Mallets > Marimba > "chord trem"

[jbm]

I'm using the Marimba with occasional chord tremolos, and I'm wondering just what the "chord trem" does differently from the standard trem. I don't currently have chord trem loaded, but I wonder whether the chord trem might give a smoother roll for chords?

J.

[herb]

For strings we qould say trills or for larger intervalls fingertremoli

All repetitions of each note of the chordtremoli are 100% exactly performed with the same timing. .
If you start with one key and immediately perform a second key (hold on the first key) you get a "tremolo" performed on two different keys.

You can combine each intervall or perform tremoli with two mallets on each hand, that's a common technique on the Vibes and the Marimba.

To get perfect chord tremoli you have to start the second note exactly in the half time of the duration between two performed repetitions.
It's more or less the tempo you would use to perform a grace note.

I try to explain it grafic way,
this is a recorded note:

ta---ta---ta---ta---ta---ta---ta---

now I combine two notes with the right starting delay,
first line C4, second line E4 for example:

C4: ta---ta---ta---ta---ta---ta---ta---
E4: ---ta---ta---ta---ta---ta---ta---ta---

hope this was helpful
best
Herb

[jbm]

Thanks Herb,

When I loaded the chord-trem patch I noticed right away -- the synchronization of strokes emulating two mallets in one hand. What I'm after is something more like a trill or tremolo, so I've stuck with the standard trem, which is a little dense, since there are now 2 two-hand rolls going on simultaneously... I don't reallly mind this, but is there a way to get a R/L alternating trill or trem?

J.

[jbm]

....duh,

You just explained it, didn't you... [:O]ops:

I'll figure it out. The problem is that I'm working in Finale, so the "delay" is a little weird to make -- or at least, it looks a little weird in the score.

J.

[jbm]

HAHA!!!

I beat Finale!!!

For any Finale-heads out there, this is the trick. Make a new articulation (I used the 3-line tremolo bars), and set the "Playback effect" to "Change Attack" with Bottom Note Value around 128 (experiment with the actual value). Used with "chord-trem" this makes a very nice two-hand trill or trem. I'd imagine it will get a little funky with 4 mallet stuff, but it's a start!

J.

[Nick Batzdorf]

Techo-weenie time:

There are two kinds of chord tremolo on mallet instruments: regular rolls and ripple rolls.

0 = outside mallet and I = inside mallet, R=right hand and (duh) L=left hand

Ripple rolls go ||: R O, L O, R I, L I : ||

Regular rolls go ||: R I+O simultaneously, L I+O simultaneously : ||

A good marimba player will automatically play ripple rolls unless otherwise specified. On vibes and xylophone it's probably more common to use regular rolls, although rolls are somewhat unusual on vibes.

Even though I'm a way out of practice percussionist, it's really easy just to play the rolls on the piano keyboard and not have to use sampled ones. My hunch is that it's not very difficult for non-percussionists too, but I could be wrong.

I don't quite get the Finale comments, but I think you know to write, say, a half note with tremolo marks on the stem and not a whole bunch off 64th notes. Stravinsky usually wrote out the exact note values he wanted (for all instruments), but...well, he was a freak.

[jbm]

The Finale thing is just a Finale thing... (if you use it regularly, you probably know what I mean. Otherwise, just trust me when I say that, though powerful, it's a bit of a pain in the ass!) It's a way to get the bottom note(s) of a chord to play back a little late, as suggested by Herb above as the proper technique for making use of the "chord-trem". It's also used to make rolled chords play back properly.

I was a drummer for years (still play a little), so playing them on the keyboard is not a problem, but I like to write directly to score, and I prefer the quality of sampled tremolos, if possible -- there's a different quality of attack and sustain... don't know, maybe that's crazy, but using the sampled tremolos also works better with notation programs. And yes, I'm clear on how tremolos are written, though I'm only writing them by their full duration, at this point, to avoid lengthy messing about in Finale (which is never fun!), and in order to get the playback to work properly with the sampled tremolos. And yes, I realize Finale is not *usually* used for playback, but I've been working for the past year on a MaxMSP program to make Finale much more powerful to use with VSL -- in fact, now that I'm getting into the testing stage, I have access to pretty much every sample in both Opus 1 and Solo Strings on a single machine, with only 1.5 GB RAM, and all working from Finale! Pretty cool... for me, at least.


Thanks for the tips, anyway!

J.