Welcome to our podcast, Band BFFs.
The podcast where we make your music selection less complicated.
On today's episode, we're going to be discussing Plaza de Toros by Michael's Story.
Cheers to starting the conversation!
Alright, let's go ahead and dig in.
The basics you need to know.
This is in the key signature of Concert B Flat.
There are a fair number of accidentals in many of the parts.
There are no split parts, so one clarinet, saxophone and trumpet part.
Most instruments fit within an octave range.
Some are extended a little beyond that, but it's instruments like saxophone, tenor saxophone,
instruments that we would expect a little bit greater than an octave range.
So let's dive in.
This piece is great for teaching chromaticism as well as getting fifth positions better
in tune in your low brass.
It's a super fun piece just to start with kids.
It's a stately March tempo at the beginning.
You could honestly get away with performing the piece at like 108 to 120, which I like
because then you can really show off great style with your students.
It's nice having that flexibility.
Absolutely.
For percussion considerations, bells are not necessarily needed on this piece.
So if you had to nix a percussion part due to how many players you have, you should maybe
say goodbye to bells, but keep everything else.
It even has like castanets, which is really fun and the kids get a chance to play something
different and even all the band members love getting to hear something totally fun like
that.
So at the very beginning, we have only a little bit of style.
We have some staccato markings and you want to make sure that in measure two when your
lows come in that they're keeping all of the note values connected and sustained throughout.
So if there's no staccato, they need to make sure that everything continues into the next
note and that entrance on beat two in the low voices.
I will have my students like we will write in a breath mark on beat one.
I know that may seem silly, but that that rhythmic breath on beat one can help them be
more confident and secure on an entrance on beat two.
Absolutely.
We're already right away in fifth positions for low brass.
So we spent a lot of time working on making sure kids really know exactly where to place
that intram bone.
And of course they have their friends to kind of help out with that as well.
Alta saxophone can be on the bis B flat side for most of the piece until later on in measure
34.
So that's a great opportunity for you to teach your alto players about bis B flat.
And just to get them going early on with something different on their instrument and application
in music, not just in a scale.
Absolutely.
And we have our first accented style in measure five and the whole band has that together.
So what we've done in the past, Laura and I is we have taken this and put it into like
our daily exercises at the beginning of our band periods.
So we might do like measure five plus the first note of measure six, like on a concert
F F F F F F F F F F F then go down a half step.
E E E E then maybe go back up or whatever you want to do with your kids.
But just at incorporating that into your daily drill is a great idea so that you can make
sure and solidify that everybody is playing the accented style the same way.
Now starting at measure seven, the trumpets take over the melody.
They're the only ones with the melody here.
And you really need a pretty strong and confident trumpet section to play this piece.
We want to make sure that they again are really confident.
They play out big and full lots of opportunities to to encourage them to use really good follow
through with their air on all of these dotted notes.
We've got dotted half notes several times through here.
So we want to make sure again that they're using really good air follow through the accompaniment
parts rhythmically are almost unison throughout.
So that helps for really aligning style and matching and all of that.
Go ahead.
There are very few students on the third of the chord throughout this piece too.
And so that really helps with just tuning.
And again with making sure the accompaniment sounds great and really amplifies the beautiful
trumpet sounds that you're making.
Accidentals lots of accidentals in here.
So good opportunities to teach the kids about the accidental role remind them about the
accidental role.
And one thing that Katie and I feel really strongly about like we are we always go through
our students parts before handing them out to them and pre mark things that we want the
kids to be aware of.
So that would be something I would do in my own group.
I might mark like hey for example in measure nine that there's two F sharps in that measure
clarinets that type of thing so that we make sure the students are really really comfortable.
There's all of those D flats concert D flats that carry through in the low brass horn alto
all that kind of stuff.
So you can kind of pre mark that stuff with your students to help them be more successful.
When we get on to measure 13 measure 13 you'll see this little waterfall entrance part happen
several times in this piece.
This is something the kids need to be really confident and secure about on their entrances.
A great way to approach that with your band is to have them bop it.
All right so that we just play the note start and you don't have them sustained through.
So every student gets really comfortable with where their entrance is.
Once they have that down and everyone's confident with their entrance then you can really focus
on balance.
All right and one of the things that I do with my group and certainly this depends on
the number of students you have on each instrument but we treat each of those instrument entrances
excuse me like their forte piano so they would come in da da da da every time and that helps
to make the clarity in that measure really really clear.
Important yeah and I think it's important to make sure that the students know that the
crescendo in 14 they really should just ignore that in the balance side of things and let
the low people kind of take the lead there.
And percussion.
Yeah and percussion absolutely otherwise it becomes really like trumpet heavy really
fast and again like you mentioned it's very important to make sure that each entrance
is heard and it comes back and back and back each time.
Now as we're coming into measure 15 we have some pickup notes again in the trumpet but
now we have the clarinets to kind of play along with us in harmony and so we want to
make sure we can hear the clarinets as the new voice on the melody.
Then we have a little conversation back and forth with Flutenovo there that's how we approach
it with our kids like this is the melody but they're having a little side convo and so
you can teach them that they're going to play out a little bit.
This is a great opportunity to work on tuning in Flutenovo.
They have C D flat C so making sure that those notes aren't coming out sharp on their instrument
because that's the natural tendency.
You can teach that on right you can use your right hand down on D flat for Flutenovo or
any combination of fingers much like the clarinet and that will help the kids just make sure
that they're better in tune with the oboe if you have an oboe.
And again pushing through the bar lines like Laura mentioned before is very important.
They can use pulsing or vibrato whatever you've been able to teach in your band just to kind
of help push through during that little conversation.
Speaking of oboe I think one of the important things I'm going to go back for a second to
that me talking about Katie and I going through our kids individual parts looking at them
and marking them.
I think when you look at the students individual parts you learn so much more than just studying
your own score.
The oboe part in this particular piece has a lot of fingering considerations that you
need to be aware of.
I think that's one of the things that makes this a little more challenging the oboe part
specifically and we have some of those fingering considerations coming up.
So if you do look at measure 18 like for instance the oboe is going to have to think about having
right pinky for D flat twice in a row but then in 19 they have to use left E flat then
they are forced to use forked F at the end of 19 and then they go back to left E flat
and then they go to right A flat.
That's a lot of pinky stuff that your kids may not just be able to figure out on their
own.
So again the importance of you as the band director studying and going through and figuring
out what is the finger combination going to have to be that's just going to help yourself
in the long run.
Continuing on we're going to make sure that we think about octave tuning in the, well
not octave but unison tuning in the flute and in the trumpet at measure 20 and oboe
because we're getting a little bit higher up on those instruments we want to make sure
that we're matching.
So this would be a great opportunity to just hear only those three voices to ensure that
they're in tune on every pitch especially the C in trumpet and B flat and flutin' oboe
and then again we have the waterfall effect as Laura called it right there at 21 and 22
again.
This time though we're decrescendoing into 23 instead of leading into it and the last
little bit of movement is in the snare drum.
Alright so once we get to 23 we have our clarinets and altos kind of taking over the
lead.
Now you'll notice here that we have a little three note slur.
This piece goes back and forth every once in a while where we will have two note slurs
in the melody or three note slurs in the melody and I think it's really important to make
sure that when the students are learning this that you're driving home that articulation.
Writing T's over the notes that are supposed to be articulated so that they get the difference
between what is a two note slur and what is a three note slur.
Again these three note slurs and half notes that air follow through on those half notes
is going to be really important and then in the accompaniment parts it's really exposed
that fifth position stuff in the low brass is really exposed here.
We don't have a lot of other instruments to hide behind so tuning is going to be really
important and then of course note length making sure that you have spent the time making sure
that their note length matches on that whole entire accompaniment part.
When the horns come in in measure 27 they are doubling the alto part here but the intervals
that they have G, E flat, F, D that is an opportunity for them to miss some partials.
So you want to make sure that the students I would spend some time with my horns and
altos playing that together slowly until those horns build some security in what that is
supposed to sound like and get that in their ear.
That will help to build their confidence as they are learning this.
Again, and I've said a lot I know about air follow through on these long notes but I think
that's a huge thing in this piece.
We can see that again at 29.
Once the whole band we come back in at 29, lots of half notes and dotted half notes everybody
needs to make sure that we push through those.
Trying to make sure that white notes do not end softer than they begin.
Also back at 27 your tambourine player plays alone there so that's a good opportunity for
you to ensure that you have a good solid player to kind of help continue with the rhythm.
And also the trumpets have pickups coming into 27 alone so just be sure to teach that
and make sure that they feel confident and secure even though they are kind of alone
on that.
At 30 we also have clarinets changing the note from G to F sharp.
You want to teach them to bring that out anytime they have that in music and to crescendo going
into 31.
Now we have literally a recap of what we've already had basically from the beginning.
We're going to be sure this time though that we're going to balance to flute nobo because
trumpets don't have the melody anymore right here.
So this is kind of like a moment for the woodwinds to shine.
And this is where the alto saxophones need to change to non-bisby flat at measure 34
because then they do have their first B natural coming up.
So going back to us writing in parts we would have written that in for our students so that
they have ample time to move down to the non-bisby flat.
And again like we talked about before you have to have an F like which F the oboes are
going to use plan if you have an obo player in your band.
Then big strong trumpet pickups coming into 35 and now they're joining the flute and obo
but they can kind of take over a little bit.
And again like I mentioned there's B natural and 36 at alto so that's important to kind
of notice.
We do have some staccatos again at 37 in the accompaniment and the melody.
So this is where the style kind of shifts and you want to make sure that you're not
letting the kids make those too short.
They should still have body of sound on all the staccatos.
And then of course this part whenever I've judged this piece before when the low brass
are going back and forth between G and A flat.
This is where you can really hear if they understand what a half step should sound like
or if they're just kind of guessing and not really aligning it.
So I would spend a lot of time making sure that the accompaniment is really in tune
here.
And then the suspended cymbal will create more texture and excitement as we're leading
up into 41 because they start a very soft roll and they roll all the way until the next
section.
And the whole band is crescendoing here.
This is a big like dramatic moment.
Snare drum ends it and everybody has an accent on beat three.
And then we come back in with just trumpet and clarinet.
So it's kind of like a big breaking moment and you want to make sure that the suspended
cymbal chokes so that there's no sound for just like a split second after the the accent
and then the pickups come on in.
And then right here at 41.
This is another place we're talking about.
It's a two note slur here.
So we need a really clear articulation, a firm clear articulation on the downbeat of 41
from everybody so that that lines up and makes perfect it makes perfect sense in the flute
and oboe parts right here.
We have that entrance on beat two.
They had something similar to this earlier.
As I mentioned before, I would write a breath mark on beat one to help them feel really
confident about that entrance.
So much of this is is a recap of what we had before so you can take a lot of that information
and apply it here.
Now we've got tambourine and I'm sorry castanets and snare drum playing together.
I know we've talked a little bit about that.
I think percussion wise it's important to put your strongest players on snare castanets
in that order and then tambourine and then of course go from there.
We have another waterfall here at 47 and 48.
And as we lead into 49 we have that descending line in our low voices.
That's a great opportunity for them to build in a crescendo as we land at 49.
More staccatos.
This is just like the beginning.
Just like the beginning.
So take all of that and apply it right here to the end.
Before we get to the end we get the big the big finish.
The eighth notes at the end are really important.
We want those eighth notes.
I would isolate those spend a lot of time on them making sure that the notes are right
that the kids move their fingers and time together.
And we want those eighth notes to crescendo down into the last beat.
And then again making sure those last two eighth notes get articulated.
It's real easy for the woodwinds and horns who have that to go ta ta ta ta ta.
So make sure that they don't cheat that ta ta ta.
We want to be really really clear about that.
And horn should be the focal point here since that's like the it's just the new voice that
finally gets like their moment of glory at the very end of the piece.
So we both love this piece and have played it many times with our non-varsity and sub-non-varsity
bands.
So we hope that you have learned a lot about it and will choose this for one of your next
programs.
Thank you for joining us on this episode of Band BFFs.