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Cricket
Brian Slawson’s Cricket, for solo xylophone with optional piano accompaniment, is a playful piece for a beginning mallet player. The piano accompaniment was also written with the beginner in mind and provides an excellent opportunity for a beginning percussionist to try their hands at the piano. While recommended for xylophone, the solo part can also be performed on marimba, vibraphone, or glockenspiel. In true Slawson form, their is humor throughout, with grace notes and eighth-note figures creating a light-hearted mood. This piece will certainly entertain parents while students develop syncopation and mallet keyboard skills!
Cricket ships in a printed, professionally bound folio with a full color cover and includes a separate, printed piano part within the folio.
• Xylophone*
• Piano**
*While xylophone is recommended, the solo part can be performed on marimba, vibraphone, or glockenspiel.
**Piano part is optional
As with all of Brian Slawson’s pieces and arrangements, “Cricket” is written with idiomatic sensitivity for the instrument, utilizes creative simplicity when establishing chordal areas, and contains an appropriate amount of whimsy within the style and character of the piece. This two-minute solo for xylophone is simple (and effective) enough for a beginner to pick up quickly, yet contains enough depth that it would easily work on bells, vibraphone, or marimba.
This piece is primarily built around chords that are broken up into arpeggiated eighth-note figures (think 1-5-3-5 repeated) or played with doubled-notes on the tonic and third. Rhythms are primarily quarter notes and eighth notes with minimal syncopation. While the compositional formula is simple and straightforward, the end result is a piece that is technically easy to grasp and harmonically effective on the instrument without sounding “elementary” in its approach.
The provided piano part is described by Slawson as “optional,” but it would be hard to get the maximum effect from the solo without the solid harmonic foundation added by the piano. Slawson even suggests that “your percussion buddies give it a shot,” regarding performing the piano part, which is doable, seeing as how the chords are revisited several times throughout the work and rhythms are never more complicated than syncopated eighth notes.
In terms of solo works for beginning band students that challenge without being overwhelming, this two-minute piece fits the bill, and will please not only the students and band directors, but also the audience.
—Joshua D. Smith
Percussive Notes
Vol. 57, No. 3, July 2019
Brian Slawson’s Cricket, for solo xylophone with optional piano accompaniment, is a playful piece for a beginning mallet player. The piano accompaniment was also written with the beginner in mind and provides an excellent opportunity for a beginning percussionist to try their hands at the piano. While recommended for xylophone, the solo part can also be performed on marimba, vibraphone, or glockenspiel. In true Slawson form, their is humor throughout, with grace notes and eighth-note figures creating a light-hearted mood. This piece will certainly entertain parents while students develop syncopation and mallet keyboard skills!
Cricket ships in a printed, professionally bound folio with a full color cover and includes a separate, printed piano part within the folio.
• Xylophone*
• Piano**
*While xylophone is recommended, the solo part can be performed on marimba, vibraphone, or glockenspiel.
**Piano part is optional
As with all of Brian Slawson’s pieces and arrangements, “Cricket” is written with idiomatic sensitivity for the instrument, utilizes creative simplicity when establishing chordal areas, and contains an appropriate amount of whimsy within the style and character of the piece. This two-minute solo for xylophone is simple (and effective) enough for a beginner to pick up quickly, yet contains enough depth that it would easily work on bells, vibraphone, or marimba.
This piece is primarily built around chords that are broken up into arpeggiated eighth-note figures (think 1-5-3-5 repeated) or played with doubled-notes on the tonic and third. Rhythms are primarily quarter notes and eighth notes with minimal syncopation. While the compositional formula is simple and straightforward, the end result is a piece that is technically easy to grasp and harmonically effective on the instrument without sounding “elementary” in its approach.
The provided piano part is described by Slawson as “optional,” but it would be hard to get the maximum effect from the solo without the solid harmonic foundation added by the piano. Slawson even suggests that “your percussion buddies give it a shot,” regarding performing the piano part, which is doable, seeing as how the chords are revisited several times throughout the work and rhythms are never more complicated than syncopated eighth notes.
In terms of solo works for beginning band students that challenge without being overwhelming, this two-minute piece fits the bill, and will please not only the students and band directors, but also the audience.
—Joshua D. Smith
Percussive Notes
Vol. 57, No. 3, July 2019
