Below is a reposting from the guest blog entry I did a few weeks ago.  You can take a look at the original posting here.

The following four playlists represent suggested listening. They are not intended to be a catch-all of everything that has been recorded, but rather some of the most creative and significant works composed for percussion instruments (listed in no particular order).

Percussion – New Releases (79 tracks, 8 hours)

The past year or so have been particularly good for listeners seeking great percussion recordings. Here are some of the best new releases from the genre. I will continue to update this list as new albums become available.

Percussion – Solo (26 tracks, 2 hours)

Artistry as a solo percussionist takes on many forms. I kept this list short, but it represents a good variety what is possible as a soloist behind a percussion instrument or multi-percussion set-up.

Percussion – Ensemble (71 tracks, 9 hours)

The Percussion Ensemble is a 20th-century invention. It has really turned into an incredible compositional tool and means of expression.

Percussion – Mixed Chamber (54 tracks, 6 hours)

Percussionists make for great collaborators and there is no better example than in chamber music. This playlist includes great works that feature percussionist with a mixture of non-percussion instruments.

In addition to some other stellar tracks, the Spring 2012 collection features a recording of my quartet, Lines: Withheld for tuned metals.  If you like what you hear, checkout the sample score located on my compositions page.

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Those of you that are familiar with Browning’s music know about his infatuation with numbers. I’m told that the piece is built around the date that the University was founded, the date of the premiere, as well as my birth date.  There are also hints of the UCF Alma Mater.  It’s a terrific piece and I highly recommend checking out some more of his music. We will perform Flying Tones again in March at the Florida Day of Percussion hosted at USF.

The disc also features the amazing JACK Quartet, the Cadillac Moon Ensemble, and Ensemble Unity.  The entire disc can be sampled below through Innova’s SoundCloud page:

Here is a video from the premiere (an incredibly windy day…).  From left to right: Kaylee Bonatakis, Ben Yancey, myself, Matt Roberts, and Josh Brink.

Anderson: Do you feel that your computer music has influenced your marimba or percussion composing in any way?

Lansky: It’s influenced my percussion composing more than anything else. Threads is really the first time I wrote for percussion ensemble. I’ve written some other percussion music. I have a piece that I wrote for the Clogs called Minor Alterations. It was tricky because they wanted something that would fit in with their kind of concert, which is mainly sort of pop and jazz. I don’t think that my piece fit in so I just revised it for the New Speak Ensemble. I substituted the cello for the bassoon and I think it works pretty well. There is sort of a drum set there and various noisemaking [instruments]. New Speak actually separated [the part] out, so they had two percussionists. They had one person play the cowbell, woodblocks, claves, and that sort of thing, and they had somebody who just did the drum set. I think that worked fairly well. But, I had never written for percussion ensemble before and I remember I was talking with the guys from So Percussion about it. I said, “Why do you want me to write a percussion piece?” We both had a piece on the Eliot Feld ballet in 2004.

Anderson: Is that how your relationship started?

Lansky: No, I knew them from Princeton. They had come down to play concerts at Princeton. I didn’t know them well but we were all at the Eliot Feld ballet and I had a piece there called Idle Chatter Junior which has a lot of percussion sounds. They were crazy about the piece, they really liked it. They said, “Why don’t you write a percussion piece?” I’ve been getting that sort of remark from players for a long time and I usually dismissed it. But, at that point, the computer was getting kind of old.

Anderson: You have been doing it for a long time [laugh].

Lansky: Yes, I kept changing the rules in order to make it harder for myself. I like becoming good at something more than being good at something.

Anderson: Sure, the path to becoming…

Lansky: That’s right. I felt with computers, I sort of think that I had done my thing. Lawson [White] and Doug [Perkins] were there, and I think Jason [Treuting] was there too, and they said, “Why don’t you write for us?” and I said, “I don’t know anything about writing for percussion.” And they said, “Well actually, you’ve been doing it for years.” And they said, “Write stuff and we’ll try it out for you, and workshop it.” So I did it and I wrote a set of, I think about twelve little studies for various kinds of instrument. I took it to their studio on Box Street and they played through them and we talked for a long time about what are the cliches and what are the things they really like to do and what kind of ensemble can they tour with and that sort of thing. And then I went home and wrote Threads and took a couple months, it really happened pretty quickly. I was really amazed at how familiar it felt. A lot of the things that I cared about in writing computer music sort of happened the same way in writing for percussion. I was very conscience of ensemble rhythm. And I was very conscience of texture and density. One thing that you have to do on the computer is you have to be very careful about balancing the spectrum. In Not Just More Idle Chatter as opposed to the earlier chatter pieces where I was using something called linear predictive coding, which is what cell phone use now, where you can spread the voice out make it high and low without sounding like Alvin and the Chipmunks. But I decided not to use that in Not Just More Idle Chatter so I just did away with it. I had to be very careful about the spectrum so I found when writing Threads that I was constantly thinking about the same kinds of things that I’d thought about. I had written a lot of computer music that sort of passes for percussion music. I have a piece called Tables Clear, which is sort of kitchen utensils and that sort of thing. I have a piece called Dance Tracks which is improvising electric guitar and those are all basically percussion music. So a lot of the same lessons sort of came through and it was great; it really felt very familiar.

Here is a brief excerpt of the electronic component (without acoustic percussion):

And here is a screen grab of the multi score:

Concert details are as follows:

Accidental Music Festival Chamber Music Concert
September 8, 2011 @ 7:00 p.m.
Urban Rethink (625 E Central Blvd • Orlando, FL, 32801)

UPDATE
You can now pick up a copy of the score and electronic/click tracks on the composition page.

Also, here is a live recording from the premiere:

The score features a simple motif, heard often in the vibraphone, along with other percussive piano timbres.  I was also able to incorporate a marimba quartet and vibraphone quartet of mine underneath parts of the soundtrack.

I finally got around to making the recorded album available for the masses through Bandcamp’s fantastic storefront. Check out the embedded player on the sidebar to the right or visit the album’s Bandcamp page to check out or purchase all of the tracks.