Soft felt striker

As Printed on a Score

Printed over a tubular-bell, gong or other struck part where a soft felt-headed beater is to be used; it holds until another beater is named.

How Composers Use It

A soft beater blunts the attack and reduces the upper partials, so bells sound distant and veiled rather than clanging. Use it in quiet passages where the normal hammer would be too bright, or to blend a bell into soft strings and organ. Name the beater whenever the colour matters, allow time for the change, and remember that even a soft stroke leaves a long ring on tubular bells.

Example

Holst, The Planets, “Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age”, tubular bells, m. 125: “soft felt striker” at pp, a bar after the organ’s “16 ft and 32 ft”.

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