Band Teachers’ Corner #3: Setting up a Work Percussion Station

Percussionists need a handy work station (A.K.A trap stand) to have all the instruments, beaters, and sticks in front of them to ensure that they can efficiently and effectively play everything they need to. This is important for shared instruments with two or more players. Logistics planning is often overlooked, but so incredibly necessary for a highly functional percussion section.

1) Use a very sturdy music stands in your percussion section, with workstations with a standard hand towel on top. Imagine every stand needs to have a triangle clipped onto it or set on top of it. This is important so that things don’t fall down, and the towel is there to limit the amount of sound when retrieving and dropping instruments on the trap stand. Mark your sturdy percussion stands with tape, and keep them in the percussion zone. One nifty idea was to use large clips to hold the towels on the stand, which makes it very clear they are in use.

2) Put things into categories: Main Instruments, Auxiliary instruments, mallets/beaters/sticks. Make sure there are designated spaces to put them away every class or rehearsal, and give the percussion section time to both retrieve the instruments and put them back at the end of class.

3) Make a “Master Instrument Part” list. Make a copy of this “music and who is on what” list for the back wall of your band room, a copy for the main percussion music binder, and a copy for yourself. Your percussion section leader should also know where this is, or have one in their folder to help everyone to have the right music.

4) Figure out together the main set ups of each piece. Once you have assigned parts, and adjusted each person’s music to have those parts on one page (this is a way to ensure nothing you want played gets missed), then you need to sort out set up. Sometimes an instrument needs to be shared so both players can use it. This is where you need to sort out what goes onto the percussion station stand. Once you have figured out the set up of one piece, draw an illustration with all the instruments on it on the top left corner of the part. When you get them to set up for rehearsal, they will then use the illustration to load up their percussion trap stand with what is needed.

5) KEEP THE STAND in FRONT of the players. Music trap stands to the side or behind make it more difficult to watch the conductor and count through rests. For a shared suspended cymbal part, place the suspended cymbal between the two players, and the mallets on a percussion stand (with a towel) in front of them, with suspended cymbal behind.

6) Think through percussion stations and set up changes between pieces. It may seem like nothing to move from bass drum to triangle, but there are logistics! Practice not only the pieces during your rehearsals, but time between piece changes (sometimes even movement to movement in a larger piece will have instrument changes). Percussionists need time to literally move through their parts. This will be the test if their work stations are functional or not.

In conclusion, having a master list, music copies in binders, assigning parts, highlighting where they change instruments or writing in the upcoming changes, perhaps cutting and pasting or writing parts in so that a player knows what to do and where to go without any confusion. Percussion is a difficult and logistically challenging instrument group. Practicing through entire pieces is essential for them to learn where to go next, to set up their instruments efficiently, and to successfully work through their parts. This is a good time to set up several trap stands with towels on sturdy Manhassett music stands marked specifically for the percussion section.

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