General MIDI

Although I'm not a keyboard player, even I know that keyboards exist that allow one to play a variety of musical sounds, including fixed pitch percussion instruments like the xylophone and timpani, via a standard known as General MIDI. It turns out even the cheapest portable General MIDI keyboard has a decent collection of sample sounds. But I'm not a keyboardist, I'm a percussionist. I'd rather play timpani with mallets rather than with my uncoordinated fingers. Not only do I find it difficult to simulate a timpani roll with two fingers, but what a pain it would be to have to drop my sticks to tickle the ivories. I have enough trouble finding middle C on the keyboard!

Oliver!

I recently served in the pit orchestra for a local production of Oliver! "Pit" is a misnomer, for although we were positioned in front of the stage, the audience members could see the tops of our heads. As the percussionist, I had a corner all to myself, but it was a very small corner! If you know anything about the score for Oliver! you will realize there are quite a few timpani parts. I really wanted to use real live timpani, but space (and money!) constraints forced me to think of alternatives. MIDI, anyone?