A few Keyboard Questions

[Hysteria]

Hey i'm new and all that, but here goes. I just have a few questions about the marimba.

What is the benefit of having rosewood keys? A few of the keyboards i've played on that had rosewood keys sounded more dead to me. i was wondering why people are so excited about rosewood keys as opposed to the synthetics.

Where is a good place to find some good solo material for keyboards?

And lastly, how do you play in the traditional grip or burton?

[Tristan]

Rosewood keys sound orders of magnitude better, especially from a distance. Don't be fooled by the long ring of the synthetic bars. Rosewood bars have a richness of tone that nothing else comes close to matching. They also seem to be louder than synthetics (you reach a point where hitting it harder doesn't make it any louder).

My big beef with synthetics is they sound very glassy--especially with hard mallets. Listen to recordings of Madison and Southwind's pits in 02, listen to BD's pit any year before 03.

For solo material, check out a local college music library if you have one available. Otherwise, Steve Weiss Music is a great resourse.

For your last question, I prefer to play Stevens grip. Just my personal preference.

[PitTech]

Rosewood keys sound orders of magnitude better, especially from a distance. Don't be fooled by the long ring of the synthetic bars. Rosewood bars have a richness of tone that nothing else comes close to matching. They also seem to be louder than synthetics (you reach a point where hitting it harder doesn't make it any louder).

My big beef with synthetics is they sound very glassy--especially with hard mallets. Listen to recordings of Madison and Southwind's pits in 02, listen to BD's pit any year before 03.

For solo material, check out a local college music library if you have one available. Otherwise, Steve Weiss Music is a great resourse.

For your last question, I prefer to play Stevens grip. Just my personal preference.

As a Front Ensemble Member I only use Steven Grip and also as a Front Ensemble Caption Head/Instructor I have all of my students use Steven Grip.

[MarimbasaurusRex]

Here's a run down on the different grips:

Overview of 4 Mallet Grip

Google the names to find various illustrations for each. Vic Firth also has some good tutorials on mallet technique.

Rosewood is the original and prefered marimba material. Some rosewood instruments don't sound as live or as full as they probably should. Newer rosewood is not as good as a few decades back, and some of the really old instruments are just past their prime. Also, just because a marimba is wood doesn't mean it's rosewood, there are various substitutes such as padauk. But, as Tristan said, synthetic bars have a glassy character. It may sound nice at first, but once you get into serious runs and all the notes are mushing together you will appreciate the dryer, clearer articulation and warmer tones of natural rosewood.

(And that's Stevens, as in Leigh Howard Stevens. At least know what the grip is called! Sheesh.)

Edited May 7, 2007 by MarimbasaurusRex