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Dark Sky
Dark Sky by Dustin Schulze is a dark, intimate journey through a foreboding landscape. Its themes are driven by subtly difficult rhythmic challenges between each player’s hands, and between the two marimbas on the whole. Although the main musical energy of the piece could be described as haunting or lyrical, there is a deep, subdued rhythmic drive that slowly but incessantly ferries the listener from one landscape to the next like a slow-moving river boat on a moonlit night.
The Marimba 1 part carries the melody in the right hand for much of the piece while maintaining a steady stream of octaves in the left hand to keep the time moving along. The tension in the melody often stems from the juxtaposition of various rhythms. This will require some solid rhythmic hand-to-hand independence and coordination on the part of the Marimba 1 player. Each player must have a good command of lateral rolls.
This piece comes as a professionally printed and bound score and includes individual parts in PDF format for printing or for tablet viewing.
This duet for two marimbas has an opening section that creates a captivatingly hypnotic groove, with the lower part providing the ostinato scored in bass clef (sextuplets in 6/4), while the upper part provides a minimalistic-like melody. After a brief pause in the action, the composition transitions to a faster tempo with a similar overall sound (maintaining the opening tonality of G minor). A final return to the opening section permits the overall structure of this ternary ABA´ (with brief codetta) work to come to a quiet conclusion (with softer cadential rolls ending the piece).
Each performer must have advanced control of four-mallet technique and a strong sense of internal timing for “Dark Sky” to be a success. A CD-ROM contains the individual parts and an audio recording, which can prove to be quite helpful. As stated in the prefatory remarks, “endurance” is a primary challenge to the successful performance of this creative marimba duet. The composer also states that the upper part (Marimba 1) “should have a complete understanding and ability to execute polyrhythmic 4-over-3 and 3-over-2 patterns between the hands.” This marimba duet would work well for an undergraduate recital presentation by two equally-skilled keyboard percussionists.
—Jim Lambert
Percussive Notes
Vol. 55, No. 1, March 2017
Dark Sky by Dustin Schulze is a dark, intimate journey through a foreboding landscape. Its themes are driven by subtly difficult rhythmic challenges between each player’s hands, and between the two marimbas on the whole. Although the main musical energy of the piece could be described as haunting or lyrical, there is a deep, subdued rhythmic drive that slowly but incessantly ferries the listener from one landscape to the next like a slow-moving river boat on a moonlit night.
The Marimba 1 part carries the melody in the right hand for much of the piece while maintaining a steady stream of octaves in the left hand to keep the time moving along. The tension in the melody often stems from the juxtaposition of various rhythms. This will require some solid rhythmic hand-to-hand independence and coordination on the part of the Marimba 1 player. Each player must have a good command of lateral rolls.
This piece comes as a professionally printed and bound score and includes individual parts in PDF format for printing or for tablet viewing.
This duet for two marimbas has an opening section that creates a captivatingly hypnotic groove, with the lower part providing the ostinato scored in bass clef (sextuplets in 6/4), while the upper part provides a minimalistic-like melody. After a brief pause in the action, the composition transitions to a faster tempo with a similar overall sound (maintaining the opening tonality of G minor). A final return to the opening section permits the overall structure of this ternary ABA´ (with brief codetta) work to come to a quiet conclusion (with softer cadential rolls ending the piece).
Each performer must have advanced control of four-mallet technique and a strong sense of internal timing for “Dark Sky” to be a success. A CD-ROM contains the individual parts and an audio recording, which can prove to be quite helpful. As stated in the prefatory remarks, “endurance” is a primary challenge to the successful performance of this creative marimba duet. The composer also states that the upper part (Marimba 1) “should have a complete understanding and ability to execute polyrhythmic 4-over-3 and 3-over-2 patterns between the hands.” This marimba duet would work well for an undergraduate recital presentation by two equally-skilled keyboard percussionists.
—Jim Lambert
Percussive Notes
Vol. 55, No. 1, March 2017
