Cymbals

A while ago I mentioned the snare drum. It's not that I exactly dislike percussion but... Another case in question is the cymbal the use of which I noted, in our church praise recently, was particularly dominant. These remarks are entirely my own personal opinion which I feel at liberty to express this being my blog - it is not my intention to offend. For me the cymbal, sometimes called a splash and epitomised by the exclamation mark, should be used about as often as that punctuation mark is used in normal text. To use it every other beat is to me way OTT. Don't get me wrong: unlike the snare drum I happen to like the sound of a cymbal (of any size). I like pepper too, but prefer it to be piquant and in small quantities. Overuse of anything is like:

Looking at a fine cluster of the bubbles which hung above his head he thought how easy it would be to get up and plunge oneself through the whole lot of them and to feel, all at once, that magical refreshment multiplied tenfold. But he was restrained by the same sort of feeling which had restrained him over-night from tasting a second gourd. He had always disliked the people who encored a favourite air in an opera - 'That just spoils it' had been his comment. But this now appeared to him as a principle of far wider application and deeper moment. This itch to have things over again, as if life were a film that could be unrolled twice or even made to work backwards... was it possibly the root of all evil?  Perelandra 

An example antithesis is in Bruckner's seventh where there is a disputed cymbal crash at a major climax in the slow movement. The dispute is as to whether the composer intended it or was it imposed by one of his many editors. And even this lone cymbal crash sounds somewhat unnecessary IMHO.