Introducing the Baroque Timpani | Evolution of Timpani Part 1

[@DameEvelynGlennie]

Absolutely brilliant in every way. Congratulations, Adrian. This presentation is a gem for all of us to experience and learn from. Thank you.

[@adrianbending1]

Ah Evelyn, thanks SO much! This means a lot that you like this. I hope you enjoy the other videos in the series! Hope you're well. A

[@onitasanders7403]

Happened upon this video. I was blown away by the production style, the breath of information and especially the presenter, Adrian Bending. Waiting “on bated breath” for part 2.

[@adrianbending1]

Thank you very much indeed! We cannot promise a release date but hopefully within a few weeks for part 2, and so on

[@adrianbending1]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/i6jZYaKYgbqsotE

[@screamingswifts]

I learn so much from this channel

[@yashkummar]

I am a tabla player and drum player. This was so informative and learnt something new. Thank you

[@alfredbackhus6110]

Wow- this concept with the excerpts played against a background recording is very nice and informative.

[@adrianbending1]

Thank you. It was fun making it like this, and timpani on their own don't sound very interesting so I was keen to do it. I used some running headphones (off the ears) and the staff worked very hard to put some click tracks before the start of some recordings so that I knew when to start!

[@alfredbackhus6110]

@@adrianbending1 That explains the smooth transitions between narration and playing 👏👏👏

[@alfredbackhus6110]

@@adrianbending1 PS one thought about "Ach mein herzliebstes Jesulein" 😀 It's interesting to see how there are two contradictory interpretations about the dynamics of the trumpet choir. Some directors choose to let the timpani and trumpets play in sympathy with the text- in a mild manner, in consonance with the intimate lullaby-like lyrics. Others choose to contrast the trumpet choir interjections with the choral (with noticable traversos 1 octave above the soprano providing a pastoral colour ) to juxtapose the regal aspect of Christ with the humble and sentimental vow of the choral. I like both.

[@adrianbending1]

@@alfredbackhus6110 I firmly believe that variety is essential and I enjoy most music being played in quite different ways. For example I always encourage students to try to keep an open mind if they dismiss to quickly something they have heard. In this case you mention, I am far less familiar with second approach and strongly prefer the first style you describe, as to me Bach's musical intention is extremely clear here.

[@Nooticus]

absolutely! such an amazing concept!

[@Inigobalboa]

What a gem of a little video I just watched.

[@adrianbending1]

Thank you very much!

[@phileo_ss]

I love the sound of the timpani but I did not know much about the instrument itself. Looking forward to part 2.

[@adrianbending1]

Thanks. Don't want to promise a date, but hopefullly within a few weeks

[@branch2359]

I love how passionate this guy is abt timpani

[@adrianbending1]

Thank you very much!

[@BigRedTower]

K I about tipped-over, seeing a real drum that old. Very cool!! Thanks!

[@michaeldeloatch7461]

Very interesting presentation indeed. Dare I say, it was drumatic!

[@victor1804]

Huge fan of your work as an orchestra and as educators in youtube, amazing as always!

[@adrianbending1]

Thank you very much! The players in the orchestra are very passionate about their instruments and so we are always very happy to share and explain this

[@Hrafnhistorical]

Wonderful! The comparisons between the English and German styles were particularly interesting! Can't wait for part 2!

[@adrianbending1]

Hopefully you won't have to wait that long!

[@landak136]

Always love these majestic loud bangers. Because there are more about them than just loud bangs.

[@nofahz]

Thanks Adrian, I can't wait for future episodes. I never had the opportunity to play an example older than the late 19th century and always wondered about earlier versions of the instrument. Your mallets are interesting too, they look you're playing with the butt end of field drum sticks

[@adrianbending1]

Yes I am using field drum sticks. The butt ends for Bach and the playing ends for Handel. I like the weight of these sticks for the sound I was trying to make on those drums on that day. It's all about context. Another day it might be very different!

[@denysfirth2855]

Fantastic video. Very interesting to understand the historical and musical development of the timpani - shape, skins etc. and your technical ability with the sound system was impressive! As with some others, I’m keen to learn more about the tuning - both the historical/ technical developments and the music “theory” aspects. Like many others, I suspect, I had not realised for many years of listening that timpani were tuned (the pitch is very subtle) to tonic and dominant. And while I can see how tonic/dominant works fine in baroque and classical music doesn’t the romantic era require other notes in the chord? And what about the frequent modulations? Can you retune mid-movement? Do you ever move away from tonic dominant? Looking forward to a long series of videos! Thank you so much!

[@adrianbending1]

Thanks very much indeed Denys. What a lot of great questions! - I hope the next videos answer many/all of them as well as I can. A few things for now; even when music got more harmonically complicated, timpani still tended to play tonic and dominant (in the new key) necessitating quick tuning and/or more drums. It wasn't until the late 19th Century until we get to play other harmony notes and melodic motifs. One exception being Berlioz who famously often gave us the third of the chord (Symphonie Fantastique for example). It wasn't until the 20th Century when timpani became fully harmonic, Richard Strauss being a very important pioneer of this. Rite of Spring is drum-like, Mahler we play harmony notes and some motifs and Bartok uses us very well, with effects such as glissandos. But alongside that Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler, Elgar, Shostakovich; we are still very often playing tonic and dominant as that seems to be one of the things we do best! And on a technical harmonic level - if you can play the tonic and dominant notes throughout a bar, even when you don't have exactly the right note that say the double basses are playing, one of those notes will fit with most others meaning that clashes are mostly inoffensive (this is also true because as you say, timpani pitch is subtle and not always clear and this is often a good thing!). It is hard to explain this last bit but I hope that makes sense!

[@rasmusn.e.m1064]

Really interesting information presented beautifully in both historical and musical contexts! I especially liked the explanation of the physical development of the timpani according to what needs they fulfilled. The only slight question left in my mind is how we got from untuned drums to tuned drums in the first place.

[@adrianbending1]

That is a really good question! I will send you a proper reply about it soon.

[@adrianbending1]

Composers such as Rameau wrote for unpitched drums playing repetetive notes a bit like timpani do now. To make a drum articulate, you need to tension it quite high (otherwise it just sounds like a boomy bass drum). And when you tune it high, it starts to have a note. And so, would you believe, when we play small bass drums or tenor drums in music like Rameau, Handel or Purcell, we try to tune them to the key of the piece, otherwise they sound terrible! And so, from the high and low (weak and strong) of the two nakers. It soon became important for the (larger) drums to have pitches. And then, interestingly, the top drum was now the most important one, being the tonic (key note). In unpitched drums like nakers, the lower drum would be on the strong beats, exactly like the pedal (kick) bass drum of a modern drums kit. I hope this is a good answer?!

[@rasmusn.e.m1064]

@@adrianbending1 Thank you so much! That is a very good answer, yes. -I'm very much a novice when it comes to percussion in general, so this explained possibly a lot more than you might think. It's interesting how it seems like the pitch came about as a sort of afterthought on the instrument because of the initial importance of rhythmic clarity. I wonder if that might not also be how the pitched drums of the Indian subcontinent developed given the importance given to rhythmic phrasings in those musical traditions.

[@adrianbending1]

@@rasmusn.e.m1064 I'm not very knowledgeable about drums of the Indian subcontinent, but my understanding is that much of the pitch there is around mimicking the human voice, and tones we have within that, rather than, as timpani do, matching up to the most important harmony notes of established Western traditions

[@ezraschwartz5201]

Thank you so much for this lecture and demonstration!!!

[@juandavidforerocaviedes1968]

Amazing! Thank you for sharing this information.

[@adrianbending1]

It is a lot of work, but all the players like making these films

[@specialforces101]

Thank you so much

[@RockStarOscarStern634]

You're really Rocking them Drums.

[@TheMarkEH]

Excellent. Thank you.

[@smoath]

Excellent!

[@Admiralmeriweather]

magnificent. thank you.

[@Joggelschorsch]

This is so cool! Thank you for providing this quality content!

[@adrianbending1]

Thanks very much David!

[@Richard-b5r9v]

Adrian plays his drums in the proper American configuration

[@davemiller7633]

Very, very good

[@slmanbadr6832]

THANK YOU SO MUCHE FOR THIS INFORMING VEDIO

[@rafaelfernandeslopesdeoliv1700]

Perhaps my favourite video on the channel. I hope it's a five parter.

[@adrianbending1]

Wow, that is extremely kind of you! There will definitely be a lot more parts. We hope you enjoy those too.

[@andrewwigglesworth3030]

More!!! 🙂

[@the_eternal_student]

Feel free to post more timpani excerpts from Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. If someone put out a recording of bach timpani excerpts with the instruments they are playing at the same time with, I would buy it.

[@fega1985]

Lovely and educative content as always!

[@adrianbending1]

Thank you so much!

[@stevekimball7697]

Yes!

[@mathieufoley2339]

bravo

[@walkerdocs1]

Fantastic.

[@timothytikker1147]

I learned the hard way about the effects of humidity on natural leather drum heads. I was to play Middle-Eastern frame drums in an outdoor performance on a very foggy day, and was dismayed to find that the humidity made the drums sound like hitting wet newspaper! That convinced me to get some synethetic-headed drums as an alternative for such situations.

[@adrianbending1]

I think we have all had that problem! Even in countries with a hot climate they use heat lamps to heat the skins before they play to get them up to pitch! There are also frame drums with screw tuning so that you can screw them up if the skins are slack. It is a huge problem!

[@xfloodcasual8124]

8:31 I thought the acid was kicking in watching this 😵‍💫

[@firsttankcrews]

What are superb programme - thank you for sharing it. Onecessarily question please which orchestra played La Rejouissance?

[@adrianbending1]

Thank you very much! The orchestra is 'The Kings Consort'. We are very grateful indeed to Hyperion Records and LSO Live who allowed us to use their recordings for these films.

[@martinsymphonicpercussion]

❤

[@alannasarafat9938]

oh god that opening music makes me remember the comedic drama anime "Nodame Cantabile" that make me hooked on classical music

[@musicalintentions]

very cool!

[@grahamnancledra7036]

I wonder how Adrian is going to explain the timpani opening of the Beethoven Violin Concerto and the marvellous cadenza that he wrote for the Piano Version of the first movement sometimes adapted by some violinists!

[@adrianbending1]

The classical timpani video will be next and there will be a lot of Beethoven

[@leoperarm]

That heavenly Bach chorale...

[@adrianbending1]

It is very simple, but joyous for a timpanist to be able to play in such a beautiful piece...

[@classicalpianoimprovisat-xc5cf]

Hello, my name is Richard from Germany. Can you recommend a good book on the issue of baroque percussion? How did they use all sorts of Drums, Tambouribes, Bells, etc. in instrumental music? Thanks a lot in Advance 😀

[@adrianbending1]

Hi. I can't recommend a book just devoted to this area. I think the best one might be the James Blades book. There should be such a book. Maybe I should write one some time...!

[@classicalpianoimprovisat-xc5cf]

@@adrianbending1 thank you very much for your reply. I will check out your Recomendation 😀

[@douglassmith3119]

When did timpanists start muting the drums with their hands (cutting off the longer vibrations)?

[@adrianbending1]

I think they have always done that. There are two types of damping. 1: To stop the drums ringing on when the sound is either disturbing what the other musicians are doing, or because everything has stopped! And 2: To help clarity by stopping a drum from ringing during a rhythmic passage. The first type is relevant to all kinds of drums and playing, though earlier drums have a shorter decay (due to thicker skins, smaller collar (the bit between the hoop the skin is mounted on and the lip of the kettle of the drum) and smaller kettle volume). The second type becomes more important when you are playing drums that are too resonant for the musical requirements of what you are playing. Most people play modern (20th Century) timpani for all repertoire. If you need to play Mozart on modern timpani the decay of the note is too long, and so you need to use lots of damping to make the sound shorter and clearer. And so to answer your question I suppose I would say that lots of hand damping while playing became important around 100 years ago when drums got much bigger but were used for classical and baroque repertoire.

[@mal2ksc]

So how many out of that huge palette of drums do you typically have to take on tour with you?

[@adrianbending1]

Dates plus the normal number of timpani: Up to 1800: 2, 1800-1870: 2-4. 1870-present:3-5. Some symphonies have two timpani parts and each players needs 4. Timpani changed approximately every 50 years which is why it is necessary/desirable to have a lot available. We don't normally mix music from different periods in one programme and so in the OAE it is very rare to take 4 on tour. It is usually 2 or 3. I hope this answers your question!

[@mal2ksc]

@@adrianbending1 It does indeed. The answer, quite surprisingly, sounds like it's pretty much the same as everyone else. Maybe even slightly easier because the drums have only gotten bigger as they've sprouted tuning hardware.

[@adrianbending1]

@@mal2ksc yes the tuning hardware does add size. But the drums did get steadily bigger over the centuries as the orchestra got bigger. As it happens this is exactly what my next video is about! Hopefully we will release it in the next week or two.

[@jcortese3300]

This is very interesting, thanks for the video. If music is a language, I think I tend to consider you guys the punctuation. 🙂

[@adrianbending1]

Thank you very much. That is a very interesting way to express our role! We also sometimes talk about ourselves as the consonant, if the orchestra is the rest of the word. So a chord without timpani sounds like "aaaah" (because most other instruments don't make a big start to their sound). And then when you add timpani, depending on the type of stick etc, then this "word" becomes "taaah", "kaaah", "paaah", "baaah", "maaah" and so on.

[@the_eternal_student]

One down side to the timpani is that, despite Elliot Carter, it did not previously have the relationship with the music that a solo instrument had, however, the upside is that its phrases are easier to understand.

[@adrianbending1]

I wonder if there is not very much solo music is simply that our instrument is not particularly suited to being heard alone? I think most timpanists are very happy not to be soloists! We are happy to leave that to other people. For me our functional role and to participate in really great ensemble music makes me very happy and I don't feel it is a huge problem that I hardly ever play on my own.

[@the_eternal_student]

@@adrianbending1 When I said soloists, I meant an instrument with a primary or nearly continuous role llike all the strings of a string quartet, granted some people do not like an integral relationship between the player and the music.

[@adrianbending1]

@@the_eternal_student Ah I see what you mean. Yes it is a huge regret to miss out on the feeling of playing continuously in a string quartet for example. But then again, we have a very different, exciting and challenging role and so we timpanists should feel lucky to be able to participate in great music, adding what we can in the way we can

[@MizzKittyBichon]

Should've featured J.S. Bach's "Jauchzet, frohlocket" in this video as the timpani definitely have their moment in that song, especially in the opening bars.

[@tobiasstudtheol]

I hear you but stop calling it a song it is the Opening Chorus (respectively 1st Movement) of the first Cantata of JS Bach's "Christmas Oratorio".

[@MizzKittyBichon]

@@tobiasstudtheol Geez, no need to be so high and mighty about the terminology.

[@adrianbending1]

Of course it is an important piece for timpani, but we did not want to make the film too long and we could not include everything!

[@jorge6207]

As a curiosity, eardrum are called tympani (with slight variation) in most (if not all) Latin based languages.

[@wilhelmorangenbaum]

Is spanish we use the singular word "tímpano"

[@jorge6207]

@@wilhelmorangenbaum In all other languages too, but the fact is we have two of them. Also because the name of the instrument is the Italian plural.

[@wilhelmorangenbaum]

@@jorge6207 Correct, thought in spanish we never use the plural "timpani" to refer to the two eardrums, we use the corrupt word "tímpanos". We only use timpani to refer, well, to the timpani.

[@_cynth_wave]

In english it's still the tympanic membrane iirc

[@Richard-b5r9v]

Beethoven s 7th Symphony first movement at the beginning of the video

[@onewhogetsbread9975]

Ok so Bach Timpani needs a more deeper, booming sound, what type of sound is best for Handel, Vivaldi, or Telemann? Edit: Handel needs more Percussive sounds

[@graupner1345]

Fascinating introduction, thank you. But unfortunately no mention of the baroque composer who did more than any to develop the way the timpani is used. Christoph Graupner wrote far more music involving timpani (more than 700 movements!) than Bach and Handel combined and, from 1732 onwards, included 3, 4, 5 or even 6 timpani in his orchestra. He seems to have settled on 4 for most occasions and used this number for around 340 movements, nearly two thirds of these in church cantatas. In these works it is not uncommon to find the timpani playing along with the basso continuo, Graupner using it as a means to inject more oompf into his (often already very energetic) bass lines. Sometimes he even accompanies passages in solo instruments with just timpani. Unfortunately, as a court composer, Graupner's music was not published and after his death it was impounded due to a legal battle. This meant that many of his significant innovations were not passed on to the next generations and were only "rediscovered" later. Needless to say, it would be so great to hear some of this fine music revived by the OAE!

[@adrianbending1]

You are right that Graupner should be discovered more. And is it is obviously very sad that, for the very good reasons you suggest, Graupner's music is not known wider and any influence he could have had was impossible. It is fascinating to speculate what this music would have sounded like, and presumably he had drums available that sounded good and clear enough at the various pitches he needed to enhance and not spoil the bassline!

[@graupner1345]

​@@adrianbending1 Yes, there is a lot of music to speculate on. As Graupner was at a famously skint court, he had to make do with a very small ensemble (basically one to a part). His timpanist must have had an exceptionally sensitive touch. Often you read "p" and "pp" in Graupner's timpani parts. Of the tiny fraction of his cantatas so-far recorded, this is probably the finest example of such sensitive use of the timpani: A sublime duet from his 1753 Christmas Day cantata for soprano and tenor, 2 horns, 4 timpani, 2 flutes, oboe, solo violin, pizzicato strings and continuo (surely the only work ever with this scoring!): kzbin.info/www/bejne/oqGmqniCrbprgLc (concert version: kzbin.info/www/bejne/en6Zkn6qg6aokKM ). Here is the timpani part: tudigit.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/show/Mus-Ms-461-37/0060/image There are also some great moments with 4 timpani in this concert: kzbin.info/www/bejne/m3a5gmpjo7yZea8

[@youtito9472]

Vibrations!

[@NeilBlanchard]

An odd fact about tympani drums - they are the only instrument that have an initial "negative" air pressure on the sound they make. Every other instrument make an initial "positive" air pressure on their sound. This is part of why tympani "cut through" the rest of the instruments.

[@adrianbending1]

Here is part 2! kzbin.info/www/bejne/i6jZYaKYgbqsotE

[@slmanbadr6832]

THE PLAYER IS SEXY

[@gabrielemiracle]

Okay, yet another video on baroque timpani played as if they were modern timpani. The video disregards informations that are fundamental to a philological approach to these instruments. The biggest mistake continues to be playing Baroque timpani on the edge of the skin, while they were played in the center! The skins were thicker, the leatherwork was coarser than today's, and the tuning was perforce much rougher. For this reason, funnels were found in many kettles that served to amplify and define the sound, and they were placed exactly in the center of the kettles. The sound produced was much more similar to Turkish kudüm (or to modern tom tom) than to modern timpani. The sound you hear in the video is pretty much that of Romantic timpani, not baroque. Another incomprehensible mistake is the addition of the final roll in the Réjouissance of Handel's Royal Fireworks: it is not written in the score, the final roll does not exist in Baroque practice, it is not even found in the endings of Mozart's symphonies! Why add something that does not exist? Then why not a beautiful final chord Dmaj7 instead of a boring D? It is a pity that in 2022, with all the informations we have, people is still producing material that does not take philology into account at all.

[@adrianbending1]

I could agree with some of what you say. I take quite a lot of time in this video to explain exactly why circumstances nowadays are different. And I explain why we use heads that are probably a bit thinner (although we cannot be 100% sure because we do not know that if you find a very old drum with a head on, whether that head was actually what was used or whether it was put on later, to be shown in a museum.) How far should "authenticity" extend? It is not "authentic" to drive a drum 100 miles (in a heated vehicle in the winter when it is snowing) and then try to play it after one hour. How have you found this with very old drums? The authentic thing to do would be deliver the drums to the venue 50 years before the gig and wait for them to settle! The modern concert halls we play in are completely unauthentic since they are generally much larger. What should we do? Refuse to play in big halls and play to only half the people? Or do exactly as was done in the past, using instruments perfect for a small hall, but then sound and balance across the orchestra could be terrible? Or do we adapt what we do a little so that every member of the audience can hear? I lean towards the last option. (By the way, my orchestra often takes a decision to play in the smaller hall if we think the sound will be better. It is a difficult decision financially and of course finance in music is getting harder and harder.) Of course it would be good if there was an orchestra who played things with no regard for anything other than history, if they could be 100% sure they were "right" (which is impossible), and I would applaud what they do. I think we have different opinions/experiences on the balance of philology against practicality? One thing that is heavily evident throughout history is how musicians and ensembles have constantly adapted to circumstances, being open minded to ignore a tradition occasionally if it isn't appropriate, and being flexible enough technically to change what they do to suit the conditions on a particular day. To me this sums up what being a good musician is. Regarding rolls and what is written in the score; there is very little information written in most scores of this period for all of the instruments of the orchestra. I think adding a roll is exactly the same as a violinist or oboist adding an ornament (also not written). Depending on the context and tastefulness with which it is done ornaments and rolls can add a lot or be terrible! Side drums would roll in Rejouissance so why not timpani? Why is it very important? It is a noisy ending to a triumphant piece. I am really not very interested in rolls at all; it is just our way of sustaining a note.

[@gabrielemiracle]

@@adrianbending1 I don't quite agree: today's concert halls are large, but they allow greater definition of sound than the halls or theaters of the Baroque era, so even very low volumes can be heard by a large audience. I myself have played in concert halls with medieval music ensembles whose instruments sound half as big as today's. I agree that compromises have to be made, unfortunately, because most musicians who play early music love philology as long as it sounds contemporary; when the sound produced requires thought and trial and error, they decide to resort to contemporary aesthetic taste. So why even play early music at all? The final roll is a Romantic practice anyway, Beethoven himself very rarely uses it: playing Baroque timpani in the center of the skin, and thus sounding very different from today, are we sure we would want to emphasize the endings with a nice modern roll? It is worth the test; we cannot assume that what we do, musically speaking, is more right than what was done 400 years ago.

[@adrianbending1]

@@gabrielemiracle I do not think it is fair to say that those who play early music "love philology as long as it sounds contemporary"! Their motivation is to sound good, not to sound contemporary. And certainly the musicians I work with regularly try very hard indeed and don't give up resorting to contemporary aesthetic taste very easily at all. As I said, in 'The Fireworks Music', if the side drums are rolling then I do not understand what is contemporary or incorrect about the timpani rolling as well. The most important thing for me is that flexibility itself is more important than rigid philology. And so the reasons I do things as I do are absolutely not because I think they are "more right", it is because they work better for the people I am performing to.

[@gabrielemiracle]

@@adrianbending1 Do you have Handel's autograph score with the snare drum part? That would be a good place to start. As far as I know, we have no certainty that the snare drum plays a roll at the end, but I could be wrong. In any case, the drum roll produces a note that is much less defined than that of the timpani, also considering skins and snares of the time, and therefore less invasive at the harmony level. Because of the size of the snare drum, they probably sound lower than the smaller timpani, that played the fundamental note of the chord. And what if the very final chord in Baroque Era was way less triumphal of what we might suppose? This would explain, maybe, the fact that a timpani roll was not needed. Philology is not rigid: philogy is challenging, it is research, trial and error, it forces one to see the same topic with very different points of view. I completely understand that you are part of a group and you have to find a language that works for everyone, we all make compromises. However, I see that in our exchange of views (for which I thank you) you did not bring back sources for me to consult so that I could understand how you arrived at certain conclusions. I guess your video is intended to be educational and informative. However, then the proper title for your video should be Introducing - my personal approach - to Baroque Timpani. IMHO.

[@adrianbending1]

@@gabrielemiracle I have not seen Handel's autograph score but even if I had this would not prove anything to me. I would say that actually it is a very contemporary trait to take what the score says too literally! What I experience from colleagues across many instruments is how much information is NOT in many scores. This does not mean we can do what we like, and we still think that the composers wishes are the most important thing. The hard thing is trying to work out what that is. Also that it does not need to be the same every time. For example, if there are no crescendos written in the score does that mean we are never allowed to do any? I find that extraordinary. Composers often did not notate things clearly because they knew they did not need to, for example hemiolas. And for us, perhaps Handel knew he did not need to write a roll for the side drums because he knew that they would do this anyway, as it was their convention to do so? And by the way, I am not saying that "timpani rolls are right", I am saying "they are not wrong" which is an important difference. Of course a video like this is personal. But I have tried incredibly hard to not bring my personal opinion in, and just talk about what happened or happens, and what a lot of people did and are doing, observing a lot from many colleagues I respect hugely. I would like to thank you too for this exchange of views which is very interesting!