Welcome to our podcast, Band BFFs!
The podcast where we make your music selection less complicated.
On today's episode, we will be discussing Into the Arctic by Brian Balmages.
Cheers to starting the conversation!
Alright, this piece is on the grade two for the Texas prescribed music list.
It is about three minutes and 45 seconds long.
It is in concert B flat or G minor throughout.
It's in 4-4 for most of the piece, so there is a little bit of mixed meter towards the
end.
There are two flute parts, two clarinet parts, two alto to trumpet and two trombone parts.
Range is the first clarinet part crosses the break quite a bit, but the second clarinet
does not.
First trumpet does get up to a high F. The second trumpet range is very easy and the
first trombone part goes up to a high D. Percussion considerations, you need all of
the percussion parts in this.
It's really important.
Yeah, for sure.
And emphasis on timpani, bells, and the tom part.
I think that's where your priorities need to be.
This piece is really neat because it was inspired by some involving polar vortexes.
And it has a lot of imagery of crystal ice pieces and being in Antarctica and thinking
about some things that could have been involved in ancient Antarctica, like mythical creatures,
and all kinds of really cool things that you can share with your kids.
But just know that the piece, it starts real slow and kind of mysterious, and then it goes
faster and is very exciting at the end.
It's a piece that your students will love to play and it does feature all the different
parts, which is really nice about it as just a piece in general.
So we started out at the very beginning, very slow and mysterious, as it says, with just
clarinet and percussion.
You want to make sure that you take some really good time to decide about percussion
mallet choices on this piece, and they may change throughout the piece as well.
It might be a little bit more, I don't know, more muffled, not muffled, but softer at the
beginning and maybe more strong and more clear at the end.
It'll kind of be up to you.
But definitely go through some different choices here on the bells and on the marimba and vibraphone.
There's lots of really cool metallic percussion parts here and triangle and everything.
It really does a cool, it has that cool vibe of conveying ice when you hear all that metal.
The imagery is great.
Yes.
So it starts out again with just the clarinet part and percussion and clarinet.
One wants to stay very long.
It's got tenudo markings and then the upper woodwind flute part is going to come in at
three, again, keeping it very mysterious.
And then a measure later, we're adding in the low people part.
So we're just adding in a few more parts to make it crescendo in volume without necessarily
getting louder and louder.
You do want to make sure that your horn part comes out at measure five along with the alto
part.
And remember, again, horn is super important.
Don't let alto saxophone take over unless they have a special part like they do here
in six, leading us into seven.
The low brass part can come up stronger, but again, keep the tonguing nice and tenudo as
you're leading up into the mezzo piano at measure seven.
And then measure eight, we're getting even stronger, nice suspended cymbal roll, making
it sound more mysterious and exciting going into nine.
I like this tuba and low reed part on three and four of measure eight going into nine.
Really try to bring that out as it makes it more intense going into nine.
And then right here on the downbeat, we have trumpet two and horn and tenor sax and clarinet
two with kind of the first one and two and then trumpet one and clarinet one, three
and or two and three, four.
So just that little echo back and forth throughout this piece, clarinet two, trumpet two, horn
and sax most of the time are kind of a voice together.
At measure 10, we are going into a day crescendo here, but the low brass are leading us into
it.
So make sure low brass, low reeds are a little bit stronger than everybody else.
We do have a cool harmonic thing with the trombone, horn and tenor sax that you may
want to bring out that one beat three pitch.
And then please note that in these measures nine through 10, 11, we have a lot of accidentals.
So when you're going through your parts, if you've listened to any of our episodes before
we talk about pre-marking parts a lot to help the success of your child, your children,
as well as you as the director.
So it's important to take some time to make sure that if you have any accidentals, you've
marked that they carry through the measure and just take the time to speak through that
with your students as well.
At 11, we start off very soft and we have a lot of these crescendo day crescendos and
we're kind of building and building and building.
So just make sure you're taking time to talk through the dynamics with your students.
We do have a muted trumpet part and they only have one measure to put their mute in.
So make sure you kind of talk through that with them as well as what to do with their
tuning slide to make sure that they're in tune when they come in with the straight mute part.
And then that's an effect.
So you want to make sure that they bring that out, tonguing very firmly and any time that
you have a muted part and brass, it's written on purpose.
So make sure that it's something that is audible to the audience.
And I know Katie mentioned this, but with just the one measure turnaround to put that
mute in, that's going to be something they have to practice.
They are going to have to do that repeatedly to make sure they can do that in time.
So then we're getting into a little bit of different articulations here.
We're starting to see more of the like tongue slur pattern.
Ta, ta, and we're keeping it very connected as we have it.
Trumpets are doing that same articulation, getting stronger into 14, leading into vibraphone,
alto sax and clarinet having a similar thought process.
But again, tonguing very firmly with these accents and trumpet to horn part, that's kind
of going to lead us into 15.
15 is kind of like the pinnacle of that little moment.
And we have some staggered entrances on beat one with trumpet one and alto and then on beat
two with the trumpet two part.
So you're going to have to really think about, is that going to be heard really well?
And then on beat three, clarinet one and beat four, clarinet two, tenor sax and trombone
one.
So you're kind of getting these staggered entrances and you want to make it sound like
the same volume for each one.
It is getting softer, but you want to make sure that they're heard.
So you may have to be like play around with like, well, at this one measure, I'm going
to have more of the trumpet ones play the trumpet two part, or I'm going to have more
of the clarinet ones play the clarinet two part, whatever works for your band.
And I would have my band bop that so it is really clear where everyone comes in.
Right.
The chimes are super important here too at 14.
And you want to make sure that that melody line comes out of the mix like crazy.
That's like a very important chimes moment.
You may even want to think about a different chime mallet.
Like it just depends on again what works for your group.
And then we're getting softer and leading into measure 17.
Even with these different entrances on one, two, three and four.
So once we get to 17, um, Tempani has a pickup note.
They are what lead us into 17, four, one.
We get to 17.
The dynamic is mezzo piano for the whole ensemble.
But again, we want to make sure that the articulation is firm.
We have kind of unison rhythm for everyone except the horn and the upper woodwinds here.
So we want to hear the difference between the people that are entering on beat two and
the people that change on beat three.
Making sure that long valued notes sound to silence go all the way to those rests.
And that again, those the trumpet clarinet entrances saxophone entrances that we have
on beat two low brass everything, even though it is mezzo forte, we are still firm articulation
on the front of those notes.
So that becomes really clear.
Vibes is really important here.
They kind of provide the pulse here with that one and two and three and four.
You can tell that we're kind of preparing for the new tempo change.
We have more of the same idea when we get to measure 20, we're getting softer day crescendoing
and we're slowing down and we have a G flat and trombone too.
Yeah, which yay, just throwing that out there.
Always fun.
Yeah.
We are slowing down in measure 20 and the vibraphone is going to be responsible for that along
with the director.
Obviously that tempo change.
So that is something you will practice a lot with you and the vibes making sure that we
slow down together.
And then all of the accompanying parts, especially beat four leading into the tempo change in
beat 21, that transition there is going to be something you have to practice several
times once we get to 21.
Now it's a new idea.
Now we are at a really fast pace, really fast tempo, but it's really soft.
Bells are the only thing that start, but we have bells and claves.
So again, we have that metallic percussion to convey that ice, but now we've started
introducing a different type of color.
Clara Nets come in at measure 23 and you want to make sure that they tongue that third note.
T-Yata, really, really light staccato, crisp notes from all the accompanying parts that
are playing here.
It makes me think about like little icicles dropping off or something like that.
Yeah, that's good mental imagery.
I would tell my wind players that they are trying to sound like the claves here when
they're playing just those little interjection notes that they're trying to sound like the
claves.
Now in this section, this is where I would start to think stylistically about maybe being
a little bit more lifted on the slurred notes.
And then all of this eighth note stuff passing back and forth between Clara Nets and then
we have the altos that come in, the people that are playing on beat two and four on those
responses.
Again, they're responding to bells.
Bells is on one and three, they're on two and four.
You can see they line up with claves.
So again, we want to make sure that we're matching the articulation of that.
At 28, now we've got a new melody coming in.
Trumpets are going to lead this charge and with this dotted quarter eight tied rhythm
that we have here, even though it's mezzo forte, I would think of those almost being
like accented, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, like really firm tongue on the start of each
of those notes.
So it's really clear.
In the clarinet part, when the clarinets come in, first clarinets, this is a great
spot to teach them to put their right hand down crossing the break.
They're on G sharp, A B, A back to G sharp.
That's a great, put your right hand down, make that easier when you're crossing the break.
And that's a really cool effect because it's got the like crescendo, day crescendo, like
coming out of nowhere, like a little icy wind coming out of nowhere.
And the euphoniums get it too along with them.
That's just a cool little color.
Which is a nice color change, right?
And then the people that come in on beat four, right, for making that a really intense moment,
you have the same thing that just kind of the same idea, melodic idea that continues,
but we start to add more voices.
So it starts to build a little bit in intensity.
You can see we've got bells, vibes and chimes all playing the same thing.
So the volume starts to increase just a little bit.
And then we get to measure 34 where now we have a different percussive idea too.
Yep.
So at 34, we mentioned at the beginning that Tom is an important part just because of like
facilitating the pulse at this speed and playing it really well.
But it doesn't need to be too loud here and cover up your group.
Now we have the same rhythm as before with trombone, but now we've added euphonium.
We don't have trumpets anymore, so it's more of like a little bit of a low voice moment.
I would encourage my students to draw slashes between their notes in this rhythm so that
there's a little bit of space.
One and four, one and two, instead of da, da, da, da, da, da.
I think it'll just make it sound a little bit more crisp.
Like we were talking about the ice is falling or whatever here.
And then Timpani has the same rhythm, but they get the little melodic part at the end
of 35.
And that dotted half note in the low brass, low reeds, like make sure that that goes all
the way to the rest, that we're holding that for three full beats.
They breathe on that rest even, but make sure that that sound touches silence.
And then again, they continue on in their melody at 36, 37.
At 38, we're joining in with some of the upper woodwinds and they're just, they're soft.
They're on top of that voice.
You don't want them to be too loud and it's along with the vibraphone and marimba.
And then the new melodic voice coming in is trumpet to horn, clarinet to, like we talked
about at the beginning, they kind of always have the same part as each other.
So they're going to come in and they're the stronger part, low brass get to back down.
They get to be the focal point.
Same thing as Laura said with following all the way through from 39 to 40.
And then the new voice, melodic voice at 42 is going to be the trumpets.
So we're kind of building it up trumpet and saxophone.
So as you're going, you want to talk to your students about layering here because they're
going to, you know, your low brass going to have the melody back at 34 and go, oh, I'm
the melody.
Good.
I get to play loud forever and ever.
But really they're only the focal point for four measures.
So make sure you talk to students about layering, even if you need to trick everybody by having
less students play as a new voice moves in.
That's something that a lot of people do if you just have like nine saxes in your band,
which you know, a lot of us do.
I would be real mindful in this section, you'll notice that before measure 38, the tuba and
low reeds have an entrance on the end of three.
And that repeats itself a couple of times in here.
So you will want to make sure that they're real comfortable with that kind of syncopated
feel entrance here.
And the after the first time, that's where Timpani has the one and two or three and four
and and Timpani has that over and over and over.
And, you know, Timpani is a very important part in this piece.
So make sure that that's something that is heard over the band as well.
They're kind of building up that suspense.
We're in 43 now, and we kind of have the same thing.
We're still continuing with the trumpet melody and we're building and building with the Timpani
part as I mentioned in the and entrance on the end of three, like Laura said, and we
have a big beat four accent for everybody.
So we want to make sure that that lines up throughout the whole group.
And then 46, it's kind of like quiet for a second.
And we have another little waterfall entrance with trumpet starting us out one and two,
then trumpet two, three and four, then trombone, one and two, and then low brass, low reed,
three, four.
And the upper woodwinds come in with the lows, but they're just nice and quiet, lifting
at the end of their slurs.
But you want to make sure the low people are important here.
And then this can be this will be a difficult tuning section with F sharps and E naturals
and Cs.
Like I just feel like that's going to take a little bit of some time to make sure that
that sounds really nice.
Bells are coming in with the upper woodwinds too, but make sure again that they're not
important chimes are super important at 46 because it's their own idea.
And it's like this is the first real big forte moment of the whole piece.
So make sure chimes are super important there.
And then we do the same thing again at 49 with the different staggered entrances, but
this time alto sax adds in with trumpet.
And then the trombone adds in with the low brass here on their little idea at 50 along
with bells and flute oboe clarinet one getting a little bit more active, but again, make
sure that they're not taking over.
We want this low voice part to be the most important thing going into 53.
So this whole thing kind of day crescendos and leads us into 53.
We're now we're softer.
We have a little bit different, a little bit different idea.
The moving eighth notes are going to be important, but really I feel like the melody is happening
in some of these longer value notes.
Take a look at the second clarinet part here.
All of this low F sharp to G.
I would have my suit.
I would write it in their parts before I handed it to them, but I would have them play right
F sharp so that they're only getting movement in one peaky and not having to worry.
It's just an easier motion and it's closer to the G anyway, as opposed to using your
left pinky.
And again, he did a clarinet and a euphonia moment again for color, which I think that's
I love hear that all time.
I love clarinet and euphonia.
Now we've switched to marimba too.
So we've gone from vibes to marimba.
So again, now we have a slightly different color.
We're kind of losing that metallic sound as much and you'll notice that it's written
to be played down and octave lower.
So make sure that your students catch that as well.
We have another trumpet muted section.
Remember anytime we have this, this is an effect.
So it's something that you want.
You want to make sure that they bring out here.
And again, we have this cool like we've talked about already the euphonium clarinet moving
eighth notes, but that's not really the melody.
The melody is what's happening in these longer value notes.
So they're holding these out for long tide notes for six beats.
Make sure we're not losing energy.
I always think about telling my students, students that longer value notes, white notes
need to end slightly stronger than they began.
And that concept really applies in this section right here.
You can see now we've added a little more percussion.
Now the saxophones, the saxophone family comes in with this one and four, one and two and
three and four.
That part's going to be important.
It's almost conversational between what is happening, percussion we've added claves
back in.
Now, upper woodwinds join us again while the trumpets are taking a little bit of a break.
More of this hairpin dynamics up and down on those crescendos.
All those effects are going to be really important.
We get to measure 61.
We're building, building.
You can see that clarinets and saxes have a little bit more active part in that first
clarinet.
But that's not the most important thing going on.
Clarinets should balance to saxophones, but the clarinet and saxophone part should not
cover up the half notes that are happening there.
Better building like a scalar pattern.
Exactly.
And in that clarinet part, you want your first clarinets to make sure they're playing
forked F sharp for that chromatic fingering.
And then I would even have my saxes, my second alto saxes.
This is a great place to have them play covered C sharp.
Tonally going from covered C sharp to D.
It's just going to sound way better than if they are doing open C sharp to D.
So again, that's something that I would write into the parts.
Now the half notes are really where the melody is.
Tubas get a cool part.
Tubula reads kind of add in there.
They are answering the upper woodwinds.
One and two, three and four, one and two, three and four.
So those eighth notes are passing back and forth, but the half notes are what is most
important.
The people whose half notes are changing and moving up.
That's what we want to bring out.
The snare drum could potentially get kind of too loud in this section because the part
picks up an activity level.
So be really mindful of that.
Trumpets come in.
We want the trumpets kind of to be the new dominant voice.
And then this is like one of my favorite parts of the whole piece.
This really cool timpani solo.
The timpani actually gets the melody.
One and two, three and four, one and two and three and four.
It's really cool.
The mallet choice on this needs to be a pretty staccato mallet.
So there's a lot of clarity and a lot of energy in that timpani part.
At measure 67.
So again, now the percussion, now all the percussion are in.
We have everything playing.
So it's building, but again, we don't want it to cover up what's going on.
The brass are what have the melody here in this section.
The active parts in the woodwinds and percussion need to be underneath that.
Because of some of the, the, the accidentals that are written in here, tuning is going
to be, it's going to be something you have to spend some time on making sure that the
parts are balanced out really well and that tuning is, is a priority for everyone.
Tubas enter at measure 70.
The tubas and low reeds, that's now going to be a really important part because it's
new.
We have something new and different.
But again, all of this still, I feel like is just building momentum.
We're just trying to get us to that big, almost climax moment, which is at 75.
That's right.
As we are also leading, as Laura was mentioning, all this is kind of the same at 74 though,
we have some really cool like dissonances that are written in the part.
So make sure when you have these divisi parts that you're trying to bring that out, just
because it's again, building and building and building to 75.
When we get there, we have another like scalar melody part on long notes and half notes in
the upper and mid brass.
Low people are not as important.
They're kind of like the counter melody here.
And again, the upper people are just interpreting being the ice, you know, just the little twinkly
ice along with bells and vibraphone.
So this is like 2D, full 2D band here.
You want to make sure that you balance it correctly where you can hear the trontate,
the horn, alto sax under the horn, clarinet two.
So make sure the melody part is what you can hear the most.
And then as we're continuing into 81, 82, we get a couple more like divided parts like
trumpet two has a divided part.
You want to make sure you can hear the G versus the A, make sure that that's something that
comes out of the mix.
And then at 81, we're doing a nice, you know, suspended cymbal roll into 83 is like a big
final moment.
Euphonium, tenor sax and bassoon get this one, two, three, it kind of like again adds
to the excitement and leading into 83, no breath going into 83.
And then alto sax alone has this little descending and ascending line here.
So we want to bring that out of the mix.
Get all the brass and upper voices out of the way.
Horn Euphonium take over with that thought at 85.
When trumpets come in at 86, they don't want to enter too loud.
They need to match the volume of the group before them.
And then alto sax takes over again at 87 with the same little thought process.
Everybody else is getting out of the way, decrescendoing.
We do have a full, we do have a breath mark written at 88 to 89 in your low people voices
so that that way they can be confident when they come back in at 89.
So that's just something to make sure that you circle in the part so the kids know that
that is an appropriate place for them to take a breath.
Everybody else should be leading into 89.
Yeah, that's a good phrasing spot.
When we get to 89 now, we've tapered down, right?
So the dynamic is metopiano here.
And all of these little slurred parts that you have, I would put a little bit of emphasis
on the first note of the slur.
Di-ah, di-ah, di-ah, da-da-da, and now this is where we see some of that multimeter, right?
So you're going to start to see it layering and adding more people in.
But emphasize the first note of that slur then are horn and trombone and second trumpets
come in.
That's going to be the new part that's the most important part.
Again, a 2-4 measure in there.
Now we've added upper voices in.
So we want the trumpet part to be kind of what's leading us here and you can see more
percussion is being added in as well.
I would spend time in this section making sure that we are articulating the same.
If we have da, di-di-da, di-di-da, di-di-da, making sure that all of those people are
articulating the same, breaking those parts down there.
Again building in intensity.
Timpani has a, Timpani and some of the percussion have a huge beat 4, or sorry, beat 3 moment
leading in to 97.
That's going to be really important and they do the same thing again from 97 leading in
to 98.
So all of this gets us to the big major arrival point at 99.
Now we want to make sure that the people that play the whole notes there, that that is locked
in, the people that come in on beat 2, the trumpets, and the second clarinets, that's
going to be really important, balancing those parts and not letting the flute oboe and first
clarinet cover everything up.
And the snare drum.
Absolutely.
This is very active.
Same with the bells and vibes as well, like that 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and that it can be
overwhelming.
So the longer valued notes are going to be what we're really trying to balance to here.
On this upper flute part too, I would consider having only one flute player play the top
part perhaps so it's not so screaming and have everybody else on the bottom divisi just
to help make sure that it's not overtaking your brass here.
Yeah, absolutely.
And then when the alto tenor and horns come in, pickups to measure 101, that is going to
be the most important part.
So we want to really emphasize the accented style here.
Firm fronts to the notes.
They don't necessarily need to put space between them, but they need to have really firm fronts
to all of those notes.
Now we have this same idea, this syncopated rhythm like we have had many times before.
Again, the saxophones echoing.
We want a big build into those last two measures that end again with timpani, the timpani having
the melody again.
And this horn sax part 3, 4, 1, 3 is so cool.
So make sure your kids bring that out.
Sorry.
I just love that part.
That's absolutely the most important thing there.
All right.
Timpani is huge.
It has the melody at the end.
You want to really spend some time on the wind players making sure that what they play
on beat 2, 4, and then the last note is a little fuller valued rest.
2, rest 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.
So just a little more links.
Like open throat, like tall.
Exactly.
Don't clip those notes very short.
In the percussion in these last two measures, any of your cymbal percussion, I would make
sure that they are dampening all of this so that we have a really clean, crisp ending
here.
That's a very exciting finish.
This is such a cool piece.
Oh my gosh.
Your kids will love it.
Laura and I have talked about possibly doing this with a top band at your winter concert
or even a really strong second band if that's where your program is at or if that's a little
much programming this for your top band or your second band later on in the UIL season
or even the spring concert season.
I know it's called Into the Arctic and you're like, well, that's not very springy, but it's
cool.
It doesn't matter that it's winter themed.
Your students will love it because everybody gets to be really important.
It's exciting.
It's just a great piece.
So we hope you will consider programming Into the Arctic into your new year.
Well, thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Band BFFs.