The Percussionist's Art: Same Bed, Different Dreams

by Steven Schick

An engaging, practical, sometimes poetic account of the new world of percussion music -- from the 1930s (Varese, Cage) to today -- by one of its leading practitioners.

In the beginning there was noise. Drumming, the world's most ancient instrumental tradition, re-emerged explosively in the concert music of the twentieth century as music for percussion, involving drums and many other kinds of noisemakers. The music that resulted has spanned an expressive and intellectual from Cage, Varèse, and Cowell came the first ear-splitting sounds of an American percussion revolution that began in the 1930s; from Stockhausen,Ferneyhough, and Xenakis we have music whose intellectual demands are matched by a vibrant physicality; Feldman gave us gently unfolding structures; John Luther Adams finds music within the earth itself. The Percussionist's Same Bed, Different Dreams examines this music through the eyes of a performer. The book is a practical philosophy, looking not just at the big ideas behind these and other pieces, but also at how those ideas find expressionin sound. Foreword written by Paul Griffiths.
Contains a Compact Disc of Steven Schick performing eight musical works that he discusses in detail in the book. Composers include John Luther Adams, Brian Ferneyhough, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Edgard Varèse, Charles Wuorinen, and Iannis Xenakis.
Steven Schick is the world's leading exponent of solo percussion music involving multiple instruments. He has commissioned more than one hundred piecesfrom renowned composers including David Lang, Brian Ferneyhough, and Roger Reynolds. He was a founding member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars (1992-2002) and Artistic Director of the Centre International de Percussion de Genève (Switzerland, 2002-4). He teaches at the University of California, San Diego, where he directs the percussion group "red fish blue fish."

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

272 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2006

Reviews

[Ksenija · Rating 5 out of 5]

Schick is a fantastic thinker and a gentle soul. His authority on the matter is dwarfed only by his giant heart, an overflowing sense of empathy, and a deep understanding for the interaction between the human condition and music.

This book is an insightful tour around cornerstone pieces written for percussion. It serves as an extract of a mature conversation that a curious percussionist would have with Schick when embarking on a journey of how to approach thinking about music.

[Samuel Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books on music. I’ll return to this over and over.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

For context, I am a percussionist in my freshman year of college at Lawrence University Conservatory of Music. One of my colleagues gave me this book as something that would help me understand what we were doing and why. It has had the opposite effect on me: Schick speaks only about a very niche section of "percussion music" as a whole; that is, modern solo multi-percussion literature. I have never gotten much out of this music, and Schick has only served to reinforce my idea that I never want to get involved. I intend to avoid this kind of thing entirely in my percussion education.

Intellectualizing and glorifying apologia can make just about anything seem intriguing and beautiful, but the music Schick discusses is still lame for the effort he makes. I respect and appreciate that this kind of music can give a heightened sense of the beauty of all sounds, not just those placed within the traditional confines of "music," by bringing street/life noises into the concert hall. And it can have powerful, profound, and provocative conceptual bases.

However, these don't seem like a very good justifications. All sounds have inherent beauty if you listen to them the right way, and we should constantly seek beauty in everything. But after all, some sounds are merely more pleasing than others, for physiological reasons. And thus tonal, melodic noise will always be more widely appreciated and (I'd go so far as to say) will always be able to create a deeper emotional impact than noise art. Sound art confers beauty onto noise the way religious masochism extracts pleasure from pain - its great that they find meaning and beauty in it, but that doesn't make it appealing to me.

And it seems like many of the concepts Schick feels are at the root of the pieces he examines seem like they could be explored in much less tedious, unpleasant ways.

Schick is a decent writer and a great apologist for something that seems difficult to defend. However, his effect wears off as soon as you listen to the pieces he is describing. The book is worthwhile if you're into this kind of thing (and I'm not saying it's inherently bad; I don't get anything out of it and neither do most people, but if you do, I approve of you enjoying it, performing it, and even trying to share it with people), but if not, don't bother.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Percussion is my bread and butter, and the first time I tried to read this (years ago), it flew way over my head and I had to stop. This time around was a little easier-going. Schick is writing specifically about music for the contemporary solo percussionist, which is a very particular realm to settle oneself in. He's commissioned hundreds of these types of works and is arguably the world's foremost solo percussionist, so he's certainly writing from the heart. That being said, it might induce headaches in the casual reader. As intellectual and complex as this music is, Schick reveals a deep emotional connection to why he plays it and why it matters for him as a performer, which makes it much more relatable to the layperson.

[jacob-felix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book for anyone interested in the practices of a contemporary music player, not just percussionists. Interesting and well written.