Miss Saigon-Percussion 2
The Percussion 2 part in Miss Saigon is really mostly the "drum set" book, with some incidental xylophone parts thrown in as well. There were many times in where I had to get wood blocks, temple blocks, and Roto-toms very quickly, so designing the set up ended up being a bit challenging. I was able to assign many of the ethnic drum and percussion parts to the DrumKat, as this is what master percussionist Howie Joines did in the Broadway production. In addition, I found a logistical way of mounting the Roto-toms-right over the 2 rack toms on the drum set, so that in the number, "Kim's Nightmare", I was able to shift my hands up to the Roto-toms very quickly and seamlessly. What you can hardly see is the bass drum foot pedal set up. I used an acoustical bass drum, but also had a trigger mounted to trigger augmented, more ambient bass drum sounds. Also, I used a separate electronic bass drum pedal when I wanted just the electronic triggered sounds without the acoustic B.D. Most of this was used in the song, "March Of The Dragons". My set up included, from left to right:Xylophone, selected crotales,temple cup gong,mark tree, 5 temple blocks, 3 piccolo wood blocks, Drumkat, drum set, 2 Roto-toms,Peking opera gong, large tam-tam(not in the picture)
Photo taken on site at the Lenape Performing Arts Theater in Marlton, NJ