Yellow After the Rain

A Guided Musical Tour © 1996 Rebecca Kite

If you ask just about any percussionist or marimbist to recommend a good beginning
level four mallet marimba piece, nine times out of ten, they’ll say, “Yellow After the
Rain” by Mitchell Peters. I use this piece both in teaching and in performance, and have
recorded it on my newest CD, “Prism”. This composition is really popular for very good
reasons; it has a great tune, it’s well written, it’s the perfect difficulty level for the
beginning four mallet player and it’s fun to play.
In this workshop, I’m going to describe my musical interpretation of “Yellow After the
Rain” and some of the techniques I use to get this interpretation (you can hear them on
the CD). There are many different ways to interpret music. Each performer ultimately
decides on their own interpretation. I hope you find this workshop useful in making your
own music.
“Yellow After the Rain” begins with a six bar introduction. The music calls for repeating
block chords (double vertical strokes) that form a decrescendo as the lower pitches drop
out, moving to the melody entrance at letter A. In this introduction, I bring out the lowest
pitch so you can hear the upward pitch movement in addition to the decrescendo. I play
the last two measures before letter A with my left hand so I’m already in position to play
the melody at A when I get there.
One of the really cool things about playing the marimba with four mallets is that you can
play melody and harmony at the same time. The main theme of this piece is a perfect
opportunity to develop your musical chops. At letter A, the melody is in the right hand
and the accompaniment is in the left hand, then at letter B, they just trade places, with the
melody in the left hand and the accompaniment in the right hand.
The coordination in this section is a little tricky, the melody hand has to play a single line
(I use the inside mallet for this) while the harmony hand plays the two notes together, just
like the intro. I really like how Peters wrote the melody so it has a sort of “statement-
answer” structure within a really nice arch shape. I play this melody with the answer a
little softer than the statement, but always within the overall arch of the phrase. To make
the accompaniment part support the melody and not be too loud, I use the playing area
close to the node of the bar for a thinner sound and keep the mallets lower than those in
the melody hand.
Between letters C and D, I think the hardest thing is making the rolls sound good and
connected while you are moving up and down the instrument. I use a traditional roll
(simply alternating hands-nothing fancy)! If you lead with one hand to go to the next roll
position instead of moving both hands at the same time, you can make the sounds of the
rolls connect to each other smoothly, instead of having a space in between them. I lead
with my right hand (move it first) when the pitches are going up the keyboard and with
my left hand when the pitches are going down. When I want a space, I just lift up both
hands and bring them down together in the new position.
The part of this piece that is probably the most fun to play and looks the hardest (but
isn’t!) begins thirteen measures after letter D. This section uses single alternating strokes.
It looks pretty scary at first, but with a little bit of study, you’ll see that it is actually very
reasonable to learn and to play.
The first thing to notice is that both hands play exactly the same pitches, an octave apart.
(I hate reading ledger lines, so this realization helped me hugely when I learned it!) The
second thing to notice is that if you set the interval of a fifth between the mallets in each
hand, you don’t have to change it through this whole section. To play this section, you
just move your hands to the correct pitch position and alternate the mallets using the 1-3-
2-4 order. (mallets are labeled 1-2-3-4 from left to right, 1 is lowest pitch).
Nothing is more boring musically than a bunch of really fast notes that have no musical
shape or meaning. It is easy to get into that situation when you first learn this section.
After you’ve developed the ability to play the notes you want to get to the next stage as
quickly as possible. Developing your new techniques to play musically works really well
here.
When I play this section, I hear a bass line that is the melody and a repeating pattern that
is the accompaniment. This time, the melodic line is created by the movement of the
lowest pitch. The accompaniment is created by the repeated patterns in the other three
mallets. I try to bring out the lowest note, to shape the melody and make sure it speaks,
and keep the repetitive pattern softer and in the background. To do this, I lift the lowest
mallet higher than the other three and drop my arm a little bit as it hits the bar.
After this section, the beginning comes back complete with music from the introduction.
I play this part the same way that I did at the beginning. The statement of the theme in
block chords ends the piece. I think this is the most difficult part of the piece to play. I
use the same phrasings that I used for the melody at letter A and at letter B. This ties the
piece together very nicely. I keep my mallets close to the nodal areas on the naturals and
play on the ends of the accidentals here to help me keep some smoothness and to let me
make the phrasing work.
I hope my ideas are useful and that you enjoy “Yellow After the Rain” as much as I do!