Writing For Exotic Percussion

Whyte Ice said:
Can anyone give me tips on writing parts for exotic percussion such as bongos, congas, etc.?
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I could be wrong, but notating a bongo or conga part is sort of like "writing" a funky slashing rythm guitar part: it's more a matter of the performer feeling the tune and playing what their experience tells them to play. You can give them chords or chart it out, but you don't really "notate" it for them.

A
 
I've seen parts like that notated out on major scores, but for the life of me, I can't remember what it looked like. I have played drum parts that were scored out, and the notes were "X". The bottom line on the stave was for the kick drum, the middle for the snare, the top for hi-hat. Cymbol crashes and tom fills were written out as /fill/ and indicated by measure.
If you wanted to map out congas, you could do it that way. I will try to find some standard notation for drum parts and post it.
 
Here is a link for a pdf that will explain the mechanics of it:

http://www.audiograffiti.com.au/doc/audiograffitidrumnotation.pdf#search='standard%20notation%20for%20drums'

But like Aaron said, I would leave it up to the player, unless you want a specific pattern at a certain point in the music...

I hope I was helpful. I am not quite sure what you were asking..
 
Don't notate the percussion parts. Just get somebody good that will take constructive direction and give it to them. Most of the time notating the drum or aux percussion parts for contremporary music is a waste of time and could be crippling a good player who can play much more or play much more musically than what is on the page.

The only time I see fully notated drum set and aux perc parts are for when the local symphony plays their 'pops' set once a year or something like that where all of the legit players have to play a drumset with a symphony or whatever.

Just make a note of the suggested pattern and give it a time signature and a tempo and be done with it.
 
Well, it certainly will depend on what you're looking for in the song...

If you want the bongo's/congas etc to accent an established melody or rhythm, then yes, you might want to chart 'em... If you're looking to just have the player 'play' then tell them so... I assume you don't chart out any regular drum lines you have a drummer play?

Of course if you DO decide to notate, you will need to insure the player can actually read the charts...

:)

Edit: I'm only basing this on my recent experience doing percussion in a musical last summer... Most of the 'exotic' measures were simply notated as 4/4 or 6/8 fills... But during certain songs, there were notated parts in the score that I had to adhere to...
 
I don't know if you can catagorize congas and bongos as exotic anymore.
I get lead sheets for a particular tune in either the bass chart or for piano.
Other times I get the percussion part written out. Basically its written as to the type of known rhythmn and its up to the percussionist to adapt to that. It has all the tempo, chords, time sig, and other section notes etc.
Then the breaks are actually written out.

But when it comes to melodic percussion i.e. marimba , vibes, steel drums, etc then they are fully notated.
 
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