Purchasing this will give you download links to a soft copy PDF which you can print out - NOT a hard copy score.
 
Check out the video of me and Defying Gravity Percussion premiering this at Defying Gravity: Dream Garden:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX3I-nAtrTA
 
Song From The Heart has four (4) choral parts for marimba (Marimba 1, 2, 3 and 4), and is an expandable work to suit any size ensemble, as long as all four parts are played.
 
The parts do not cross over each other, so you may use separate instruments or share an instrument wiht others. The only part that requires 5.0 octave range is Marimba 4 (bass), which in lieu of a 5.0 octave may be substituted with a similar bass instrument e.g. piano.
 
The piece can also be performed live OR virtually, as the tempo is regular and easy to follow and record for pre-recorded parts. There is no limit to the number of players you can have, although it is desirable to have equal numbers of players on each part.
 
With the above in mind, possible combinations include:
4 x two-mallet players on 1 x 5.0 octave marimba (or expand by having multiple marimbas with 4 players each)
2 x four-mallet players on 1 x 5.0 octave and 1 x 4.0 octave (or expand by having multiple marimbas 
1 x player pre-recording all four parts separately and creating a virtual performance
100 x two-mallet players, with 25 x players in each marimba part
 
Be creative - I'd love to see what you come up with! For its premiere above, I performed this with 20 players including myself.
 
Minimum ranges required:
Marimba 1 (lead): Bb3 to Bb6
Marimba 2 (alto): Bb3 to G5
Marimba 3 (tenor): G3 to B4
Marimba 4 (bass): C2 to E4
 
" The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart." - Helen Keller (1880-1968), American author, political rights activist and disability campaigner
 
Song From The Heart was commissioned by Defying Gravity Percussion and its director Tim White OAM, premiering live at Defying Gravity's Dream Garden series of concerts in April and May 2024. I was asked to present three works - a new solo feature work The Power Of Unity: Zodiac Story, my popular large ensemble work Beautiful World... Of Dreams And Wonder... and a new massed marimba chorale, Song From The Heart.
 
Song From The Heart comes from the idea of playing music from, with and for the heart. In the last few years, I have met many percussionists who are technically astonishing marimba soloists, but it has been rarer to find percussionists who are also able to play musically and emotionally with their hearts. Following in the footsteps of my solo chorale Starlight, I have always found marimba chorales to be an insightful method for experimenting with expression, emotion and personal storytelling on the instrument, so constructing a large-scale chorale like Song From The Heart exemplifies this in a simple and expandable ensemble format.
 
Song From The Heart gives players freedom to experiment with roll speed, weight and shading to make the phrases sound organically sonorous, with a simple melody that is transformed from smallscale singing (beginning to section B) to a large-scale reorchestration in an alternate key (section C), before heading into a more reflective Whitacre-style choir passage (section D) and ending on shared 'breathing' (section E). Song From The Heart is also one of my new 'expandable' style works, which are designed to suit all sizes of ensembles and combinations of instruments. As none of the parts cross each other, it is theoretically possible to play this live with as little as two players with four mallets up to as many players as you'd like. You can also play this piece as either an in-person or virtual work given its ease of tempo-keeping. This makes Song From The Heart a very flexible work, and I hope this will help make marimba chorales more accessible to all.
 
Song From The Heart is dedicated to Adam's family, who have supported him since the beginning of his musical journey. Song From The Heart was premiered at Defying Gravity: Dream Garden, by Adam Tan and Defying Gravity Percussion on Friday 26th April 2024.
 
You will receive one (1) PDF file with the full score, all parts and instructions of Song From The Heart as a digital download. 
 
Studio VIPs / Studio ARTISTs: Discount code available at patreon.com/adamtan! Use that code in checkout to gain 25% off this score (Studio ARTISTs) or 50% off (Studio VIPs)!
 
Song From The Heart is dedicated to Adam's family, who have supported him since the beginning of his musical journey. Song From The Heart was premiered at Defying Gravity: Dream Garden, by Adam Tan and Defying Gravity Percussion on Friday 26th April 2024.