Choking
Damping a cymbal immediately after the strike.
What it means
Choking designates the immediate damping of a cymbal after the strike: the player grasps the edge with the hand right after the stroke, so that the sound ends abruptly. Instead of the usual long ringing out, what remains is a short, hard crack with a cut-off decay. The technique is common on the drum kit as in orchestral percussion and can be applied to suspended cymbals as well as to pairs of cymbals, which are pressed against the body there.
In the notation
Usually a cymbal note is notated with a damping sign: often a small cross above the notehead, a bracket, or the marking choke, in German editions also “abdämpfen” (damp) or “sofort dämpfen” (damp immediately). If there is no sign, the cymbal rings out; in scores of the twentieth century the desired duration is often additionally fixed by a tie followed by a rest.
Musical use
The cut-off cymbal strike sets a hard boundary and thereby sounds different from the open one: it closes a phrase, marks a break, or gives an accent particular sharpness. In rock and pop music it belongs to the fixed stock of drumming language, usually at the end of a figure or as a signal for a change of form. In the orchestra it is called for where a cymbal must not ring into the following silence, for instance before a very quiet entry. The musical gain lies less in the strike itself than in the silence that arises immediately afterwards.
Performance practice
Grasp the edge with the whole hand, not with the fingertips, otherwise a remnant stays sounding or an audible scraping results. Plan the movement as a unit: strike and grip belong together, and the hand is already on its way while the sound arises. Take care not to hold the cymbal before it has spoken — otherwise the strike seems dull. On the drum kit the striking hand itself usually takes care of the damping; with larger orchestral cymbals, the free hand or the body. Practise the passage at tempo, for the moment of damping must be hit rhythmically just as precisely as the strike.