Percussion in the School Music Program

Payson, Al, and Jack McKenzie. Percussion in the School Music Program. 2nd edition. Northbrook, IL: Payson Percussion Products, 1976.

Table of Contents: Part 1: The Instruments and their Performance Techniques, Part 2: Uses of Percussion, Part 3: Supplementary Information

This book was created as a textbook for a college percussion methods course. It starts out discussing the parts of the snare drum and snare stick. Then, it moves on to how to hold the stick in both matched and traditional grip and where to play on the drum. Next it goes through the snare drum rudiments and provides exercises and short pieces that work on these techniques. The explanations are very detailed, thorough, and most have a picture to go with it. The rest of the book is organized in a similar way when it discusses the other percussion instruments. The next section discusses concert and marching percussion; what players and instruments are required and suggestions of where to place the instruments in an ensemble setting. Towards the end of the book, it provides an outline of what a professor could test for in a percussion methods course. Then it gives some tips about how to read percussion notation, how to maintain the instruments, suggestions on where to purchase instruments, and list of foreign terms that may be in percussion music.

Review by Ashley Feist: I think this book is a great method book for beginning percussionists. It provides more than the basic or generic explanations that other method books have. Although, some of the information and images might be a little outdated since the book was published in 1976. The detail and explanations that are in this book make me love it as a methods book…I just wish it had more recent information because there have been many changes in the percussion world since 1976. Rating- III(great book, too old)