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Nick Werth’s Boom Bap is an advanced ensemble piece for percussion sextet. The term “boom bap” refers to an onomatopoeia for the prominent percussive sounds in hip-hop: kick and snare. In this piece, Nick employs some challenging polyrhythms and dotted-tuplet rhythms in order to imitate the varied rhythmic styles and speaking patterns of hip-hop artists. He also uses a wide palette of percussion sounds throughout the piece, where many of the instruments are shared among the performers via a uniquely intertwined setup.
This piece was commissioned by James LaBrecque and the Highland Park High School Percussion Ensemble.
• Drums (2 sets of bongos, 4 snare drums, 4 toms, 2 kick drums, concert bass drum)
• Cymbals (2 splash cymbals, 2 hi-hats, 2 cymbal stacks, 2 suspended cymbals)
• Accessories (2 tambourines (mounted), 2 crashers, 5 temple blocks, 3 woodblocks)
Nick Werth was inspired by drum grooves from the world of hip-hop to create “Boom Bap.” According to his program notes, elements from the music of the 1980s and ’90s as well as modern trap music are incorporated in this work. To put it shortly, this piece is a series of drumset grooves and riffs split between six players.
The piece is set up symmetrically with the same instruments on the right side of the stage as on the left, with a muffled concert bass drum as the centerpiece. This creates stereo effects when instruments play hocket rhythms, especially from the instruments that are furthest away from each other, such as the kick drums, sets of bongos, and cymbal stacks.
This is rhythmically advanced music. It includes intricate hocket rhythms built around fast sixteenth notes and quintuplets. It also presents swing grooves based in quintuplets, septuplets, and triplets. There is also an instance of metric modulation where the sixteenth note becomes the septuplet. The grooves created in this work and the interplay between the players makes this an exciting piece to see performed. However, only an ensemble of strong performers should take it on.
—Kyle Cherwinksi
Percussive Notes
Vol. 56, No. 2, May 2018
Nick Werth’s Boom Bap is an advanced ensemble piece for percussion sextet. The term “boom bap” refers to an onomatopoeia for the prominent percussive sounds in hip-hop: kick and snare. In this piece, Nick employs some challenging polyrhythms and dotted-tuplet rhythms in order to imitate the varied rhythmic styles and speaking patterns of hip-hop artists. He also uses a wide palette of percussion sounds throughout the piece, where many of the instruments are shared among the performers via a uniquely intertwined setup.
This piece was commissioned by James LaBrecque and the Highland Park High School Percussion Ensemble.
• Drums (2 sets of bongos, 4 snare drums, 4 toms, 2 kick drums, concert bass drum)
• Cymbals (2 splash cymbals, 2 hi-hats, 2 cymbal stacks, 2 suspended cymbals)
• Accessories (2 tambourines (mounted), 2 crashers, 5 temple blocks, 3 woodblocks)
Nick Werth was inspired by drum grooves from the world of hip-hop to create “Boom Bap.” According to his program notes, elements from the music of the 1980s and ’90s as well as modern trap music are incorporated in this work. To put it shortly, this piece is a series of drumset grooves and riffs split between six players.
The piece is set up symmetrically with the same instruments on the right side of the stage as on the left, with a muffled concert bass drum as the centerpiece. This creates stereo effects when instruments play hocket rhythms, especially from the instruments that are furthest away from each other, such as the kick drums, sets of bongos, and cymbal stacks.
This is rhythmically advanced music. It includes intricate hocket rhythms built around fast sixteenth notes and quintuplets. It also presents swing grooves based in quintuplets, septuplets, and triplets. There is also an instance of metric modulation where the sixteenth note becomes the septuplet. The grooves created in this work and the interplay between the players makes this an exciting piece to see performed. However, only an ensemble of strong performers should take it on.
—Kyle Cherwinksi
Percussive Notes
Vol. 56, No. 2, May 2018
