Playing These Etudes Won't Make You A Better Padder
Most timpanists graduate from Anderson or Stinson and then stop practicing etudes entirely. That is a mistake, but not for the reason you probably think. The problem isn't that you need more exercises. The problem is that the usual beginner repertoire teaches isolated stick control without connecting it to anything orchestral. Studies In Copper 15 Orchestral Etudes For Timpani actually addresses that gap, though not in the way most drummers expect when they first open the book. I picked up a used copy around 2008, probably from Barnes & Noble or a music shop in a college town. The thing about these etudes is that they are short enough to not feel like a burden but detailed enough that you cannot autopilot through them. I spent maybe three weeks going through the whole book, one etude per day. Some of them took longer. The slower ones, the ones with all those half-steps and weird stickings, needed two or three days because I kept screwing up the phrasing.
How Studies In Copper 15 Orchestral Etudes For Timpani Actually Works
The etudes are arranged roughly by difficulty but also by musical context. You get orchestral excerpts set up as exercises, which means each one has a purpose beyond developing your right hand. Etude 1 is a simple march pattern. Etude 3 is more rhythmically interesting. By the time you hit Etude 7, you are working on orchestral crescendo and decrescendo transitions, which is one of the things nobody teaches properly in undergrad. The stickings are the real value here. Copper writes them in a way that forces you to think about what is comfortable and what is musical at the same time. A lot of etude books give you stickings that sound correct on paper but fall apart in performance. These don't. I found that after playing through Etude 10 five or six times, my roll technique actually improved. Not dramatically. Just enough that I noticed it the next time I sat down with an orchestral part. One thing I noticed early on: the metronome marking for Etude 5 is pretty fast. I struggled with that one for a while. The workaround was simple. I slowed it down to 60 and worked it in halves, then eighths, then quarters. Once I had the fingers clean at that tempo, I bumped it up by five degrees and repeated. Took about a week to get to the performance tempo. Not complicated, just systematic.
Specific Problems You Will Run Into
Etude 9 has a double-stop passage that looks easy until you try it. The problem is that the bass drum stick needs to stay locked in while the timpani stick executes a rapid grace-note figure. I kept getting the grace note late because my wrist wasn't relaxed enough. The fix was to isolate just the right hand for twenty minutes straight, no left hand involved, until the motion stopped being a conscious decision and became automatic. That saved me hours of frustration. Another issue I ran into with Etude 12 is the staccato-to-legato transition. Copper expects you to shift articulation mid-phrase, and if you are not thinking about it consciously, you will just play everything the same way. I ended up writing tiny articulation marks in my score. It felt pedantic, but it worked. After two weeks of marking, my brain started doing it without the pencil. The slow etudes, especially the ones that are basically orchestral reductions, teach you something important about listening. Most timpanists play loud and hope for the best. These etudes force you to pay attention to dynamic gradation in a way that standard rudimental exercise books never do. I found that after working through the whole book, I was much better at managing volume in a full orchestral setting. My section leader even mentioned it at one rehearsal.
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What This Book Doesn't Do For You
It is not a substitute for fundamental technique work. If your grip is wrong or your stroke mechanics are off, these etudes will not fix that. You still need Anderson or Stinson for pure pad work. Think of Copper as something you add after you have a basic toolkit. It fills the gap between "I can hit the drum" and "I can play music on the drum." Some of the later etudes assume you already know how to read orchestral timpani parts fluently. If you have never dealt with key signatures or transpositions in a practical setting, those pieces will be harder than they look. The book does not walk you through that. It just presents the material and expects you to figure it out. I spent probably six hours on Etude 14 alone because I kept second-guessing the key change. There are only fifteen etudes, and they are short. You could realistically learn the entire book in a month if you practiced thirty minutes a day. But don't treat it as a quick fix. The value comes from working through it slowly and paying attention to what each exercise is trying to teach you. Rush through it and you get nothing but a completed checklist.
Where To Get It
You can find Studies In Copper 15 Orchestral Etudes For Timpani on most sheet music retailers. Music Sales often has it in stock, and J.W. Pepper sometimes carries it. The publisher is usually listed as Summy-Birchard or a related imprint. Prices vary, but it is generally under thirty dollars for the softcover edition. Used copies show up on Sheet Music Plus occasionally, and if you are near a university town, the campus music store might have one sitting around in the percussion section. There is no digital version from the publisher that I am aware of. You will need to order the physical book or look for a library copy. I bought mine used and it was in fine shape. The pages are thin enough that you can write stickings in the margins without the pencil bleeding through to the next system. If you want audio references, there aren't many professional recordings of someone playing just these etudes. Most people who own the book don't record themselves working through them. You are mostly on your own for that. I recommend playing along with a recording of the original orchestral excerpts if the etude is based on one. It helps with phrasing and tempo decisions. The orchestral context matters more than you might think.
My Honest Assessment
These etudes are solid. They are not groundbreaking, but they are well-constructed and cover gaps that most standard pedagogical sequences leave open. I use them with students who have already finished the basic Anderson material and are ready to connect their technique to actual orchestral playing. The progression is logical, and the stickings are thoughtful. Not every etude is a home run. A couple of the later ones feel a bit overstuffed, and I wish Copper had included more etudes focused on mallet control in the upper register. But as a complete set, they do the job. I have been recommending this book for years. It is not trendy. It is not new. It is just useful, which is more than I can say about a lot of modern pedagogical materials.
