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Subject Area: Music-Percussion

An Autobiographical Bibliography of Percussion Music
 Larrick, Geary
2006 0-7734-5970-7 212 pages
Methodology in this interdisciplinary study incorporated viewing more than two hundred periodicals in University Library in the Learning Resource Center at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point, during the first three months of 2005. Thus, references taken involve that time frame or in the recent past.

The author started at the beginning of the alphabet; that is, periodicals with titles starting with the letter “A,” and went to the letter “J,” whose publications for the most part started with the title word “Journal.” This encompassed well over two hundred bibliographic entries in the book and research notes, adding annotations that often include author memoirs.

The result is an interdisciplinary view of percussion music. Many authors, editors and articles are cited, in a number of different fields, i.e. sociology, anthropology, health, physical and social sciences, natural resources, and the humanities. The author of this book has made an effort not to replicate the original works, but simply to use them as a stepping stone to further discussion. Therefore, both the bibliography and the associated references are important to the subject.

The reader is invited to attend this tour of the periodical collection, and to enjoy its diversity, variety, threads of similarity, personal and professional memoirs that are related to the subject at hand, and to discover all the wonders that are available to the modern reader. Citations include a multicultural list of names from a multiplicity of nationalities and ancestral sources, coming together, for the most part, in the academy of post-secondary and higher education.



Annotated Bibliography of Percussion Music Publication
 Larrick, Geary
2005 0-7734-6223-6 152 pages
This is an annotated bibliography of works published since 1976 by Per-Mus Publications LLC, of Columbus, Ohio, owned and founded by James L. Moore, Ph.D.. Dr. Moore is an Associate Professor of Music Emeritus at The Ohio State University, and continues to work as percussion instructor with the Ohio State University Marching Band, an organization of which this author is an alumnus. About one hundred fifty works are cited, with autobiographical memoirs of a professional nature interspersed in the manuscript.

This volume is a specific record of the publications produced by Dr. Moore's firm in twenty-eight years, including work of J.S. Bach, Leopold Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Frederic Chopin, Felix Mendelssohn, Ruth Stuber Jeanne, Gary Olmstead, James L. Moore, Geary Larrick, Murray Houllif, Jack Jenny and numerous others from contemporary and past history. Specifics of composition and percussion are cited, as well as the inclusion of many names associated with music and history.

The author is a native of Ohio, having studied with J.L. Moore during the 1964-65 school years at OSU, and collaborated with him in the interim. This book is a close-up look at percussion music publishing in the latter quarter of the 20th Century in the United States of America, involving a company that distributes widely including internationally. Fields of study that are discussed are education, music, percussion, history, theory, composition, arranging, business and basic scholarship.

Bibliographic Analysis of Percussion Literature
 Larrick, Geary
2003 0-7734-6644-4 196 pages
This volume surveys a broad spectrum, from Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, through Ellington, Richard Rodgers, and the Beatles. It has more than a hundred essays annotating bibliographic entries concerning percussion, based on the author’s experience as performer, teacher and writer. Broad subjects encompassed include opera, symphony orchestra, popular and jazz music, virtuosity and education, musicology and history, African-American history and women’s history.

Bibliography, History, Pedagogy and Philosophy in Music and Percussion
 Larrick, Geary
1999 0-7734-8165-6 190 pages
Section I contains more than a hundred brief essays headed with bibliographic entries, covering aspects of contemporary percussion music. Section II contains more than twenty essays on a broad selection of subjects having to do with music ranging from the symphony to the xylophone. Section III contains several essays of musical scholarship covering analysis, biography, education, history, pedagogy and performance. The biographical sketches are of a professional nature. "The book traverses an expansive terrain of composers: some of the well known masters who happened to write for various percussion instruments, and others, writing as percussion performers themselves, who have made contributions to the solo literature. . . . there is an entire section devoted to women in the field. Geary Larrick deals at length with the literature on percussion music, and reviews, for instance, catalogues of instruments and the literature written for them. Monographs and methods, both historical and pedagogical, fall within the scope of his discussion, and he has reviewed many solo anthologies (some of which are for students), and collections of orchestral excerpts. . . . Even more diversity appears in his commentary on percussion instruments. Naturally the instruments of the orchestral percussion section are appropriate here, but the Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian instruments appear alongside oriental and biblical instruments. . . . concise and within the reach of every insider. It is even accessible to outsiders, where the world of percussion has remained, until now, incomprehensible. This book shows how vast and variegated that world is." – Richard Pinnell, Chair, Department of Musick University of Wisconsin- LaCrosse

Biographical Essays on Twentieth-Century Percussionists
 Larrick, Geary
1992 0-7734-9559-2 336 pages
This, the first multiple biography in the discipline of percussion music research, contains an impressive amount of contemporary accurate detail regarding the professional careers of many important percussionists who have held leading positions since the early twentieth century. It also includes a wealth of information in the areas of symphonic and jazz music, including major composers and timpanists. The text is written in an accessible style by a percussionist who is acquainted with a considerable number of the biographical subjects. Among subjects included are Vida Chenoweth, Lionel Hampton, William Ludwig, Jan Pustjens, and seventy-six others. Its bibliographical information is unique regarding the field, and includes reference books, articles, audio recordings, video recordings, and compositions.

Percussionist’s Guide to Music - Bibliographic Essays
 Larrick, Geary
2002 0-7734-7301-7 200 pages
Fifty essays in bibliographic form with commentary, on international and multicultural aspects of music as they relate to percussion instruments, performance, teaching and scholarship. Headings include: acoustics, articles, audio recording review; bibliography of Native American topics; Black history; books reference; building; business and music; children’s literature; compact disc review; composer’s notes; contemporary topics; cymbal history; drum duets; the drum set; French percussion; German bibliography; health ideas; jazz; John Cage; music and sociology; percussion in music education; percussion repertoire; percussion teacher references; Polish music; publication references; reviews; school programs; Siwe’s Books; Tabla Virtuoso; tambourine technique; timpani. Vibraphone review; Whitaker’s; who’s who; women’s history.

Theory and Composition of Percussion Music
 Larrick, Geary
2004 0-7734-6363-1 164 pages
This book is a blend of art and science, with the art being music and the science being bibliography. The books is divided into three sections, that discuss subjects of music theory, scholarly sources and new publications from the later half of the 20th century respectively.

The first section of essays address subjects in the area of music theory especially, such as form, sound, rhythm, melody and harmony. The analytical scope ranges from ancient Greek philosophy through contemporary avant garde. Multicultural sources are included, with a base of western art music. However, as is true in the field of percussion worldwide, classical music is combined with popular and jazz musics, in addition to ethnic and educational sources.

In the second section, Books and Articles address scholarly sources such as Professor Benward, Leonard Bernstein, Dr. Cho, the Harvard Dictionary of Music, Forte, Goetschius, Goldman, Paul Hindemith, Jaques Dalcroze, Kennan, Persichetti, Piston, Rameau, Michael Rosen, Salzer, Schenker, Arnold Schoenberg, Dr. Otice Sircy, Shinichi Suzuki, Zarlino and Dr. Zarro. The format is bibliographic essays, with commentary about these notable sources as well as the inclusion of author experience that is related to the subject at hand. In this section, music theory is discussed from the Renaissance to the 20th Century.

The final section Methods and Compositions, studies new publications from the second half of the 20th Century. Composers included are Bach, Beck, Benson, Cirone, Dameron, Dinicu, Erickson, Harrison, Kraft, Molenhof, Pratt, Schinstine, Tchaikovsky, Turlet and Wasson. Pedagogues cited include Balent, Drummers Collective, Firth, Moore, Spohn, Whaley and Whistler.

Discussions incorporate scholarship, analysis, composing, teaching, history and interpretation. An effort has been made to include women in this history as well, although often the citations are from the author's professional experience. Many, many names are part of this monograph, all important people in this author's life in music for more than fifty years. A balance is maintained between classical and popular, tradition and invention, theory and composition, percussion and other instruments. Several ethnic traditions are part of this story.