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Percussion Orchestrations. Ed Cervenka. http://www.percorch.com/ (Accessed September 2009). [Requires a Web browser and an Internet connection. Pricing: $40-$100 per year depending on subscriber level].
Determining the percussion requirements for a given work, program or season can be a considerable headache for orchestra managers and librarians. Most catalogs of orchestral music have developed clever systems for indicating in a compact form how many woodwind and brass players must be added to the string complement for any given work, even accounting for doublings and exotic instruments like oboe d'amore or bass trumpet. But often the only clue regarding percussion is a notation such as "timp, perc." But which percussion instruments are needed? And how many players will be required to cover them? Does the timpanist need two timpani or five? Once one has the score in hand, one can usually find the answer to the first question in the instrumentation list. But it often takes an examination of the complete score to answer the other two. Over the years many principal percussionists and orchestra librarians have kept personal files or databases of the percussion requirements of works they have encountered, and a few have even been published in book form. The Major Orchestra Librarians' Association Web site [http://www.mola-inc.org/] mentions three in particular: Percussion Instrumentation Guide for Symphony Orchestras, by Bo Holmstrand (Helsinki: Edition Escobar, 2004); Handbook for the Orchestral Percussion Section, by Henk de Vlieger (The Hague: Albersen, 2003); and Percussion Workbook, by Maggie Cotton (Birmingham, UK: Maggie...