Treasury of Scales for Band and Orchestra: Percussion Book

This percussion book gives your percussionists a structured, musical way to develop listening skills and intonation awareness alongside the rest of the ensemble. Rather than sitting out during scale work, your timpani and mallet players actively participate in building balance and blend, making them integral to the warm-up process instead of afterthoughts.

Clear, functional, and purposeful. These scales read as structured exercises with real musical context, giving percussionists the satisfaction of contributing meaningfully to ensemble sound rather than executing rote mechanics.

Conductors of concert bands and orchestras who want their entire ensemble, including percussion, engaged during daily scale and warm-up work. Percussion students benefit from playing within a harmonic framework rather than isolated exercises, building their ears for intonation and balance.

• Assign specific scale lines to different percussion combinations (mallets on one scale, timpani tuned in thirds on another) to rotate focus and prevent monotony across your daily routine
• Use the harmonic context to train percussionists to match the tone quality of the pitched instruments around them, especially when mallets are doubling woodwind or brass lines
• Vary tempo and dynamic markings across different scales to shift how your percussion section approaches each exercise and build adaptability

Integrate this into your standing daily warm-up routine, working through different scales throughout the week or month. The 8-page format makes it easy to keep in every folder as a permanent reference, ensuring consistent exposure to all major and minor tonalities across the entire ensemble.

• Matching tone quality with pitched instruments while playing mallets
• Tuning timpani intervals by ear within a harmonic context
• Reading harmonic relationships and understanding voice leading
• Responding to dynamic and tempo changes in a structured ensemble setting
• Building independence as a section within the full ensemble sound