Welcome to our podcast, Band BFFs.
The podcast where we make your music selection less complicated.
On today's episode, we are going to be discussing Tancho Zuru by Randall's Dandridge.
Cheers to starting the conversation!
This is a great piece of music.
Many of you who have ever played Brave Spirit, this is kind of like the Brave Spirit light.
That's how I think of it.
It is in the key of E flat all the way through.
It's two and a half minutes long.
It's in 4-4 time.
Has a lot of stylistic considerations for your students.
Ranges are great.
It's split clarinet parts, but they never go above the break.
Which is awesome.
The split trumpet parts, trumpets get up to a D, fourth line D.
But the important thing is you do need some depth in your low brass section.
The euphonium part often does not double the trombone.
Trombone 1, 2 and euphonium are different parts.
In typical standard music, as you know, lots of percussion and everything is important
in the percussion section.
Yep.
Lots of cool effects that we are going to discuss today too in the percussion section.
Just starting off right at the very beginning, like Laura said, lots of style.
You're coming in very joyously.
The tempo is a very manageable, reasonable 120.
It's about two and a half minutes in length.
Make sure that you've got these beautiful accents at the beginning with a good forte
piano really working with your students on getting out of the way in measure two, letting
the flute and the tuba come in with the low reeds and then the low brass coming in with
the conversation.
It's important that the flute, bass clarinet, tuba, etc., that come in on beat four of measure
one, that they also play that kind of like a bell tone.
So they come in quick, strong on an accent and then jump out of the way.
If you've listened to this podcast before, don't always love trills.
I think they can sound really shrill.
Maybe consider only having one or two flutes play it or one up the octave, one down the
octave matching the oboe player.
Really up to you on what works for your band, but just a thought.
Make sure that when your low brass come in in measure two, when your middle to low, low
reeds are doing really good matching style, beat four goes all the way to the barline
for measure three to take over again with the same people again with accent and style.
And we talk about that being just like a concert F around the room, right?
Touching sounds, no gaps in the sounds as we're going from section to section.
Yep, that's so important.
The china symbol is really a cool effect at the beginning.
Make sure that you can hear that, but it can be too loud.
It is really common when you have this china symbol and the suspended symbol crash.
It's such a cool effect.
It definitely gives it that Asian feel in the music, but it can overpower everything.
So the kid who is playing at the student needs to have the right type of finesse so that
that doesn't get too loud.
Yep.
So we're going on beat four of measure three again backing the flute tuba add ins down
a lot and again, allowing a really good firm articulation in the low brass here.
Just really make sure that that sounds nice.
And again, leading all the way through same exact type of thing here going into measure
seven at seven.
We have a really cool stylistic moment here.
We have the tenudos followed by the staccatos.
Whenever I have heard this piece before.
I always think it sounds like little crane legs like coming up out of the water and they're
like really long and graceful.
And then they're like tiptoeing on the staccatos.
So you know, saying that sort of stuff to your students can give them a really good
like image when they're trying to do the great style in this piece.
Then a big timpani moment at measure eight leading us into nine.
So a couple of other quick things here, making sure that that tenudo quarter note on beat
three of measure eight goes all the way to the rest.
It's a unison to new do quarter for everyone.
So that needs to be a full body of sound note.
And then every time in the percussion section, when there are on this snare part, when there
are accents written, they are really, really important.
So make sure that your snare player is keeping their taps low and bringing the accents out
so that it gives a little bit more melodic feel to what they're playing.
At measure nine, we start to transition here.
We set up this little rhythmic ostinato in the trumpet section and start layering in
clarinet, horn and alto.
Now the trumpets often throughout this whole piece are in open fifths.
The first and second trumpet parts are split in open fifths.
So they need to sound really good on those open fifths.
That is something that we would in our daily drill, we would split our trumpet section
or split the band, but having half the trumpet section playing a B flat remington and half
the trumpet section playing an F remington so that they are getting used to hearing themselves
in those fifths.
That's going to be really, really important.
Really style on that ostinato is incredibly important, making sure we get da, di, di,
da, di, di.
We talk about the staccato notes being softer than the tenudo notes around them.
The tenudo notes need to have a little more weight and a little more presence.
And then the staccato notes just being light and crispy and softer than the other notes
around them.
We transition into 13 where we get this first statement of the real melody here that is
by the flutes and oboes.
And real quick, whenever they do come in, it's easy for the trumpets to overpower the
flute and obo when they come in.
Just because it's louder and it's really full.
So it might be a good idea to go down to one on a part at 13 in the trumpet section.
And this horn part is really beautiful by the way whenever it comes in and it keeps
coming in being like the, just the background music and the call and response.
So just make sure your horns are heard and present whenever they do come in as well.
And clarinet throughout this, clarinet and alto, when they double the horn, they really
need to color the horn sound.
The horn should be the one that's leading this.
Now this is really an endurance challenge for the trumpets when you look at all of this.
So what we would do, kind of like Katie mentioned thinning it out, we would do like two measure
pass offs, trade offs.
You know, you three kiddos are playing these two measures and then we go to the next three
kiddos so that they didn't have to, like that's hard to sit there on a C, third space C for
those first trumpets for a long time.
That's an endurance thing.
So anyway, there's some different ways that you can kind of work that.
So, and your low brass have to be able to stagger breathe here because it's not low
brass, it's tuba and then low reed.
Berry sax and bass clarinet.
So you could have as few as only three people playing this part, right?
And so it's important to discuss ahead of time, like you're going to breathe after the
dotted half note and 14, you're going to breathe after the dotted half note and 15.
That way they're not all breathing every two measures.
That's a good thing.
And typical tuba low reed style.
With this statement of the melody at 13 and flute and oboe, this is the first time that
we've heard this little melody.
So one of the things that we hear often, first of all, I know that it says the grace notes
are optional.
You really should play the grace notes if you can.
All right, but you don't need more than one person to play them.
You can pick one flute player to play them and have everyone else leave them out or two
flute players to play them, have everyone else leave them out, leave them out and you still
get the effect that the grace notes offer.
But one of the things that young musicians do a lot is they slur into the grace note.
So we hear ta-ya-ya instead of ta-ti-ya-ti-ya.
So making sure that they're articulating the grace note and be very, very particular.
That's how we would select our students who could play the grace note.
If they could play it for me and articulate correctly, make the grace note close enough
to the down here.
Really, really quick grace notes.
Then they would be hired for playing the grace note there.
But again, this is the first statement of the melody.
We add the altos, four measures and bells, four measures later to kind of beef up the
melody and then you get this very cool counter melody that's happening in the horn and clarinet
part.
This is really important.
You want to make sure that we're balancing those two parts out equally so that we hear
the melody and the counter melody equally here.
Yep, and I love that horn part.
It's just really, really pretty when it's done well.
So just make sure that you spend some time teaching that and making that sound just absolutely
beautiful.
And in tune.
And in tune, yeah.
As we're going into 21, you want to make sure that all the students are, of course,
following through all the way to the barline.
There should be zero gap here as we go from 20 to 21.
You got a little bit of percussion to help you out there.
At 21, we get this really neat bells part.
They're kind of like the metronome for you.
And we have a two wood blocks part where you can experiment.
You can decide if you want to play it on two different sounding wood blocks or even temple
blocks.
We did temple blocks just because it was a little bit easier and you can, you have a
little bit more flexibility if you do that on the sounds that you want.
You know, you might like a really high sound and a medium sound or too closer to pitch
sounds, but you have a little bit more flexibility if you use temple blocks here.
Yep.
And this is like a quieter section in general.
It's supposed to sound like, you know, you're just swaying in the breeze and you're, it's
just like beautiful.
You got the little wind chimes effect.
Everybody is metropiano here.
The clarinets, of course, are the melody and that is awesome because they are under the
break the whole time.
They can sound big and full and beautiful.
They can do a lot with phrasing here, you know, crescendoing for two, decrescendoing
for two, anything that you feel would fit your band well.
I just think that it's written really well.
It's very important that the low brass here at 21 are very quiet, but also very in tune
because these are your chords right here and we really want to settle in and make sure
they're moving together and that they're in tune.
Then we have a nice little horn moment again at 24 along with alto, flute, oboe, but again,
try to make that be about the French horn if possible.
And that horn goes up to a D and you want to make sure that you have a player that can
play that with a really good sound that should sound very relaxed and not strange.
Yeah.
And a couple of times when I've adjudicated this piece, the horn section has all played
here and it hasn't sounded easy or metropiano for that matter.
So it would maybe even be worth you auditioning it down to one on a part or two people that
can really make it just sound floating and beautiful and, you know, swaying in the breeze.
So that's just an idea.
The triangle adds in just as another little color point and again, the clarinets are continuing
this melody with the upper people underneath them.
As you're going into 28, the snares are going to be off and we're going to crescendo going
into 29, but make sure you don't crescendo too much because again, we were metropiano.
Now we're really going to still stay pretty soft even though it's marked forte for flute
and clarinet because that's not super duper loud.
And when that leads in at 28, when you land at 29, it's just those upper woodwinds, dee
ah, dee ah, and they need to play that with control.
Just like Katie said, that crescendo needs to be effective, but it shouldn't be so loud
that it makes it sound almost strident when those upper woodwinds come in at 29.
Right.
You don't want it to sound weird like everybody's so loud and then all of a sudden it's really
quiet because it is leading into that moment.
Then the trumpets take over the melody.
And at measure 30, this is one of my favorite sections.
I think that Randall's standards, of course, uses percussion in such a great way on all
of his writing.
Here we have a marimba, which is really functioning like the motor.
So one and two and three and four and one and two.
And you get that really cool pentatonic sound that's helping us with that whole, that Japanese
theme that we have.
Trumpets take over the melody here.
And it's real important that trumpets, that their technique with the way that they move
their fingers on those staccato notes and articulate those staccato notes is really,
really clean.
They are all by themselves for four measures here.
And again, with those grace notes, we only had one kiddo play those grace notes.
We did not have the entire section play those grace notes.
I think it can become a timing nightmare, especially if you've got seven or eight or
more trumpets in your trumpet section.
I totally agree with that.
I think you can make this sound really stellar if you think smartly about who gets to play
the grace notes.
That's exactly right.
And then again, talking about really good writing here, like at measure 33, you want
the trumpets ideally to not breathe after that half note on the bar line.
And one of the things I think Standridge has done really well is he's added the flute and
oboe on pickup notes.
And the bells.
And bells.
They have to breathe there.
We were kind of covering that.
That's right.
We kind of have something kind of masking it to help that.
And then you add that upper woodwind color and doubling the trumpets at 34.
And then of course we also bring in the counter melody in the horn, clarinet and alto there.
So again, it's that balance of those parts, making sure the counter melody is the new
part.
So you want to make sure that we hear that.
We have more of the China cymbal crash cymbal stuff that takes place 37 and 38.
And again, this is just another one of those opportunities.
We don't want that to get too loud.
It is meant to be an effect.
This is kind of like the beginning where we have the recap of the accented notes.
Da, da, da, da.
And the forte piano.
Because we have just the upper woodwinds, flute, oboe and alto coming in on the forte
piano whole notes.
I think it's really smart to consider cutting out some of your kids on the whole note part.
Just so that it comes through more, the moving notes come through more.
That's kind of a little trick you can use there.
And then of course, trumpet horn clarinet, we're just back and forth.
More of the forte piano, same kind of deal.
I would consider thinning some of that out on that like half the students play the quarter
note part and then drop out on the whole note so that we have fewer people on the piano
whole note to make room for the upper woodwinds that are coming through.
Then we start to slow down.
And this concert D-flat here is really cool, just like harmonically.
So just make sure that it's really in tune and it sounds nice when it kind of changes
tonality a little bit there.
Yeah, as Laura was saying, we're going to ritardando.
And again, I think we've already said this a lot of times, but like, standard is a smart
guy.
So like, check this out, you're only having the ritardando happen in flute, oboe, sax,
and of course your percussion.
So they're going to watch you really well and then you can keep slowing down in 44, but
all that's happening is a percussion role.
So you're not going to worry about phasing or anything like that.
Then you come into this lyrical marked at 80 section at 45 with some solos.
You can choose if you want to do it as a solo or a soli.
If you've got a really mature trumpet player, I think playing it as a solo with really pretty
sound and maybe even vibrato is a great choice.
Absolutely.
You got to watch the tuning at 46 between on the A and the trumpet and the C and the
trombone.
The tremolo's, the kids are going to be so excited to do those.
You have to make sure that they're quiet though.
They're just in effect underneath again, kind of sounding like wind.
Again we have wind chimes.
The bells are giving us also kind of a wind chimy type of feel here and they're keeping
us on beat.
The flute solo again, pick your kid that sounds the best on their grace notes and has lots
of vibrato.
They should not be breathing on the barline between 47 and 48.
Then whenever the whole flute and oboe sections come in at 49, make sure that's really in
tune.
Sometimes it takes a moment for oboes to be in tune.
Really practice making sure that they know exactly what they're going to sound like when
they enter.
Then you've got that.
It might even be that you take the oboes down and octave.
Yeah, that might be a little bit weird with that low C, but maybe the F or something.
On the F and the G.
The F and the G.
Yeah.
Just depending on how mature your kids are.
Then you've got a little horn entrance at 49.
That's really pretty.
You want to make sure that it's in tune also coming in on an upper C.
Just work with those kids to make sure that that is not detracting from the sound.
Again, we're doing a nice retardando here, but the only person in charge of the RIT is
the bells and trumpet.
That's pretty nice because you're going to be able to move together well.
You're in a fifth here at the end of measure 50.
Like a tuning nightmare if we're not thinking about it.
Just really work on that in your daily exercises like Laura brought up before.
It's okay to tweak that.
Who is on the concert B flat and who is on the concert F if the instrumentation of your
group justifies that.
I know I've taken some flutes and put flutes on that formata on an F instead of a B flat
because it was just too many people up there in that octave.
That's something to consider.
When we get to 51, it's back to the same idea that we had after the introduction.
This trumpet ostinato, again, that is mimicking what's happening in the snare.
Again, remember what we talked about with endurance for the trumpets.
53, this is your low brasses.
Time to shine.
Now they get to take over the melody.
But of course it's being doubled in flute, oboe, and bassoon.
And bassoon gets this cool little grace note effect too.
And your bassoons, you should definitely have if you let the bassoons shine here.
We've got no grace notes happening in the brasses, obviously.
But we want to make sure that they are moving together, that they sound really light.
This should not be heavy at all.
This should be mimicking what it sounds like to like a flute.
But they're just playing the low brass.
And then when the counter melody enters, again, horn and clarinet coming in pickups to 57,
we want to make sure that that comes through as well.
But again, let horn be the leader.
Exactly.
Let sax and clarinet color the horn part.
Exactly.
And this is when we get to 61, this is just like what we had at the beginning.
All right, so it's a restatement of what we had at the beginning.
So all of the same rules apply with regards to the forte pianos and how you treat those.
Forte Piano Crescendos, the trills, all of those types of things.
Then towards the end, when we get 67, 68, this is where it starts to transition.
Just a little bit, you can feel that this is more final right here.
The subitto piano, which is that transition from 67 to 68, will be something you have
to work a lot so that you get that effect of the subitto piano.
And again, you might thin out the number of people that are playing at the start of
measure 68 to really help that effect.
Make sure that that beat three accent in horn and trumpet at 68 and clarinet two comes out
of the mix a little bit because it's just a nice little effect starting us off leading
with like kind of an abel tone nature from 68 and 69.
Then you got the cool timpani going into measure 70.
And there's a little trill down here in the bells and marimba part at 69.
I'm not a fan of bell trills just because in general they can start to sound really
tinny and bells can really cut through a band if it's not played well.
All the overtones on those bells can like just smother the sound of a band.
And ruin the tuning in the flute.
So I would just leave the trill out of the bells, keep it in the marimba because that's
a really cool effect and it sounds cool, but I would leave it out of the bells.
You can play around with it and see what works for your group.
This finish is big, strong together, don't let the trills overpower everything else.
Make sure that we're getting the melody and the trumpet trumpets are the only one with
the melody.
Trumpets and bells are the only ones with the melody here at the end.
So make sure that they shine through and then at this last measure, D, D, D, D, D, D, tone
on that last note.
That last note needs to be longer than the eighth note followed by the eighth rest that's
written.
So the Symphony part 72 going into 73 as well coming in on beat three.
Make sure that they hit big, strong and a big crescendo into the finish.
Well we both just really love this piece and think it's written so smartly.
So we hope that you will consider programming this into your next concert.
Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Band BFFs.