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Laurent Calomne, Author-Composer (Belgium) - "I use Pizzicato intensively to write the scores of the music I compose"
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Writing And Playing Percussions

With Pizzicato Professional, you can write scores for percussion instruments and you can hear the sound result through your sound card or external synthesizer with MIDI.

Percussion Writing

Percussion instruments have particularities regarding notation and the link between the score and a sound card or a MIDI synthesizer. There are two types of percussion instruments: chromatic percussion instruments with which you can play a melody (xylophone, vibes, timpani,...) and percussion instruments with an undefined pitch (bass drum, cymbals, maracas,...).

The first ones are written on a standard 5 lines staff. They are not a problem neither for notation nor for MIDI, because they react at the note pitch as any other instrument (you write a C, you hear a C).

For the percussion instruments with an undefined pitch, the situation is different. For those instruments, the idea of a "note of music" looses its melodic meaning, because a note is heard as a particular sound effect and is not associated to a real note pitch like C, D or E.

As a percussion instrument is not naturally associated to a specific note of the scale, the mapping of instruments on the lines of a staff is free. For such a staff, we do not use a standard G of F clef, but we use a percussion clef:

Notation Convention For Percussion Instruments

There are various conventions used, according to the percussion ensemble that is playing. According to the percussion ensemble, a 5 lines staff may be used, by specifying at the beginning of the score the various instruments used, as for instance:

Various symbols may be assigned to represent specific instruments (here above, a cross for the symbal). With Pizzicato, you can select the note head by the following dialog box:

In symphonic orchestra scores, 1 line staves are often used for each percussion instrument and all rhythms are drawn on that line:

With Pizzicato, you can create one or more percussion staves, each with 1 to 16 lines. You can determine how the lines are displayed with the following dialog box:

The General MIDI Standard For Percussion Instruments

Most of the time, a sound card (or an external synthesizer) can play the percussion instruments. With that purpose in mind, a standard has been established regarding the way percussion instruments are mapped on the musical keyboard. The MIDI channel 10 is reserved for percussion instruments and when we send a note command to that channel, the corresponding percussion instrument is heard. Here is the table of percussion instruments available in the sound cards and synthesizers that comply with General MIDI (GM):

B 0	Acoustic Bass Drum	B 2	Ride Cymbal 2
C 1	Bass Drum	C 3	Hi Bongo
C# 1	Side Stick	C# 3	Low Bongo
D 1	Acoustic Snare Drum	D 3	Mute Hi Conga
D# 1	Hand Clap	D# 3	Open Hi Conga
E 1	Electric Snare Drum	E 3	Low Conga
F 1	Low Floor Tom	F 3	High Timbale
F# 1	Closed Hi-Hat	F# 3	Low Timbale
G 1	High Floor Tom	G 3	High Agogo
G# 1	Pedal Hi-Hat	G# 3	Low Agogo
A 1	Low Tom	A 3	Cabasa
A# 1	Open Hi-Hat	A# 3	Maracas
B 1	Low Mid Tom	B 3	Short Whistle
C 2	Hi Mid Tim	C 4	Long Whistle
C# 2	Crash Cymbal 1	C# 4	Short Guiro
D 2	High Tom	D 4	Long Guiro
D# 2	RIde Cymbal 1	D# 4	Claves
E 2	Chinese Cymbal	E 4	Hi Wood Block
F 2	Ride Bell	F 4	Low Wood Block
F# 2	Tambourine	F# 4	Mute Cuica
G 2	Splash Cymbal	G 4	Open Cuica
G# 2	Cowbell	G# 4	Mute Triangle
A 2	Crash Cymbal 2	A 4	Open Triangle
A# 2	Vibraslap

Percussion Maps

If we were to place all these instruments on one single staff, the resulting score would be hardly legible. Often, only a small number of the above instruments are placed on a staff. To do that, there must be a way to specify which staff note corresponds to what percussion instrument. With Pizzicato, you can create percussion maps, by assigning one instrument to each line or between each line of a staff:

Through this dialog box, you may easily assign for instance the bass drum to the first line, the snare drum to the second line,... as you want them to be.

Prepared Templates For Writing Percussions

You may of course create your own percussion templates, but Pizzicato also has prepared templates for the use of the General MIDI standard, based on 5 staves. Here is how they look like:

You may use the whole set or just one of them. By simply writing a note at a specific height on a staff, you will hear the corresponding intrument, played with the assigned rhythm. Another Pizzicato tool lets you "drag/drop" 1 line staves with individual percussion instruments in an orchestral score:

Summary

With the above tools from Pizzicato Professional, you will be able to create scores for percussion. The notation may be standard or customized. With the percussion maps and the prepared templates, Pizzicato will play your percussion scores correctly.

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