One Percussion

One Percussion

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How to Make Percussion in the Beginner Band More Fun!

Dealing with the percussion section can be the biggest challenge for a band director, particularly in the elementary band situation. It can be very tough to get them all engaged and enjoying the rehearsals, particulary if the director themselves is not a percussion specialist.

Don’t let them be “drummers” only – be “percussionists” instead

This is the most important thing to realize – that band students are often attracted to percussion so that they can play the drum set. The drum set (or drum kit) is often used in the school band, and often is very important, so students feel that if they are not playing it they have to sit there and wait.

The band director has to find a way around this situation – if you only have one drummer, then great! They can play the drum kit and away you go.

The issue can happen when you have multiple drummers in the band, sometimes two, four, eight or ten! One way that works very effectively and has been used for many years is to have one player playing snare drum, one playing bass drum, and one cymbal player, even if you have a “drum kit” part written out. If you have this type of band I recommend having this setup at all times, and making the students stand up to play the snare drum. You then have the cymbals and concert bass drum, and its designed to be played by three players all the time.

Have an Auxilliary Percussion Table – and make them stand up to play at all times

There is nothing worse than vaguely hearing a shaker or tambourine in a school band, and struggling to see the person sitting on a chair behind the drummer!

When playing tambourine, triangle or shaker – these instruments are often more critical to the sound of the band than the snare drum or drum set, so therefore they must be taken really seriously.. by the band director as well as by the players.

So always have a “traps” table with everything in Easy Reach. Its not expensive to set one up or buy one of the available professional models.

The players must always stand up to play, and have their music stand set up so that they can look immediately over it at the band conductor.

Warming up – please don’t ignore us!

I’ve been a percussionist in a school band… there is nothing more frustrating that spending your time sitting in the school band room while you wait for the wind players to tune up and warm up. Often the band director will spend up to half an hour warming the players up – and expect the percussionists to remain quiet during that time.

How to deal with it?

- If youre going to warm up for half an hour…. Tell the percussion section to arrive later than the rest! – it makes no difference to you and its better than them being a distraction!

- Why not send them into a different room for their own section rehearsal during this time? Get a specialist teacher or assistant to work with them on their parts

- Use predefined warm-up routines that go along with what you are doing with the wind players. (doesn’t always work, but can do depending on the materials you have)

Be prepared to supplement the band book

When I helped out with beginner bands I found it necessary to supplement the band books that the students were using with additional materials – often the materials are not interesting or they don’t have enough variety to keep the students engaged in the materials.

They’ll need lots of work on basic rudiments and rolls – often the band books don’t address those things early enough. So therefore you may be able to supplement it with other material which is available online and in books.

Everyone playing mallets?

I’m going to leave this up to you – it depends on the different personalities in each of the bands you have. One popular series of band books the “standard of excellence” has snare drum/bass drum on the left hand pages of the book, and mallet percussion on the right. Another type the “essential elements” has one snare drum and one mallet percussion book.

I think that percussionists should rotate and do as much as possible, and if that means that they each need two books, whereas every other member of the band needs only one.. then that’s the way it should be!

There are no quick fixes to make percussion better in the beginner band, but hopefully this article can give you one or two ideas that will help!

About the Author

Kevin Tuck has worked as a private music teacher (a percussion specialist) and as a classroom music teacher. Kevin has run his own very successful music school, and now runs The Fun Music Company, an internet publishing company helping music teachers and authors publish music and educational materials on the internet. There are heaps more articles available for percussion at his blog percussion education online

What should be one of the first techniques when doing an exam. on a patient with respiratory distress?

Also..
Wen using percussion as an exam. technique for the lungs, you find a hyper resonance sound(more echo than expected) this abnormal sound could indicate what?

The first thing if the patient is in respiratory distress should be to do a PRIMARY SURVEY

Check their Airway, Breathing and Circulation

When you are happy that the patient is stable (you have ensured the airway is clear, patent and maintainable … you have provided oxygen … you are happy that the patient’s circulation is stable)

THEN you can proceed to more thorough examination.

Depending on the nature of how the patient presents

in a trauma situation – perform Secondary Survey examination: head to foot

in a non-trauma situation – perform usual respiratory examination: start with the hand (observe for nicotine staining, clubbing, peripheral cyanosis) – move to arm (HPOA, BP, pulsus paradoxus) – face (central cyanosis, mitral facies) – cervical lymph nodes, JVP, Pemberton’s sign …

At the chest – LOOK first. Observe patient’s respiratory movements. Look for obvious injury (open pneumothorax). Check for equal chest wall movements on both sides.

Feel next. Palpate the patient’s trachea – it should be midline. Feel the chest wall for subcutaneous emphysema. Palpate the ribs for rib fractures. Percuss chest for resonance. Feel for vocal fremitus if you are a believer in that.

Auscultate – Listen to all areas of the lung. Vocal resonance.

Then examine abdomen (ptosis of the liver … scrotal examination in young males for testicular cancer, the most common metastatic cancer in young males)

Examine legs for signs of DVT and assess peripheral circulation.

Hyper-resonance is said to be a sign of a pneumothorax.

However, in practice this is difficult to detect.