Your students will have a great time with this techno inspired dance work, and will have fun working out what the title means!

Dear Friend,

Do you want your students to have something quite new, quite inspiring and fun to learn?

I’ve got a piece to share with you on this page, but first I want to share some background to this piece.

I’ve been composing pieces for percussion ensemble for quite a few years now. 2008 has been a great year for me – through my special offer I did early in the year I offered to do a commissioned work for school percussion ensembles all over the world.

As a result of that special package deal that I did earlier this year involving a commission I have written heaps of new pieces this year, and its been great to work with directors and ensembles all over the world.

Through working with ensemble directors and schools this year I’ve come to realize the most important things about writing music for school percussion.

What have I found to be the most important thing in a piece of music for school percussion?

One word: Flexibility

And there are three components to flexibility:

  • It needs to be able to be played on virtually any instruments that are available in the school
  • It needs to be able to give all the kids something great to do, whether there are 3 or 30 students in the ensemble
  • It needs to be able to keep everyone inspired and motivated – From those who have been playing for years right to those who have just picked up the sticks!

I’ve always written my pieces with this flexibility in mind, but I’ve come to realize that I was not even flexible enough in some of my writing.

Therefore, many of my new releases will have an incredibly flexible format, so that you can take them and use them no matter what instruments you have available.

Anyway, with this particular piece the group wanted something fun and were quite inspired by my piece “Tribal Beat Sound System”, so I set out to write something similar to that, but not quite as difficult.

I also wrote with this “ultimate flexibility” in mind, so I wrote basically three parts – a high drum part, a low drum part and an accompanying drum beat. I then mixed them around a little and ended up with six parts which I knew would work with the largest majority of school percussion groups around the world.

Now… the title:

“Isomorphic Sound System”

This is a great opportunity to have some fun with the students – get them to look up the meaning of “isomorphic” and see if they can work out why the piece is named that!

Really, I just think its kind of a cool word, which is the main reason I named it that – but there were other reasons!

Isomorphic is a scientific/mathematical term, used to basically mean that structures or mathematical processes are related

Wikipedia says that:

“Informally, an isomorphism is a kind of mapping between objects, which shows a relationship between two properties or operations.”

What I was thinking was that there is a relationship between the parts in this piece which is isomorphic, and that in many ways all music is isomorphic. All music (at least music that we would want to listen to!) relies on the parts being in time with each other – with their being a structural relationship (the beat) that holds it all together.

Have fun with your students – Don’t tell them this meaning, and see if they can work it out on their own! They might even have more inspiring insights as to why its called an “isomorphic sound system”

The piece is written in six parts, but can be played with as few as three players:

The six parts are:

  • Bongos
  • Timbales
  • Snare Drum & Cowbell
  • Medium Tom Toms
  • Low Tom Toms
  • Drum Set (Bass, snare & Hi-hat)

If you’ve only got three players you can use:

  • One High drum player (bongos)
  • One Low Tom Player
  • Drum Set (also incorporates parts from the snare part)

The piece would even be performable by a duo if you had a backing CD of just the Drum Set part.

If you’ve got heaps more players, then you can double up parts as much as you like. Just try and keep it to one really strong Drum Set player.

I’m not going to say much about it – Have a listen yourself and a look through the score:

If you’re interested in playing “Isomorphic Sound System” with your school you can purchase it here for just $29.95

With your purchase you will get:

  • Full Score and parts you can print out as use immediately
  • Unrestricted MP3 Recording that you can burn to CD as many times as you like
  • Lifetime access to updates and revisions, and re-downloads if you lose any parts

Plus I’ve got three great bonus items for you with the purchase of this piece:

Bonus #1 – Teaching Ideas and Notes from the Composer

I’ve put together a couple of pages of ideas for you on how you can teach this work, and the benefits that it can bring your students.

It contains:

– How to use the title and meaning for an educational outcome
– Notes on the instrumentation – what to use and what not to use!
– Practice rhythms to take out of the piece and rehearse independently
– Ideas for performance presentation
– Stage layout ideas

Bonus #2 – Backing MP3 with just the drum part, plus variable speed MIDI file

Here is something that I felt would be useful for this piece. Part 6 (the drum set) is basically a consistent beat which goes throughout with a few stops, so I felt that it would be useful to provide a recording of this part for two reasons:

1) so that the players could take it home, record it on a CD or transfer it to their ipod or portable media player so that they could practice with it

2) For an alternative for performance, so that it could be performed with the backing track instead of a live drummer in a situation where that might be appropriate.

Bonus #3 – Files in PDF and Sibelius format, which you can print out and use as you need

I always try to be as flexible as possible with my product delivery, and Sibelius Scorch provides you with another option to print and use the parts.

If you can read and listen to the score example on this page then you have the scorch plugin working on your computer so you’ll be able to use this file.

If you have a full copy of Sibelius music creation software you can even edit the parts if you need.

I know that this gives away a lot of freedom to you to do what you like with my music, but hey.. why not? If you want to change things then I feel that you should have the ability to do so.

Try it out with your ensembles

As usual I offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee on this music:

Your RISK FREE

Unconditional Money Back Guarantee

At KT Percussion we are dedicated to providing the best musical experiences. If you aren’t sure that your students will LOVE this music then just grab our risk-free offer and download your music today, and watch first hand how it will inspire and enliven your students in your music classes or ensembles.

This is not a 30 day Guarantee, a 60 Day Guarantee, or a 90 Day Guarantee… this is an “If you don’t get results from this music – you don’t pay guarantee!

I don’t worry about the length of time…..If for some reason you are not absolutely thrilled, then just email me within 90 days, let me know what went wrong and I’ll refund your money!

No Questions. No Hassles.

So go ahead and give your students the opportunity to enjoy this piece of music in your next rehearsal. Its fun, its fairly easy and your students will love coming to ensemble to rehearse this piece!

Price for Digital Download: $29.95

Click Here to order this piece now

I’ll look forward to hearing your success stories with this music!

Kevin Tuck


Kevin Tuck
Composer & C.E.O – The Fun Music Company Pty Ltd

P.S. Don’t forget that any purchase from KT Percussion includes direct contact with me, the composer via email, so if you are unsure about anything you can always ask!