Where’s My Jetpack? by John Parker

Where’s My Jetpack? by John Parker

– for 4-8 percussionists

– Downloadable PDF – Score, Parts & Audio

available here:

 

Watch the video here:

 

Info about the piece:

This piece was written during 2017 for the Marist College Ashgrove Percussion Ensemble 2. It was composed to “rock out” like John’s other tom pieces, but for a beginner to intermediate skill level group. It is scored for eight players on eight drums of ascending pitch. Feel free however to use any drums (or junk) you have lying around to make up the instrumentation.

“Where’s My Jetpack?” is composed of simple themes and variations. This is noted in the score and parts and hopefully gives the performers some context for what is happening compositionally in the music.

The parts are deliberately divided up into two players per stave so that the players can see how their part fits in with their nearest neighbour. For instance, in the top stave, Player 1 plays material with stems up and Player 2 plays material with stems down.

Separate parts (one player per stave) are also supplied if your players prefer this layout.

In addition to playing on the drum in the regular fashion, there are also “stick clicks” (unsurprisingly, two sticks clicking together) and “rims” where performers (you guessed it) play on the rim of the drum. Again this aspect of the composition can be substituted for a high pitched sound like a closed high hat or similar.

The piece is written for eight performers, however a group of intermediate to advanced level performers may wish to play the piece as a quartet with each player taking the stems up and down parts on each of the four staves.

Instrumentation:

Player 1 – Highest pitch drum
Player 2 – Not the highest pitch drum
Player 3 – Less high pitched drum than player 2 (but not as low pitched as player 4) Player 4 – I think you’re getting the idea…
Player 5 – Yep totally got it….
Player 6 – Less low pitched drum than player 7 (but not as high pitched as player 5) Player 7 – Not the lowest pitch drum
Player 8 – Lowest pitch drum

 

– Downloadable PDF – Score, Parts & Audio

available here:

 

 

Have a listen to the audio here:

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.