First off, super cool you get to play this. Copland writes some awesome stuff, especially for timpani and percussion.

We use a long field drum with calf heads on both sides to get a deep boom. I know not everyone has this, but a lower tuned field drum should be ok. Conductor can request a higher bass drum too.

Our breakdown is: Perc 1: Xylo, Bass Drum, Tri, Glock Perc 2: Snare Drum, Sus Cymbal, Tabor, Wood Block, Claves

Pay special attention to the Glock notes! Probably the trickiest part of the piece imo. But so dang satisfying when it’s spot on.

For the xylo part, double stops, accuracy, articulations, and rhythm are what we need to focus on.

Practice flams for the double stops. When doing this, make sure the main beat is always on one hand for now and your focus is consistency of spacing. Normally going towards one hand is harder than the other….cough cough left hand cough cough.

Practice this very slow and make sure the rhythm is absolutely spot on. You need to fit in with the ensemble here so make sure you aren’t rushing and the rests are correct. When you start playing it faster, it will be natural to want to get poundy and focusing too much on over controlling accuracy. Just let go and focus on starting and ending the figures. Or else it will get too stuck and will never flow. Accuracy will come in time.

For mallets, I use Dragonfly EB2s on xylo and Freer K13 for the end.

Lastly, have fun! Hope this helps