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And The Diameter of The Core Increases, The Sticks Progressively Get Darker

This document discusses different types of timpani mallets and their properties. Larger mallet heads produce stronger fundamentals and fewer upper partials, creating a darker tone. Mallets with progressively larger cores from the same set also get darker in tone. Wood mallets tend to be heavier, producing darker tones by strengthening lower partials, while bamboo mallets are brighter by emphasizing upper partials. Having a variety of wood and bamboo mallets allows timpanists to produce a range of articulations, from staccato to legato.

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25 views1 page

And The Diameter of The Core Increases, The Sticks Progressively Get Darker

This document discusses different types of timpani mallets and their properties. Larger mallet heads produce stronger fundamentals and fewer upper partials, creating a darker tone. Mallets with progressively larger cores from the same set also get darker in tone. Wood mallets tend to be heavier, producing darker tones by strengthening lower partials, while bamboo mallets are brighter by emphasizing upper partials. Having a variety of wood and bamboo mallets allows timpanists to produce a range of articulations, from staccato to legato.

Uploaded by

FJRA
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Figure 8. Timpani Mallets. The authors mallets discussed in this text.

B. Hard. Y. Medium Hard. R. General Purpose or Medium. W. General


Purpose Warm. G. Legato. P. Large Legato. 5. Mozart Mallet.
7. Large Articulate.

bright. The converse is true with larger mallet heads: they produce a
stronger fundamental, are more resonant, and create fewer audible upper
partials. To produce a variety of tones and articulations, it is wise to craft
sticks with different-sized heads. In many sets of sticks on the market
today, the diameter of mallet core becomes progressively larger, permitting
each successive stick to produce a somewhat darker sound. As the weight
and the diameter of the core increases, the sticks progressively get darker.
These two physical characteristics of the timpani stick mutually reinforce
each other.
The composition of the stick has an important impact on the color of
the mallet. Today sticks are made of many materials. The most common
shafts are made from maple (or other hard wood) and bamboo. However,
Fred Hinger produced an aluminum mallet. On the whole, wood sticks are
heavier than bamboo and aluminum. This makes wood sticks more useful
for players who want to produce a darker tone, because (as noted above)
heavier sticks strengthen the lower partials and produce a darker tone. For
those who wish a translucent blending sound, bamboo (or aluminum)
sticks might be the mallets of choice. Bamboo sticks tend to produce more
upper partialsmaking the stick sound brighter. There may be very good
reason to mix and match wood and bamboo sticks. On the one hand, a
staccato sound typically emphasizes upper and nonharmonic partials;
thus, a bamboo stickthat elicits upper partialscould be the stick of
choice. On the other hand, a legato stickthat brings out the fundamen-
tal and lower partialscould be made from a wood stick. Thus, a tim-
panist could have a number of sticks with more staccato or brighter sticks
made of bamboo or aluminum, and legato or darker sticks constructed
from wood. But there is no reason why bamboo or wood sticks could not
be made in differing weights; and some manufacturers make no signicant

Theory and Practice of Timpani Tone Production 11

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