West Long Branch man’s technique increasing
instrument’s appeal
By gloria stravelli
Staff Writer
JEFF GRANIT Leigh Stevens gives some instruction to Brett Deptula during a session of the Summer Marimba Seminar in Ocean Grove.
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you probably know we’re living in The Information Age. But you can be forgiven if you’re unaware that this is also the golden age of the most ancient musical instrument known to man — and at the same time, possibly the least known until recent times.
"Twenty-five, fifty, one hundred years from now people will look back and say this is the age when the marimba really bloomed and grew," said Leigh Howard Stevens, whose pioneering work has brought the marimba into the forefront of world music. "We can’t tell because we’re in the middle of it, but it’s probably the golden age.
"On the one hand, it appears to be most ancient instrument," explained Stevens, who said stone versions of the keyboard percussion instrument found in Central America have been dated to 3,000 B.C. "On the other hand, it’s the most new because most people haven’t been introduced to it the first time."
Once relegated to background music, the marimba is now used widely in film and TV scores, explained the West Long Branch resident.
JEFF GRANIT Sarah Adams (l) and Rurie Furukaki connect the resonators as they assemble a 9-foot marimba at the Summer Marimba Seminar in Ocean Grove.
"You hear it in the elevator, in the doctors office. It’s there in the background all the time," he said.
Fans of the 1999 film American Beauty may recall that the marimba was used extensively as a solo instrument for the score of that award-winning film and fans of the Rolling Stones would recognize its mellow sound in the 1960 hit "Under My Thumb."
A relative of the xylophone, the marimba is a nine-foot long keyboard percussion instrument that consists of rosewood bars with large, resonating tubes hanging beneath. The marimba player stands behind the instrument and uses four or six yarn-wrapped mallets at a time to coax a wide variety of sounds from the tuned bars and tubes.
The marimba’s five-octave range is larger than that of the xylophone, which generally has a three-octave range, and the marimba is used mainly in the base and mid range while the xylophone’s higher tone is used in the treble range.
The sound produced, according to Stevens, is softer, more mellow than that of the xylophone — almost organ-like.
"The marimba is low-pitched, earthy and mellow sounding," he said.
Credited by reviewers as being the world’s greatest classical marimbist, Stevens is not only a pre-eminent marimba soloist and teacher, but has built a virtual marimba empire with offshoots including a percussion instrument manufacturing facility in Asbury Park, music publishing company and classical record company.
In addition, he founded an International Marimba Competition and a Summer Marimba Seminar that draws students from around the world who are eager to study the marimba playing technique developed by Stevens.
"It’s total immersion," said Erin Martyz of Gaitersburg, Md., one of 30 students attending the 24th annual summer seminar that wrapped up this week in Ocean Grove. "It’s set me in a new direction for playing."
Stevens is on the road 120 days a year, traveling throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia to perform in concert and teach master classes. He has been a member of the faculty at the Royal Academy in London for the past five years.
A New Jersey native, Stevens grew up in South Orange where the school system had a full-fledged music program that included a symphony orchestra.
"There was a band and orchestra and a great string program," he recalled. "I studied keyboard, marimba, xylophone in high school. Even in junior high they had a 60-80 player full symphony orchestra. Appreciation for that kind of music is closely related to whether or not young kids get exposed to it."
Stevens began his musical career playing rock ‘n’ roll drums in a band but found he couldn’t study drums at a higher level.
"I was disappointed to find out I couldn’t major in rock ‘n’ roll drums. No conservatory would take you," he said. "You had to play timpani, classical snare drum as used in a symphony orchestra. They had marimba, xylophone, jazz vibes, all of what are called the ‘toys.’ You had to play classical so I went into the marimba."
That choice put Stevens in a niche of his own.
"I am a classical player," he explained. "That’s one of the things that helped me establish my career. I was using the marimba in the 1970s and 80s in an entirely different way. I had this wonderful little niche. I was the only one doing it."
Stevens’ decision to concentrate on the marimba at Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., changed the way the instrument was played and helped bring it to prominence.
"I developed a method of playing, of moving the mallets, rolling the sticks, called the Stevens Grip in the early ’70s while I was at Eastman," he explained. "Quite by accident, as a beginning player, I invented some new techniques, the ability to sustain a "roll" on one or two notes on one hand. Before that it required two hands.
"It became clear this was something new for the instrument," he continued. "So I specialized because it became clear I was doing things quite advanced for this instrument."
After graduation, he taught in a college music program and wrote a book about his new method, but the book was rejected by music publishers who thought there wasn’t enough interest in the marimba to ensure a market for the text.
All that changed when Stevens made his New York debut as a marimba soloist at Town Hall in 1979. He timed the concert to coincide with an international percussion convention, ensuring a large audience of cognoscenti who could appreciate his groundbreaking work.
"I had about 1,200 people there and got rave reviews," he recalled. "That really catapulted me and the book into most college music programs."
His book, "Method of Movement for Marimba," known as MOM, became a standard college text.
Once a vaudeville staple, the marimba has largely been relegated to a minor role in American music, showing up in jazz compositions and symphonic music, but infrequently featured as a solo instrument.
The new technique changed the way the instrument was played and popularized it as a solo, melodic instrument.
"Now it has great momentum," Stevens said. "There are tens of thousands of players studying it around the world."
While professional opportunities for marimbists still aren’t plentiful, he admitted, there is an educated marimba public and there are now a handful of professionals worldwide earning a living teaching and playing marimba, he said.
"That was unheard of 15 years ago," he noted.
Stevens plays for an audience of classical music lovers, drawing on a broad-based repertoire derived from transcriptions of classical pieces, original music written for the marimba, compositions he commissions and pieces he’s composed.He credits his students for the founding of the summer seminar.
"I was teaching privately in New York and my students wanted opportunities to perform for one another and get critiqued by other musicians," he said, "so we started meeting weekly as a group and I found it was highly beneficial."
The seminars became more and more organized, with Stevens assembling a faculty that includes his former student, She-e Wu, head of percussion studies at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that the students leave really changed musicians," said Stevens. "They’re exposed to so much new material and concepts about music-making they don’t get elsewhere.
"The seminar creates an even stronger love for the instrument and that’s what I’m really trying to do," he said. "We’re sort of marimba missionaries."