The Techiniques of Percussion Playing

The acclaimed percussionist Christian Dierstein has joined forces with a research group at the Basel Academy of Music to examine the techniques of percussion playing from an innovative perspective. The main focus falls less on the instruments than on their sound producers: beaters, mallets, sticks, bows, specific manual techniques up to and including electronic pulse generators. This book describes all of them in detail and illustrates their range of application in carefully selected and annotated examples from the repertoire.

Many essays by guest authors such as Nicolaus A. Huber, Steven Schick, Fritz Hauser and Bernhard Wulff relate the performance descriptions to ongoing aesthetic debates. They reveal that sound production and interaction with sound-generating objects have moved centre stage in contemporary composition and its expanded concepts of material and performance. The result is a comprehensive reference book for composers and performers that will also serve as a source of inspiration for future innovative approaches in percussion playing.

The authors
Christian Dierstein completed his musical studies with Bernhard Wulff (Freiburg), Gaston Sylvestre (Paris) and Wassilios Papadopulus (Mannheim). A multiple prize-winner at music competitions, he has played percussion with “Ensemble Recherche” since 1988 and “Trio Accanto” since 1994 together with Nic Hodges and Marcus Weiss. In addition he has been professor of percussion and contemporary chamber music at the Basel Academy of Music since 2001. 

Michel Roth is professor of composition and music theatre at the Basel Academy of Music and a member of its research department. As a composer he is a regular guest at music festivals, recently with a focus on music theatre. In 2017 Bärenreiter published his “Techniques of Trombone Playing” co-written with Mike Svoboda. This was awarded the “Best Edition” prize by the German Music Publishers Association in 2018.

Jens Ruland studied percussion with Carlos Tarcha at the Cologne University of Music (2007-12) where he completed his performance and teaching degree with distinction. Since 2012 he has consolidated his studies with Christian Dierstein in Basel. He is a founding member of “hand werk” (Cologne), “232 percussion” (Cologne), “Ensemble New4Art” (Switzerland) and the music theatre duo “Akt-tkA” (Spain and Switzerland).