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Ready for a night on the town? Transport your audience to the dance club with La Vida de la Noche (Nightlife) by Brian Slawson. This spirited, soca-style work for mallet sextet, is also expandable to fifteen players for a full percussion ensemble sound and groove.
With a single quarter note pickup in the mallets, the piece wastes no time launching into the catchy melody. The main melody is a study in sixteenth + dotted eighth rhythms (as well as the reverse), while a secondary melody switches almost entirely to triplet-based rhythms. Interlocking parts throughout the rest of the ensemble keep the more challenging rhythms achievable.
Ensemble flexibility is baked in, as up to six percussion parts can be added to bring the soca groove to life. Crotales, chimes, and/or timpani can be added as well for extra sparkle and low end. Slawson has brilliantly scored the work in such a way as to convey the underlying groove with or without the optional percussion parts.
For both setup convenience and some extra visual effect, the two lead marimba players can share a single 4.3-octave (low A) instrument. No four-mallet technique is required.
The piece ships as a fully bound score and includes individual parts in PDF format for either printing or tablet viewing.
*Crotales (low octave)
Glockenspiel
*Chimes
Xylophone
Vibraphone
2 Marimbas — (1) 4-octave, (1) low A
*3 Timpani
*Drums — bongos, drumset,
*Cymbals and gongs — crash cymbals (pair), suspended cymbal, tam-tam,
*Accessories — bell tree, tambourine, temple blocks, triangle, vibraslap
*optional
Percussion ensemble works with flexible instrumentation and personnel requirements have become increasingly popular, and with good reason. The ability to have a work that can shape itself to the needs of a specific program and sound good no matter the conditions can be a difficult bar to reach. Brian Slawson achieves this quite well with “La Vida de la Noche.”
The minimum instrumentation is a mallet sextet requiring all the basic instruments most high school program would have. The sextet version alone is a solid piece that can easily stand on its own. All parts utilize only two-mallet technique (though the Marimba 1 part could opt for using four mallets to make some sections easier to navigate), and there is a good balance of parts for less experienced players as well as some for performers with more experience.
Where “La Vida de la Noche” really shines is in the option to add as many as nine more parts to the original sextet. The composer states that any or all of these additional parts may be added to the original sextet. Want to just add drumset to the original sextet? Go for it! Wish to keep it as a mallet-only ensemble but have two more players? Add the crotale and chime parts. The additional parts range from additional mallet instruments to parts for timpani, drumset, bongos, temple blocks, tambourine, and two multi-percussion parts. The fact that any and all of these parts are optional helps this work to be highly versatile.
“La Vida de la Noche” is an entertaining and accessible piece that would work well on any high school (and even middle school) percussion ensemble concert. The flexibility these additional parts give makes this piece a perfect addition to any music library, as it can fit just about any variation of your group.
—Brian Nozny
Percussive Notes
Vol. 62, No. 2, April 2024
Ready for a night on the town? Transport your audience to the dance club with La Vida de la Noche (Nightlife) by Brian Slawson. This spirited, soca-style work for mallet sextet, is also expandable to fifteen players for a full percussion ensemble sound and groove.
With a single quarter note pickup in the mallets, the piece wastes no time launching into the catchy melody. The main melody is a study in sixteenth + dotted eighth rhythms (as well as the reverse), while a secondary melody switches almost entirely to triplet-based rhythms. Interlocking parts throughout the rest of the ensemble keep the more challenging rhythms achievable.
Ensemble flexibility is baked in, as up to six percussion parts can be added to bring the soca groove to life. Crotales, chimes, and/or timpani can be added as well for extra sparkle and low end. Slawson has brilliantly scored the work in such a way as to convey the underlying groove with or without the optional percussion parts.
For both setup convenience and some extra visual effect, the two lead marimba players can share a single 4.3-octave (low A) instrument. No four-mallet technique is required.
The piece ships as a fully bound score and includes individual parts in PDF format for either printing or tablet viewing.
*Crotales (low octave)
Glockenspiel
*Chimes
Xylophone
Vibraphone
2 Marimbas — (1) 4-octave, (1) low A
*3 Timpani
*Drums — bongos, drumset,
*Cymbals and gongs — crash cymbals (pair), suspended cymbal, tam-tam,
*Accessories — bell tree, tambourine, temple blocks, triangle, vibraslap
*optional
Percussion ensemble works with flexible instrumentation and personnel requirements have become increasingly popular, and with good reason. The ability to have a work that can shape itself to the needs of a specific program and sound good no matter the conditions can be a difficult bar to reach. Brian Slawson achieves this quite well with “La Vida de la Noche.”
The minimum instrumentation is a mallet sextet requiring all the basic instruments most high school program would have. The sextet version alone is a solid piece that can easily stand on its own. All parts utilize only two-mallet technique (though the Marimba 1 part could opt for using four mallets to make some sections easier to navigate), and there is a good balance of parts for less experienced players as well as some for performers with more experience.
Where “La Vida de la Noche” really shines is in the option to add as many as nine more parts to the original sextet. The composer states that any or all of these additional parts may be added to the original sextet. Want to just add drumset to the original sextet? Go for it! Wish to keep it as a mallet-only ensemble but have two more players? Add the crotale and chime parts. The additional parts range from additional mallet instruments to parts for timpani, drumset, bongos, temple blocks, tambourine, and two multi-percussion parts. The fact that any and all of these parts are optional helps this work to be highly versatile.
“La Vida de la Noche” is an entertaining and accessible piece that would work well on any high school (and even middle school) percussion ensemble concert. The flexibility these additional parts give makes this piece a perfect addition to any music library, as it can fit just about any variation of your group.
—Brian Nozny
Percussive Notes
Vol. 62, No. 2, April 2024
