Volcano music

Holiday on Tenerife made me wonder what a volcano sounds like. It's different from a mountain- it's not green, no yodeling going on, no hunters sounding their horns. Hardly anything lives there, hardly anything sounds there. It's rock in every imaginable colour: from deep black to red, yellow and even soapy green. The clouds roll over the crater rim in an eerie silence. Yet, there's an immense sense of energy hidden just below the surface, waiting to happen.

Music-wise, I wondered whether anyone had ever written anything specifically on volcanoes. A Google-search pointed me to Alan Hovhaness, an American composer who composed a symphony on the eruption of Mount St Helens.

And what do you know: volcanoes themselves make music too. At least, according to Italian researchers who plotted seismic activity of Mt. Etna and Tungurahua (Equador) to music bars.

Yamaha timpani manual

Yamaha timpani manual with cute warnings like

Disregarding these warnings or misuse may result in death or personal injury and

Do not use the mallet for anything besides playing the instrument. Do not allow children strike others with the mallet.

(Glad I'm not a child anymore, apparently adults can do with the mallet whatever they like :-)

Paukenclinics 2008 - Adams Muziekcentrale

Yay! Adams organises Paukenclinics 2008: a tour around their factory, a short workshop on how to change timpani heads, and a workshop by Werner Otten, timpani tutor at the Maastricht Conservatory of Music. I gave them a call to enquire whether complete newbies like me could attend, and received a hearty reply to please do so.


So, May 17th, I'm waking up in the middle of the night to make my way south to Ittervoort!

Matthew Bassett

Personal website of Matthew Bassett with a nice practice guide and a promise to include articles and essays.

Mini booklet with timpani basics

Taken from A Fresh Approach Video Lessons with Mark Wessels: a mini booklet with timpani basics.

Jonathan Haas on timpani tuning

From the Remo website: some advice on how to tune timpani by Jonathan Haas.

Le sacre du sacre

PDQ Stravinsky in the making? :-)

Language, music, syntax and the brain

In Language, music, syntax and the brain, Patel argues that, from a syntactical point of view, language and music share a specific point of convergence when it comes to neural processing. Seen from the Dependency Locality Theory (linguistics) and Tonal Pitch Space Theory (music), both language and music share certain concepts in processing (proximity and activation) that apply to domain specific syntactic representations.

Timpani solos by Marc Zoutendijk

Available from his website. Which doesn't show too well in Internet Explorer.

Dwight Thomas - Timpani F.A.Q.

This FAQ provides information on basic and advanced repertoire and timpani score editing and revision.

Philip Glass - Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra, part 1

Seen on October 27th in Groningen, with Mark Voermans and Raymond Curfs on timpani.

Philip Glass - Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra, part 2

Philip Glass - Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra, part 3

Stuart Marrs plays Carter's March

Definitely on my wishlist: Stuart Marrs not only performing, but also analysing Carter's '8 Pieces for timpani'. While I understand that worldwide interest in drumming and world percussion justifies the huge amounts of information widely available on these subjects, I'm still quite disappointed by the almost complete absence of any pedagogic or analytical information on timpani. This DVD is a welcome exception!

First concert!

Played my first timpani part ever, at the Premierefestival, and thoroughly enjoyed it. No major mistakes, and no nerves. Great added bonus: instead of our own, rather battered Ludwigs, I got a chance to play on a set of four Adams Professionals that looked brand new. Cool!

Cloyd Duff - Timpanist, musician or technician?

In Timpanist, musician or technician?, Cloyd Duff made a case for playing timpani with an emphasis on tonal quality, rather than just focussing on the rhymthmical part of timpani playing.