Percussion

Percussion section is probably the most funniest section.

In the section, there are more than 10 girls, and 1 or 2 guys. They can be considered the most unbalance section, in terms of gender, of course.

In such a section that is dominated by girls, it's very usual for anything strange to happen. That's what I explain to myself, if I see anything that is beyond my knowledge.

Last Saturday, after their sectionals, when I was walking with them to eat, Amanda said to me, "Welcome to the sisterhood." I suddenly felt pity to the guys in percussion. Before that, I was thinking that the guys may be happy in such section.

They went to eat at Munchie's Monkey (a group of rich girls). When they saw the advertisement of "you got brain?" They started to ask each other, "Hey, you got brain or not?" I felt that I am totally outside of this group. Amanda told me, "They will ask this question EVERYTIME they come to Munchie's Monkey."

While eating, I still felt that I can't understand their topics. OK, maybe because of my lousy English, but sometimes their words are just so brilliant that I have to think for a minute to understand, and by that time, they have already gone through 5 topics.

Today morning, when the percussion was supposed to have sectional, I received a call, asking me where is Yinting. Well, we both do live in PGP, but there is no way I can find her, no matter what, even though I do know where is her room. The truth is, Yinting's hp ran out of battery, and the clock stays at 6am, but she set alarm at 7am, so the alarm didn't ring.

So I went to practise, coincidently saw Yinting at PGP bus stop. When Yinting reached at CFA, these was the conversation: Yinting said to Amanda, "Sorry, I owe you a meal." Amanda said, "They all requested a meal from you." Yinting said to all, "OK, I owe all of you a meal, except Crystal." (she didn't see Crystal) Then Crystal shouted, "Hey!" Yinting said, "Oh, I buy lollypop for you."

Before the percussion sectional ended, the tutor gather all of them to teach about timpani and drumset. I sneaked in to listen also. He taught us some really interesting things about timpani and drumset.

For timpani, he taught us how to tune, that you hit on the skin and tune from lower to the note you want. And when you got the correct pitch and you sing to the timpani, it will sing back to you. He also said how to make good sound on timpani, how to roll on timpani, depending on the size of timpani and the dynamics. And he said, no crossing hand on timpani. For fp dynamic, you can strike the skin loudly, let it dampen a bit then only roll softly. When the timpani phrase ended, you have to dampen the timpani, not only the ones you stroke, but all of the timpani because of resonance. So, it's better to put something on the timpani you are not using because you will probably forgot to dampen the forgotten timpani.

For drumset, he taught about how different styles of music require different way of playing drumset. For jazz or rock, it's totally different kind. He did teach about how to practise and improve coordination, but I can't remember, simply because I am not so familiar. He also said that normal method that we learn for school-drummer are very bad for jazz drummers, because it's a totally different type of playing.

PK said that for No Shadow of Turning, they need more than 10 players for only the handbells part. So, I volunteered to help them. So I can have excuse to not practise one of the my part, which I think is the hardest part for the whole concert.

So, be nice to the percussions, so that they will give you some part to play if you want to escape from your own part.