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 Egyptique by Willie Owens.
Cheers to starting the conversation!
Alright Egyptique is on the grade two for Texas PML.
It is in the key of concert E flat throughout and four four time throughout.
It's only about two minutes long, a little over 50 measures.
It has lots of chromaticism in it, lots of percussion, which is really cool.
And if you have a and all of the percussion is going to be really important in this.
And in fact, if you have an army of percussionists, it even has some ways for you to differentiate
the parts.
There's an advanced part and a simple part, which is nice.
If you've got lots of kiddos, you can put someone on bongos playing one of the snare
parts as well.
So lots of percussion options in this one.
So starting off at the very beginning, it's kind of mysterious.
It's marked that way, obviously, but it starts a little softer.
So you want to make sure all your army of percussion don't play too loud.
And then it gets even softer going into measure three where flute, oboe and saxophone have
a solo or a soli.
So it's written very nicely where you can decide what's going to fit your band the
best to make everybody sound wonderful.
I've done it before where my whole flute section will play and only one oboe and one sax, but
that's what fit my section that year.
So you just never know.
And you can kind of play around with the timbre to see what works best for you.
The low people in mids are kind of doing this slow accompaniment line.
We keep having to go to fifth position D flats, A flats in euphonium.
It's nice though, because it's all open fifths.
Right.
There's no third in there.
So the tuning is way easier.
Yes.
And just making sure everybody moves together.
The horn range on this piece is very easy.
It does not go up to even a B flat till the very ending, which is awesome.
And only one time.
Right.
So even though we've got all these little chromatic steps, it's not horrible with the
range.
Again, you're wanting to make sure all the chords are underneath the moving parts.
Here we have our first little horn moment at six along with tenor sax.
And the horn and the saxophone, alto saxophone part are not mimicking each other on this
piece very often.
The alto sax kind of has more like the flute responsibilities.
Yeah, more of a melodic role.
Yeah, which is cool.
It makes it sound again like it's foreign.
And we're continuing to make sure that the eighth notes are being brought out all through
six and seven, making sure that they're connecting and that you can hear that very visible line
of the eighth notes going from the horn all the way up to the flutes through these two
measures.
And then trumpet and clarinet parts are split.
And again, it's almost like alto sax and flute parts are split too because they have
so many divisi notes.
So make sure that you find strong players for both your clarinet and your trumpet part.
The clarinet one part does get up a little bit higher, but I don't even think it crosses
the break very often in this piece, if at all.
So it should make your clarinet section just sound really nice and full and make sure that
you have good players on both parts so that you can hear that cool harmony.
Now you'll notice in some of the low brass accompaniment, first of all, the trombone
parts are split on this.
So that is one thing that makes it a little more challenging.
However, most of the time the second trombone part is doubling the euphonium.
So it's up to you to kind of, if you decide to utilize that second trombone part or not.
But some of you have a lot of B naturals in this section in the low brass and E naturals.
And I know that those notes are not always easy to play in tune.
One teaching tool that you might use to kind of help that, I would take those notes that
we don't play very often and that we have a little trouble maybe playing in tune and
using them in our daily drill for like an articulation exercise.
Let's do the articulation exercise on B natural today and it will sound awful.
Until it doesn't.
That's right.
But so just to get them used to playing that note outside of the music.
And making sure that they have that RL model, if you do decide to utilize it, make sure
that they know I can listen to my friends on the euphonium.
They're playing the same note as me.
That will help them a lot too.
Then we have like kind of a cool little timpani part here at measure 10 going into 11.
So make sure that's brought out.
And then you get the little color and the bells that's going to go along with the flutin'
oboe at measure 11 on the melody.
By the way, I forgot to mention snares start off on this piece.
It sounds very like mysterious until a little bit later.
But so you're going to make sure you want to check because throughout the snare part,
the snares go on and off throughout the whole piece.
They need to be aware of that.
Yeah.
Yes.
You get this cool wind chimes effect at 13, leading us closer into 17.
A big low brass moment here in 13, making sure and the horns get to be along with them.
Making sure that they do this correct articulation and that they're keeping the quarter notes
really full value.
This is definitely a very legato section as we're coming into 17.
Then bells are important along with the upper woodwinds at 14.
And then the trumpets come in with pickup notes on the melody.
So making sure that they're confident right away on beat four as they're kind of taking
over and building us up on this part.
Again, another wind chimes entrance.
And then tambourine gets to be super important.
Leading us into 17 with a really strong roll.
It says optional timpani roll.
I would definitely not make that be an option.
They should definitely roll that will help just with building up the suspense going into
measure 17 and remind kids to keep everything long here.
They love to clip that last note of 16 really short or even take a breath before 17, neither
of which we want.
So just make sure that everything leads into measure 17.
And as we transition there, this is kind of a tricky transition.
So the tempo doesn't change drastically.
We're looking at 20, 25 clicks.
So enough, but you're coming off of a poker retard the measure before.
I would practice that transition a million times and I would have my kids play it initially
on a concert F.
Yep.
Just so they can, you can really focus on the pulse of the transition without, excuse
me, without them having to be concerned about what notes they're playing or articulations
and percussion need to be very, very confident at this transition.
Right.
They know what that tempo is and they need to be really good at setting it.
They are driving the bus.
Period.
They are driving the bus.
And then once, once you've gotten comfortable with that transition on a concert F, I'd go
back and add it to everybody's notes.
Now when we get to 17, we've talked a little bit already about the massive amounts of chromaticism
that are in this.
Katie and I feel very strongly about marking individual parts and making sure that we,
that that stuff is marked in their music.
There's a lot of accidental rule.
Hey, this happens two or three times in this measure.
So making sure that that is marked for your kids.
Now we've landed at 17 and the volume is really big as we start to transition.
And we see accents now.
Yes.
We want a day crescendo into measure 19.
So now here we are.
We have the flute oboe and trumpet with the melody.
If you've got a really strong saxophone section, I would encourage you or even just a couple
of players, let the saxophones play the cues because the balance in this section can be
tricky.
And you have so many people on the accompaniment line.
This is just that it's not like there's a counter melody.
There's melody and motor.
And that is basically it.
So in order to make the balance work out, it's when I've done this before, if I've got
strong saxophones, I want them playing that part.
And this is a very, in my mind, a very lyrical melody.
So just encouraging the students to really push through bar lines, make sure that your
flute oboe and trumpet sound like one, that tuning doesn't become an issue, that they're
not detracting from each other.
So it could even be that you find a group of four or five students that sound really
good on that.
Absolutely.
Yeah, just make them a team.
Yeah.
Now the articulation on this, you want it that obviously the kids are going to want to go
ta, so make sure that you're writing T's over that half note so that that's a really
clear articulation from every kiddo that is playing that part.
In the accompaniment, the motor part, the quarter notes need to be full value.
So making sure that we're not hearing da, da, da, da, da, but the quarter notes need
to be full value.
Yeah.
Touch the eighth notes.
Low brass get a little conversational moment of melody here at 22 in response to what the
upper people have just talked about.
So just allowing those kids to come out of the mix just for that one measure and then
they go back away again on accompaniment part.
Now once we're at 23, you're going to see that the trumpets and altos and oboes have
a part and then the bells and flute are kind of responding.
So you want to make sure that we're doing our best to kind of match volume on that as
we're going from section to section.
Then trumpets, trumpets basically take the lead here with the melody again with the saxophones
and oboes.
And both parts are really important.
They are loved here in trumpet two here.
It just makes it sound so much better.
So just make sure you've got really strong trumpet two players as well.
In all the percussion, the accents that are written are critical.
So you want to make sure that you're talking to your players about the unaccented notes
keeping them low, making them taps so that the accented notes can be more effective.
Then we have this nice crescendo moment into 27 where we have a big, that's right, big
forte piano note.
So we need to again, that's something I would practice away from the music.
So use that as part of your daily drill teaching your students how to play a forte piano correctly.
And then clarinets and trumpets, man, they are massively important here with the melody.
Now you can see in the snare part, we have the snares turn on.
So we need to be getting a little bit more thickly right here and we're crescendoing
it up so it makes sense to change the timbre a little bit.
You have this rhythm, some tied rhythms here, which can sometimes be tricky for younger
players to count, which is again, important of why you should mark your kids.
That's right.
Because this is a great example of where you write a big four underneath the accent, a
little one and two.
So that way you can kind of practice making sure that they know exactly what that rhythm
is going to feel like and that accent is really important as well.
Just for the feel.
And again, I would definitely have my timpani roll there to help instead of an optional
roll.
It'll just add a little bit more excitement as you're crescendoing.
Once we get to 31, we have this little bit back and forth between people coming in on
one and three.
This needs to be a really big accented moment.
So we need to make sure that we really hear the triangle shape of that note.
There's an optional trill in the first flute part.
And I definitely, I think it's effective if you can have the trill, but you don't need
10 people playing that trill.
One or two on that upper trill makes it effective.
But when we add the trill, you want to make sure that the students take the trill all the
weight of the rest in beat one.
Right.
Same with the trumpet part.
Yes.
And then flute oboe trumpet takes over the melody, low brass get a little bit of a moment
here, which is awesome for them.
You've noticed so far in this lots of dynamic contrast where we're like up and down.
So kids need to be really aware of that.
And Mr. Owens is so cool here.
He does snares off again.
To help out again with the dynamic.
But also you can see that he has said your trombones might not feel comfortable going
up to the higher B flat.
So here you go.
They can just go down to the lower B flat.
So that's really neat.
I mean, that's what you would want to do to make your kids sound the best anyway.
But he wrote it in for you.
So feel free to do whatever makes your band sound the best.
Absolutely.
So we're day crescendoing again into measure 35.
We've thinned out a lot.
Even the accompaniment line has thinned out in the rhythm.
It's now instead of like a driving rhythm, it's more half note, eighth note, still back
to flute oboe and saxophone for the melody.
The same thing as before.
You want to make sure everything is really connected here and lyrical sounding.
Bobras get another moment of glory here at 38 going into 39.
Again make sure that they're keeping a long tongue and not trying to make anything too
lifted.
And then we go into more of a full band part here.
Again, it's going to get really loud, really fast if you don't talk about layering.
So just make sure that everybody's listening again for the upper melody, which is again
in the flute and the oboe, the sax and the trumpet.
Just making sure accompaniment, even though they get that one measure of being louder
at 38 that they back off again at 39 and reminding percussion also that they're jamming underneath
the band.
They don't need to be really loud.
Then we have another little rhythm and moment of glory going into 43 for the lows.
Upper people, I would try to make sure that they all take a breath at measure 42 after
the dotted half note leading into 43.
So that's like a big moment, especially in the trumpets.
The trumpets in the clarinet one and two have the melody here.
So making sure that we have a really distinct, we're finishing this idea and now we're
accenting and starting this new part at 43.
Then the snares go back on again because now we've got more voices coming in here in a
moment.
Now at 43 also, you'll notice that the flute and the oboe part, the upper part, the tendency,
this is a new idea even though clarinet and trumpet have the melody, this is a new idea.
The tendency for them is going to be to clip the quarter note on beat three.
Every other quarter note, they're going to want to clip that after the slurs.
So making sure that they understand that that should be a full value quarter note.
The low brass and horns and low reeds that have the entrance in measure 44 on beat two,
I would have my students write a breath mark on beat one so that that was a very clear
entrance on beat two.
And it's accented.
You need to make sure that it's brought out.
So we hear the beat one dotted half note from the melody and then we hear this beat two
response.
Now this is the first time, measure 45, this is the first time the horns have made it
up to a B-flat.
So this is the first appearance of a B-flat that we hear for the horns.
I just love the way this is written for horns.
I really think it's very friendly for them.
You'll also notice an A-flat in measure 46.
I think there's one more towards the end of the piece, but the range of this for horn
is so nice.
And they really, horns and tenor saxes are kind of like the chameleons of the band.
They can play multiple roles.
And in this piece, the horns really play the role of low brass.
Right, trombone.
Yeah.
Also, I forgot to mention, but back at 42, there is a big timpani moment.
It's one of the first like big, big, big moments driving into 43.
So make sure your timpani players featured there.
And again, they come back at 46 and are driving us into 47.
So make sure your timpani player plays confidently out there.
And then at the end, we just have a little bit more cool accented parts, another cool
timpani rhythm here at 47, making sure that you're bringing this out.
Again, anytime you see the accents for the upper melody and even the low brass get to
tongue really firmly here at the very end, horn and tenor and clarinet get to end with
this really cool little moment on beat two.
And it's so important.
Yeah, so important.
And you want to make sure that they sound really nice and that horns get to be kind
of the featured part here.
And then the end, make sure kids don't go too crazy.
My kids always love to play the last measure really loud.
Yes.
So just make sure it sounds pretty.
It's marked fortissimo.
So they say that and they get so excited.
Yeah.
But you know, dynamics are relative.
And then the last note is marked marcotto, but I would always, always, always want the
last note to have a full body of sound and resonance.
So we talk about, we write the word tone over it for one, two and tone.
It needs to have a full body of sound.
Yep.
All right.
Well, we hope you have enjoyed this episode and that you'll consider playing this piece
in your future programming.
Thank you for joining us on this episode of Band BFFs.