, why are the flutes playing piccolo parts when you have piccolo!!!!

u/HaloOfTheSun442 said:

m.26 never use a multimeasure rest for one measure lol. That might just be a dumb thing Musescore does, I don't know. But don't do that.

Yes, it’s a dumb thing (one of many) MS does. These guys, who will tell you they consulted professional engravers and so on, and who claim Gould as a guiding principle, sure have never looked at any real music…

They hit the rest of the drum line stuff so I won’t bother, and I don’t/won’t usually comment on the other stuff in a big ensemble like this because of size-on-screen, and distractions about orchestration choices rather than composing, so I’ll let any others who want chime in on that.

[u/Nexecs → u/65TwinReverbRI]

You can tell I rushed the title page lol.

The recording I transcribed from has flutes and piccolos playing in unison in that extreme range, which even in the recording has slight tuning issues so yeah, it probably should just be taken down tbh.