Welcome to our podcast, Band BFFs!
The podcast where we make your music selection less complicated.
This is our second special episode where we're going to be discussing fall pieces that you
could use for your concert.
And these pieces are more of the medium easy slash medium range in our opinion.
Today we're going to be discussing Count Rockula by Timothy Loist, Dark Adventure by Ralph Ford,
and Pit in the Pendulum by Michael Story.
Cheers to starting the conversation!
Alright, Count Rockula by Timothy Loist.
This is in the key of E-flat or C-minor.
It's 4-4 throughout.
It is about a minute and 40 seconds long.
It does have split clarinet parts and two trumpet parts, but they often double each other.
The range is not super crazy on this piece.
It has an optional drum set part, which is really cool.
If you have a strong drum set player and lots of other little accessory instruments that
make it sound really cool.
I love this piece.
It's very cute.
In the title, I mean it says Count Rockula.
It's very rock based.
It sounds like the Munsters TV show theme to me.
It has a little Adams family theme in the middle too.
It would be really fun to play if you were going to try to have young 4th, 5th, 6th graders
coming to your concert in hopes of capturing their love for band as they're making their
choices for electives for middle school or junior high because again of the drum set
part.
You just think anytime you can do that, it makes kids think it's really fun.
It's very active in all the percussion parts.
At the very beginning, we have flute and trumpet melody along with actually trumpet
one melody.
Not very much like style, but it comes back and back one, two and three and four and one,
two and three.
Just teaching the kids to do the right articulation from the up, from the front and making sure
that everybody continues that as it comes into other parts.
It repeats itself.
This piece is really repetitive.
Once they get that little idea down, then it's really easy to copy and paste.
This is a piece that you might just consider teaching the melody to everybody in the ensemble.
It's got some technique.
You want to make sure the trumpets playing G-sharps and things, they'll need to work
on their finger technique to move their fingers quickly and together make sure that the tongues
and slurs are lining up.
My clarinets have G-sharp to A a lot, so just talking about all that technique as well.
Talking about proper articulation, it's not all tongued.
It has some slurs thrown in there and making sure that the students really pay attention
to the differing rhythms as well.
Not breathing after half notes at the end of bar lines, so it's a good phrasing as well.
There aren't many parts at once.
You basically have the melody line.
Like here at measure five, it's the clarinets have the melody.
Horn and alto has a little counter melody, and then you have the low people on a bass
line.
Little interceptions with like vibroslap here and there, or fun, slapstick, things like
that.
It makes it just sound even cuter and more rocky and feel.
Again, it's real repetitive.
Once they get the idea.
It always has the one and two and three, and then some sort of thing like slapstick or
shaker or whatever, that's a slapstick again.
At the end of each phrase.
We get a little bit different musical idea at 13 where the low voices get to take over
a different melody.
It's staccato, so we want to make sure everything is kind of light and lifted.
Then we have that syncopation, one and and three.
Make sure stylistically everything is really good there.
The woodwinds echo what happens in the low brass and low reeds.
Again, percussion, interjecting, all of the fun stuff.
Then we get some really cool effects, which I like.
First of all, there's a flexitone in percussion.
I mean, let's be honest, how often do you get to play a flexitone?
Not very often.
So that's kind of cool.
The clarinet players get to take off the mouthpiece and barrel, play on mouthpiece and
barrel, and they kind of wiggle their hand at the end.
So we get a little wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah sound.
It's really cool.
It's an effect.
We know how Katie feels about the effects.
These are not horrible.
It doesn't stand out.
So yeah, and then it's the same rhythm or the melody again at 17, except now it's the
low people with the melody with the cueable effect.
So everybody gets the melody at some point.
Yep, and that's really fun.
And then we're continuing these effects.
And then again, we have the one and two and three at 24 with another slapstick.
So that's fun because again, like Laura mentioned, it's very repetitive.
Then we have a new section at 25 though.
So this is the lows.
Like the lows had before, but now the trumpets get to add in with a little chromaticism with
the xylophone.
And that's pretty fun and cute.
And then the clarinets get to do it next with the altos.
And then at 29, we go back to the same melody with flute, oboe and trumpet.
Lots of accidentals, lots of like some finger technique things that will need to be worked
out and trumpet and clarinet especially.
Yep.
And then same little deal here at 32.
Then we start the little Adams family theme with the clarinets doing triple at one, snap,
snap, triple at one, snap, snap.
So that's fun because the kids of course get to snap and they are familiar with this theme,
I'm sure.
Then the lows get to come in with like an accented part on top of that at 37.
Then we still have some snaps going on.
And then at 41, we're back to the same melody again.
Same people that's the higher people again.
And then we're doing the one and two and three except it's quarter notes this time at 48.
And then the drum set.
Little drum set fill.
Yep.
It gets to a little fill and then the whole piece ends and everybody gets to say boo,
which is fun.
It's cute.
Yeah, it's really cute.
This is a really fun piece.
Kids like it.
And like I said, it's relatively simple but there is some technique and some chromaticism
that we have to be aware of in order to make this piece really successful.
And again, drum set is optional, but really cool if you have a solid player for that.
Absolutely.
So our next piece is Dark Adventure by Ralph Ford.
And Laura's going to tell us about it.
This piece is in 4-4 throughout.
It's in B-flat or G-minor.
It's a little over three minutes long, so it is a little bit longer.
There's a little bit more endurance in this.
And we have some tempo changes in this.
This one features horn a lot.
Set bass clarinet and horn.
So while those parts aren't necessarily super challenging in this, they will be isolated
and featured, so you want to make sure that you have strong players in those sections.
So it starts off a little bit slower, mysterious.
So 4-4 at the beginning, it's kind of pretty and flowy with like a little system and a
simple scrape in there, which kids think that's really fun.
And then we're going into 8 where the full band is going to crescendo in to 9.
And at the beginning, it does bass clarinet.
Like bass clarinet is not optional in this.
And I personally, I know it's cute and very sax and saxophone, and if you did not have
a strong clarinet section, you could make this more of a saxophone feature.
But that clarinet color, that woody color of the clarinet and the bass clarinet being
the dominant voice is a really cool sound at the beginning of this.
For sure.
So we're going to achelorando from 8 to 9, which is nice because there's not like anything
active, they just have to watch the conductor.
And then we're going 144 at measure 9, so a lot quicker.
The style changes, now we've got accents, the percussion gets more active, but these rhythms
are not difficult.
We're going to see this come back over and over again where the full band has mezzo-piano
going to forte as a dynamic effect.
Again, you just have like a really active snare drum part, so make sure you put someone
there that can do it evenly and not loudly at a fast tempo, all the 16th stuff.
Then we have some like accidentals coming in at measure 17.
And this is important because we've got some A-flats, so you want to make sure when you're
marking your parts that you like make that obvious that we're going to third position
in the low brass.
We're crescendoing and the percussion get this cool part along with the upper woodwinds
and bells.
And then snare drum again is kind of adding the excitement going into 19.
And suspended cymbal here is also really important to give that really cool effect.
Absolutely.
Then we're a little bit different at 20.
It says optional vibes, which it sounds really cool if you have vibes, so I would try to
include that if possible.
Yeah, definitely.
And then it's got some upper woodwind parts.
This melody that you hear at 21 is stated first by vibes if you have that, and then
flute and oboe.
And this melody comes back several times.
Many people end up playing the melody.
It's not terribly difficult, but it has a lot of skips.
For the woodwind players, that's not really that big of a deal.
Right.
For the brass players, when we start to add this into the brass players, the skips do
become a little bit bigger issue.
You just have to be aware of that.
But that is the melody.
And I like this congas part here too, because it just gives it a little bit of a different
vibe just in the percussion.
It's a little bit more mellow, which I like.
And then the light little cabasa.
And it's just woodwinds.
It's a woodwind feature.
It is.
This is a woodwind feature right here, and I would definitely have it just be woodwinds
if you can, if your woodwinds are strong enough.
And the little light accompaniment style that's taking place in the clarinet and saxophones
and low reeds, I tell my students that they need to listen to what's happening in the
cabasa.
So that light staccato stuff needs to match what's happening in the cabasa.
Then we get to measure 29, and now we add the brass in, but it's still just the flute
oboe and now clarinet playing that same little spooky melody that we heard before.
But the same accompaniment parts, there's basically three parts.
So basically three parts here.
And I like the bass line throughout this piece too.
It's just kind of fun.
It's got little cute chromatics in it.
But it's not difficult.
You just have to know who to listen for and how to prioritize the melody.
That's right.
Yep.
So it's just continuing on.
And then as we're continuing on, we have now some more accents and a crescendo, but
it's the same thing we had before.
One and two.
Yeah, back to that same statement.
One, two, three, four, one and two.
Yep.
Then we've got the mezzo piano going into the forte again.
Some real active percussion at 41, 42.
This is what Laura was talking about, the alto and the horn take over that spooky melody.
But this is a little bit tricky for horns.
You probably want to check that out before you definitely program this piece because
now we're going to go up to from a low D all the way up to a high D to a C sharp.
These are not the easiest pitches to get on on a horn on a good day.
And if you have a younger section, this might be a lot for them.
Or you could even make it be a solo if you wanted to.
We even have an octave jump from D to D in the middle of it.
It's not horribly difficult, but it will take some time to make sure that they can be accurate.
It really is one of those things that they need to get the melody in their ear.
When they get the melody in their ear and they really understand how it's, yeah, then
it makes it way easier.
And then we go back to the flute oboe, having the same melody, except now we've added in
the trumpet and they continue on with that spooky melody.
Just be careful when we land finally at 57 that we're kicking on the trumpet D and flute
and oboe C that we really get that in tune because they're going to hold that for a while.
And we're retardant doing going into 59.
Which is another time where here we are, we have a tempo change, but there is no time
keeping.
So it's really nice.
Just watch the conductor, right?
And we're back to the original tempo again with horn and sax, having the melody.
Same thing like we had at the very beginning, right?
And this is the B section, so totally different.
Harder to, even though it's not technically as demeaning, I think this section is harder
to make it sound seamless.
And there's even a trumpet solo in here and you could play it as a solo if you didn't
have somebody just totally ready to do that, but it's featured back and forth with the
trumpet and then the horn and the alto continuing on.
Even the lows are getting some cool moments going down, down, down into low, a flat and
tuba.
Trumpet continues on and as Laura said, it just needs to be very seamless.
All the half notes have to go all the way the bar line.
Kids are just trying to make sure that it sounds really smooth, connected and pretty.
So this is good because it's kind of like a lyrical section in a piece.
And no percussion, virtually no percussion.
There's some suspended cymbal and things, but virtually no percussion here.
Not like a pulse, right?
So watching is going to be important, subdividing so that we can stay together.
Lows get to come in on beat four and take over a little bit for a moment and then upper
flutin' oboe again.
Now we're going to slow down even more and then go straight into a nacella rondo.
So this is the first time that we have had to like move together, but everybody has kind
of the same thing, one and two and three and four and one.
Then we're back to the original faster tempo from the beginning.
So I would work on that transition quite a bit to make sure that it lines up.
And then we have the spooky melody again.
This is a woodwind feature again with no brass.
And of course bells are playing along with them.
It's very much copy-paste like what we had at the beginning.
83, the trumpets take over again along with the upper people.
And now we've added in xylophone just as a different flavor and color in there.
It's just going to continue on doing the same thing, crescendoing, same deal we had here
at 91.
So piano going to forte again and then we're going to crescendo, do a sports sando piano.
And each one will get louder and louder as you get higher up here.
This is one of my favorite sections.
I love this big, this effect section where we have all of the half notes.
We have the eighth note wiggles at the top that just really need to get out of the way.
They should just not crescendo.
Absolutely.
Just be quiet, move your fingers in time and get out of the way.
And we're building one, three, one, three, one.
Just layering in all of these different parts.
It's really cool.
It kind of makes for a big climactic ending.
Yep.
It sounds really neat.
And then we're just, obviously we're leading into the percussion break and then the whole
piece ends with that same rhythm from before.
So this piece is great because it does challenge your students a little bit more with the lyrical
and the tempo shifts and things like that.
The range and the melody, the skips, that type of stuff, the duration.
Right.
It's quite as simplified as Count Rockula.
So it's a little bit more challenging.
And then our last piece is The Pit in the Pendulum by Michael Story.
This is one of my absolute favorite pieces to program for fall concerts.
It works for a wide variety of levels of bands.
It is in the key of B-flat or G-minor.
It is in 4-4 and this one is about three minutes in length as well.
Now fun, I'm going to just share a little bit about this piece before we start talking
about the music itself.
Michael Story actually wrote a series of pieces on Edgar Allan Poe's short stories.
The Pit in the Pendulum is an Edgar Allan Poe short story.
This is one of them.
He also did The Telltale Heart and one other one, I think Annabelle Lee.
I think that's what it is.
You can look those up.
Those are also great pieces.
This is just my favorite one in this particular series.
If you have ever read the short story, The Pit in the Pendulum, I think this is a great
cross-curricular opportunity for your students.
T-Tas.
That's exactly right.
So having them read the short story and understand what the music is trying to convey, just very
briefly, the story is about a prisoner that is in a cell.
The cell is dark.
There is a pit in the middle of the cell and he can't see anything.
His arms are bound and he determines that the walls of the pit are closing in on him.
So eventually he is going to fall down in the pit where there are spikes at the bottom
of the pit.
Meanwhile, from the ceiling, a big swinging pendulum with a blade on it is coming down
on him, closing in on him.
So he's trying to escape, but he's bound.
It's dark.
He can't see.
He ends up taking some of his food crumbs and getting them on his ropes and trying to
get a rat in the cell to eat his ropes, to chew his ropes apart, which he does and ends
up, he does end up escaping, which I think the music absolutely conveys.
But the intensity of all of that, I think Michael's story does a really incredible job
of conveying that musically.
I've played this several times with lots of different groups.
One year we even did it with our theater department and our theater department actually constructed
the whole scene and performed it while we played the music.
It was really, really cool.
That is so cool.
There are lots of really cool cross-curricular things that you can do with this, but let's
get into it and talk about the piece.
So it starts out accented with some marcotto accents and house top accents.
And then we've got big timpani and snare drum throughout this piece, conversing back and
forth with the band.
Make sure you pick a good timpani player.
And then we've got upper woodwind melody, a little softer but smooth and connected and
slurred throughout here.
And then we're leading into ten where it's a brass choir and it's really pretty.
And it does have a lot of chromaticism in it, but it has a cool sound to it.
Yeah, you want to be real mindful of the accidentals.
This whole introduction section here, this slower section to me, reminds me, like I envisioned
the prisoner being marched to his prison cell.
Like he's just been sentenced.
So it's a little slower.
It's kind of, it's very heavy.
Yeah.
At 14, the low or kind of like the middle voices have this one, two and a three, one
and a two.
That's kind of like, I feel like it was like kind of dread.
Like he feels the dread in the pit of his stomach, which was kind of cool.
I just think it's well written.
It sounds fun.
The kids will like it.
Then we're going to have a retardando going into 17.
You know, the students do have to follow us on this one.
And then we're going to go faster at immediately at 17, a little quicker at 130.
And the clarinets get the melody, which is really fun and it's not difficult.
It's below the break.
It's really, it lays easy in your fingers as long as they play B natural.
Right.
And then you just have these cute little interspersed low people.
And then the trumpets get to come in with this new melody and it sounds really pretty.
You do have to make sure your trumpets sound great here because it's just trumpets on the
melody and that's it.
And very trumpets one and two.
So you don't want cracks or anything like that.
So you know, you'll have to work on that to make sure it's really good.
And it keeps going forever and ever and ever.
You got like little low people things going into 29, but we're still having the trumpet
melody with clarinet just moving underneath them until we get to measure 35.
And that first trumpet goes all the way up to an E flat and it needs to sound easy.
It need none of this should be forced.
This isn't aggressive at all.
And then we're at 35 and we have more accents now instead of being as mysterious.
Now it's like a little bit more forceful in the low person part.
Maybe this is where the pendulum comes in.
One or three, four and one.
I don't know.
That sounds like a little pendulum part.
You can talk to your kids about whatever they think it sounds like.
It's easy for bass drum and timpani to play way too loud here.
They have these big quarter notes.
Boom, boom, boom.
And it's real easy for that to be too loud.
So just make sure that they're balancing.
I tell my tuba and timpani player you don't play louder than the tubas.
Yep.
At 39 we're getting a new rhythm here in the low people and I think it's really fun.
One, two and and, two and and and it's always accent on the and.
And so just sounds that anticipation.
It sounds really cool.
Clarinets are still continuing to doodle.
Trumpets are still on the same melody, but now we've added flute and oboe along with
them and mallets on that melody part.
Saxophones are along with the clarinets now.
Yep.
And so everybody's just building up the suspense.
We're playing this part 47 same thing.
Literally it's the same people.
So it's just the same melody.
And then we're going to do our little, the pendulum part, I guess, from 53 to 54, crescendoing
to 55.
Now, when we get to 55, we have trumpets and octaves on octave E.
And clarinet.
Yeah.
And clarinet and that is a, I mean, this is a tough section to make sound good.
So make sure that you're putting the right kids on the higher notes and we're really focusing
on it.
This is, this really is building tension.
This is where I imagine that he's like escaping from the ropes.
One, two, three and four, one and two.
You really want to emphasize the difference between the accents and the staccatos in this
section to really help build that intensity.
Then the low middle and lower voices kind of punctuate in between.
So this is just again, a tension building section, but it's easy to make this sound
really bad if that tuning, that cross tuning is not very good.
Yep.
And then we're building or getting a little softer going into 63.
And then we have some like doodly parts again in the mid sections.
There's no percussion pulse here.
So making sure that all those eighth notes are watching to make sure we all move together.
And then it's even softer as we go into 66.
This seems like it would be building up in the tension too, because it's going to crescendo
from this point on.
And continuing to build and build and build.
And then 70, this is my favorite part of the whole piece.
70 immediately gets faster.
There is no achillorando.
So we hit 70 and everybody is playing the same type of part that they had before, only
faster except the snare.
The snare is the only part that has changed.
And it's real easy for this snare part to be way too loud here because they're excited.
And the snare part changing and the tempo going faster are literally what makes the
intensity build here.
Right.
But as Laura said, it's basically the same music, same parts happening at once as we
go into this ending portion.
You just want to continue to make sure you can always hear the melody.
Now we're going to drop down in volume at 84 again and build it up just like before.
And then a nice crescendo into the ending.
Making sure that the clarinet and altos are leading in those eighth notes in the last
two measures.
Everybody ending one end, altogether choking and dampening all percussion at the end.
This is always a kid favorite and a crowd favorite and a really cool opportunity for
you to teach your kids something other than just the music.
Learn a little bit about Edgar Allan Poe and his writing as well.
I think that sounds awesome.
Thank you for joining us on this episode of Band BFFs.