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 Rust Belt by William Owens.
Cheers to starting the conversation!
Rust Belt is the most popular grade one piece of music that has been performed last year.
In the state of Texas, thank you.
This is in the key of B flat, 4-4 throughout.
It's only a minute and a half long.
Great note range for all instruments.
It doesn't have any split parts.
However, there are lots of divisies within parts, so you do have opportunities to divide
parts up if you have depth in some of those sections.
Lots of percussion in this, and all of the percussion is pretty important, except for
the timpani.
The timpani, even according to Mr. Owens himself in his program notes, says that if you have
to leave something out, the timpani can be left out.
It is not functional to the actual music.
It just enhances it.
Other than that, we want all the percussion parts that are there.
So at the very beginning, it says, and I had to look this word up, hard scrabble with an
exclamation point, which means involving hard work and struggle.
And the piece, if you read the program notes, is based on a big thriving metropolis and
how it's fallen on hard times.
So you can use that to help your students with seeing different visions of the piece.
This is about grit and work ethic.
Determination and coming through the work ethic, yes.
It's, like Laura said, it's written very well for bands.
All the range is pretty easy.
So we start off with a nice, strong, it kind of sounds like a clock to me.
I love it.
I think it's just written really fun.
It sounds like a clock chiming with these little bell tone accents and then timpani
and toms leading us into measure three.
Flute and oboe have another little like moment into in measure two, but we don't want that
to be too loud.
Then when they're holding their long notes going into five, make sure you're really
careful about how many students you have on each part.
See on flute can tend to be a very out of tune notes.
We want to make sure we pick the right humans.
Lots of vibrato here going into five.
You can pump up the clarinet sound to kind of help with that.
And then we have another chord coming in at four in response.
Make sure that they accent when they come in.
The flute and clarinet can come down at four in volume so that you can hear the trumpet,
horn and alto and tenor saxophone entrance there.
Again, sounding in fifths.
At measure five, go ahead.
I love on the percussion part and Willie Owens does this a lot in his writing.
He either will differentiate the percussion part for ability level or write in some things
for you.
So like here he says that flams and rolls are optional.
So I encourage you to utilize that if necessary.
If you've got players like a percussionist that can't play flams well or can't play
rolls well can be a huge distraction to the ensemble.
So definitely consider using those options that he makes available to you.
I think that's so smart.
Yes.
Accents are really important in this piece too and percussion does help with that a lot
on like beat three entrances or they have accents.
So make sure that they play up to that.
At five you get the low brass coming with the melody right away.
And the percussion is continuing to groove underneath the low brass here at five.
So make sure that they come down in a volume level.
It's marked for them to be at mezzo forte but maybe even softer.
But then you get to add in like break drum and vibroslap and all these really cool percussion
instruments.
So make sure that they are heard but of course not detracting from the overall performance.
It's meant to enhance.
Yes.
The low brass they need to make sure that they're crescendoing through the dotted half
note and then doing the accent on beat one and measure six.
One, four and one and and then that needs to be one, two and a full value into measure
into beat three with that vibroslap happening on beat three.
Then they're going to have their melody still getting strong starting strong again making
sure that your G is in tune on measure seven in the trombone section.
Then we're going to come down in volume and day crescendo along with percussion into measure
nine.
We have a ratchet part and it says optional maracas.
Oh, it sounds really cool with ratchet.
If you have one or borrow one from a neighboring school, I think that's a really cool just
melodic effect.
Well, it makes it sound it makes it sound like really working right.
Yep.
Like work with the break drum.
Yeah.
Then we have the flutes and oboe and clarinet coming in with the one and two and they're
going to be soft on their long note three, four, one and then the three, four needs to
be brought out a lot in measure 10.
And then the horn and the trombone and kind of the mids get to come in too with like a
little conversational piece here.
Again doing the what the low brass did before with the accent on beat one and full value
on beat two.
Again we have a divisi part in the trombone euphonium bassoon section at 11, but that's
up to you about how many players you want.
If it's my band, I don't have very many kids that can play a G perfectly in tune sometimes.
So maybe only have one student in each part on the G and then have everybody else on the
D or have just your phoniums.
Especially since the tubas are covering that G.
Yeah.
Maybe have just the euphoniums on the G so you're not worried about the trombone tuning
and have all your trombones on the D.
You know mess around with it, see if it sounds better for your ear.
Again making sure that we can hear the beat three in clarinet flute oboe and then beat
four in the low brass.
This conversation between those two different ideas right?
Yes, absolutely.
There are throat tones for days in the clarinet.
Oh my gosh yes.
In this piece so it's really important that your students know some type of resonant fingering
for those throat tones, whether it's as simple as right hand down.
I think it's important to go player to player and come up with the right combination of
fingers for each individual kiddo to make sure that they sound as most in tune and with
a beautiful sound on those notes.
But man G's and A's for days on this.
So it needs to be something you spend sectional time on.
At measure 12 you can see that we have a little bit of a different articulation here so making
sure that this lines up for the whole band.
And it leads into 13 so make sure that we're all lining up there.
13 again goes back to the flute and oboe clarinet getting the one and two.
But the trumpets now get to come in at 13 with their little moment of what I call again
the clock sound.
I don't know why.
I think it sounds like a little ding dong ding dong.
So 13 the trumpets get that part with the accents, saxes are coloring them and then
the flutes and the trumpets are continuing on with the clarinets, the melody going into
17.
We're going to crescendo up there and the low brass get to do this descending line here.
Make sure that they are the focal point of the crescendo and leading us into our arrival
point at 17.
17 we arrive and it should be big firm articulation.
Little note length on both of those eighth notes.
Dot, dot.
And then the trumpets and upper woodwinds kind of respond to that arrival moment.
Then you have this conversation that takes place between the flute oboe trumpet and then
clarinet, alto and horn comes in and echoes them.
So again wanting to make sure that those parts that you work balancing those parts so that
we hear both of them equally well.
One more opportunity for divisi and this E and A divided note on trumpet and neither
of those notes are great notes for your trumpet.
So just making sure that they sound really good here but letting your low brass kind
of be featured here one, two and three, four.
They're kind of leading the end of that phrase going into the start of the next phrase at
21.
Where altos again are now coloring the trumpet part.
So we have the melody that is taking place more in flute oboe clarinet now and now it's
the answer is kind of the conversation response is coming from trumpet and alto sax.
We bring back these accented notes here in the percussion part by the way is a place
where you can see those rolls that are there that you might consider leaving some of those
rolls out.
Then when we get to measure 23, this accented style it's going to be really important to
make a difference here.
We don't want to overdo the accents but we do need to hear a difference at the start
of all of these notes.
And the bells have the little clock sound coming back at 23.
Sorry if that's not what it was meant to sound like but it's what it sounds like in my head.
One, two, three, four.
And the bells get all four of those entrances.
So making sure that each like Laura was saying each entrance on one, two, three and four is
accented like a bell tone.
Exactly.
We can hear that especially the beat four entrance since it's just in horn making sure that
that's a strong tongue and then we're going to de crescendo coming down.
De crescendo leading into 25.
So 25 that should be noticeably different.
This is like one of the first places where we have like a real major dynamic contrast
and everyone wind player wise is on a whole note leading into that at 25 and the percussion
are the ones that have the moving parts.
So really allowing the percussion every beat to get just a little bit softer to help transition
us into the soft section at 25.
Just because we're playing soft doesn't mean the firmness of articulation needs to be sacrificed
here.
So still make sure that we are really clearly hearing the start of each one of these notes
and not letting the white notes, the dotted half notes that we have here decay.
So this is just going to be soft for a measure and then we get to start growing and crescendoing
again leading into 27.
Yep, and like break drum comes back in.
So we're like building up the momentum again going into 27.
Don't let break drum over do that.
Right.
Then we have again, like kind of this big like low brass part again, just really nice
and firm and with the four and one and just like the beginning this time though we get
this cool horn and sax counter melody against saxophone should color the horn.
It might not look like it's like anything, but it sounds really neat just right above
the lows and then making sure that they tongue firmly on beats three and four going into
29.
Make sure that that's just a present moment.
It's something new and different that you can bring out and it helps your horns to
shine on a really easy part that isn't written, you know, up high for their instrument.
Again keeping everything really tongue firm here.
And on beat three and four again, we get the upper woodwinds coming back in, making sure
that they are not too loud, but they are the new layered invoice.
Make sure that they're doing the accents along with percussion on one, two and three, four
and one.
Make sure that the one and three momentum continues throughout the whole piece.
Then again, like I mentioned, we're kind of layering these parts in the last layer is
the trumpet parts again coming in on three, four going into 35.
All right, so trumpets again are taking over right here.
Then we've got the upper woodwinds kind of keeping more with this little ostinato pattern
that's happening underneath it.
Really the conversation is taking place between trumpets and the alto tenor horn part.
So that we're and then of course low brass.
We're listening to all of these layers.
It starts to get pretty thickly textured here.
So you have to prioritize those lines.
Figure out what is most important to you and make sure that the students know what is the
major priority, what is second most important, third most important.
And I like trumpet to be really strong here because that's the new voice and it's something
a little bit different here.
So just again, as you're teaching layering to your students, maybe for the one of the
first times you teach them like, okay, now we have to listen a new parts layered in.
So you have to come down in volume and don't continue to let them play in a rehearsal if
you can't hear that part.
One thing that I did recently is I had a student from like they weren't listening to me when
I was like, I can't hear that layer.
So I had like a student from like, let's just say the trombone section come up and he stood
with me at the front of the room and I said, okay, ready play from this rehearsal number
to this rehearsal number.
And I said afterward, you tell the band, can you hear the such and such part that layered
in and he was like, nope, she's right.
You can't hear it.
And it was awesome because it was like a kid, you know, affirming that like I could not hear
that layer part.
So why not have fun with it, invite your kids to come up and one at a time, you don't have
to do it all the time.
But if you're having trouble hearing the layers on a piece, even like this, invite the kids
to get involved in the listening and helping with those roles.
And another thing that I'll do is I'll cut it down to one person on a part and just do
and maybe you know, maybe use first chair players and say, okay, now this is the balance.
This is what I want it to sound like.
Okay, now we're going to add in one additional player and one additional player.
So if you start with a really thinned down instrumentation, they can hear that balance
a little bit more clearly.
Yes, I agree with that 100%.
All right, picking up here at 39 as we kind of are heading into the end.
First of all, it's really important for the people that have a rest on beat one of 39
that the quarter note before it touches that rest.
Da, dee, dee, da, da, off.
And then they can breathe there and I often will have my kids mark a breath mark on a
rest just to help them remember to do that.
We have this accented style taking place in the low brass, which is mirroring what's happening
in the percussion.
So just have them listen to the percussion and not overplay, not play too loud right
here.
Now everybody gets the clock theme, yay, as we get here at 41.
So making sure that these are very much triangle shaped notes.
We want to hear the front of the note being really firmly articulated, changing notes
together right in time before 43 and letting percussion really help be in effect as they
crescendo into 43 before the big finish.
And speaking of the clock sound going into 43, so it's written where the low brass does
have that part.
And then some of the upper parts like flute, oboe, first trumpet, they don't go down on
the last one.
So maybe only have one person playing the upper part and let everybody else so that you can
hear it.
Do the clarinet as well and the first trumpet as well exactly.
Just so that it finishes the way that it began.
And then 43 is just really fun for your low brass right?
One, two, and three.
But they love to do that.
And then you have the conversation with the low brass and then the trumpets and everybody
out the high people.
So it's low versus high here, just really tonguing firmly making sure everything leads
in and you can hear every single beat.
And then not letting everybody crescendo too much into the end, never go past your most
beautiful sound is what I say all the time to my students.
Percussion gets to kind of crescendo into the ending and then lots of accent and weight
on beat one of the last measure, one, two.
And that can be a little bit of a shorter beat too because it's kind of like a lifted
staccato because it is a house top accent.
So I wouldn't worry about that being full value.
But that will be something you have to work on because everyone has silence on beat three.
You're going to want to make sure that that aligns really clearly.
And I would have my percussion dampen everything at the end.
You can kind of listen to that and make your own decision, but I would have my percussion
dampen things at the end.
This is a very well written piece that we both really love and I'm sure we'll be able
to find it into our band programs recently in the future as well.
It's got a musical jump start with it to help your young performing bands.
Anything by Willy O'Njoo and Gino is going to be great.
That is 100% accurate.
So we hope you will consider this for your next performances.
Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Band BFS.