about Adam Scott Neal’s music for percussion:
For a long time I’ve thought that I should have been a percussionist. I’m continually fascinated by the variety of sounds, the physical materials, and the choreography and theatricality inherent in performing percussion. My music tends to inhabit the spaces between atmosphere and rhythm and between timbre and pitch. I like exploring how the player can get different sounds from each instrument and how instruments can imitate or sonically transform into another. I like to create interesting textures, whether they be sustained and resonant, or evolving grooves.
The physical identity of an instrument is often the inspiration for the music:
- discs connects crotales and cymbals with coins and jar lids through their shared disc-like forms.
- wash employs drums along side instruments made from natural materials, such as stones and seed pods.
- Bascule uses slap mallets on the marimba to connect to the hand-struck cajón.
- delicious-looking uses found objects associated with medicine and drugs as both instruments and theatrical props.
I also explore texture through rhythm and ensemble interaction:
- fourteen uses simple materials and encourages performers to attend closely to small changes within and between their parts.
- Icicle Harvest uses simple rhythmic motives and allows players to fall out of sync to maintain recognizable but shifting patterns.
When writing for percussion with other instruments, I often think about how they can mimic each other:
- Adhmad, for flute, cello, and percussion, connects the instruments in varying textures, from short key clicks and pizzicato to rolls, tremolo, and flutter tongue.
- ripples, for bass clarinet and marimba, uses the bass clarinet’s harmonics as the basis for chords, and the marimba’s ripple roll and traditional roll as the basis for texture
- Tèarmunn, for horn and prepared vibraphone, bases the rhythm on the vibraphone motor and connects the buzzing texture of the prepared bars with the buzzing sound of the stopped horn.
When I compose with percussion, I’m always seeking ways to make a soundworld that is unified in some way, whether it is conceptual or connected through timbre and texture. I’m continually drawn to percussion because I love exploring how we make sound and how we interact with our sound-making objects.
-Adam Scott Neal, October 2026