Welcome to our podcast, Band BFFs. The podcast where we make your music selection less complicated.
Today this is our final Fall Concert Series episode and we're going to be talking about
what we consider to be more difficult pieces for your Fall program. We will be discussing
Zombie Dreams by Roland Barrett, Cave You Fear by Michael Markowski, and Music for a Darkened
Theater by Danny Elfman, arranged by Michael Brown. Cheers to starting the conversation!
With all three of these pieces, they go through multiple key changes, time signature changes,
lots of transitions, tempo changes, all of that. So rather than give you a breakdown of key and
time and all that for each piece, we're just going to dive right in and know that they all have lots
of transitions like that, which is one of the things that of course makes them a little more
challenging. And all three pieces are about five minutes in length, between four and a half and
five minutes. They are longer, they require more range, ability by your woodwinds and your brass
players, more a lot of independence in the parts. And a lot more effects in general. From the wind
players and percussionists, lots of percussion equipment. So these definitely are just all three
of these pieces are definitely a little a little meatier, a little more challenging. So we're going
to start with Zombie Dreams. And this piece is a programmatic work. And it takes you through the
journey of a zombie. So the zombie wakes up, the zombie is starting to walk, the zombie does a dance,
a waltz in the middle, falls in love, and then maybe not he's fleeing away from his love or she's
fleeing away. So we'll take you through that. But it's super fun with the kids. They love this piece
because everybody gets something cool. And it has a fun story. So at the beginning, it says literally
in the score, zombie wakes. So this is fun because your wind section and your percussion get to do
some cool effects. Your trumpets are rumbling grocery bags to make it sound like the wind.
Your trombones and euphoniums and tubas are blowing air through their instrument with the
mouthpiece all the way in their mouth so they don't accidentally vibrate. You get chains in the
percussion. Your percussion gets to drop a chain like a zombie is trying to like wake up and like
free himself. Chimes are important or an ocean drum. It's supposed to sound just like the zombie
is waking up. So it's fine. The kids love it. And you can do as much or little as you want at the
very beginning. Then like it's kind of coming in and out, getting stronger and softer through
here with some of our lower voices. Mallet percussion very important through here. Yep,
rhythm kind of gets a little bit more but not terrible yet as we're crescendo-ing up to 11
with a big fermata. Then we have some cool percussion effects again as we're transitioning
into the zombie fully starting to walk. It's like they broke free from the chain and now the zombie
is walking and that is in the form of the low brass low reeds. And we have the low low lows going
downward in motion and the trombone euphony and going up in motion. So it's really fun and the
kids love to hear this part. It's chromatic so there's a great opportunity to be like hey see
how we see this in music. This shows up in music. Great technique teaching opportunity
making tongue and fingers move at the same time or slide and fingers move at the same time. At 15
the horns and the saxes have some rips coming in and then we've got the melody right away at 17
with the trumpets. And the the lows continue their part but obviously they're going to get softer
under the trumpets. Flute clarinet gets to add in with a little trill and then a little response
to the trumpet part. Back to the melody and trumpets. Same response in the upper woodwinds. At 25
we have a more connected flowing section with this cool suspended cymbal part on below them.
Woodwind feature with lots of smooth dynamics and we want to make sure that we get that that that
crescendo up and then day crescendo down crescendo up day crescendo down four bar phrases
so that we're not having any gaps in the sound in this section. Then the horns get to come in with
a cool part along with alto line and then we start off with 33 with it sounds kind of like
we're not sure there's like something's happening it's getting a little spookier.
Chimes have a really important part here to interject in between and then it kind of sounds
like a heartbeat at 37 and 38 in the timpani and bass drum with the bells and chimes kind of interspersing
here it's like a percussion break. Then we're back to 39 the zombies walking it's almost like your
heart was beating because you weren't sure if the zombie was still coming and then oh yes he's still
walking behind me. So then we have the same melody again same idea exact same thing that we had before
exactly yep and then of course paying attention to the differing styles here then we have a big
timpani solo and then we finish out the first part. When we get to measure 49 so there is a
key signature change and a time signature change you want to make sure that you practice that
and you figure exactly how to get your students in right on time right there it starts with tuba
and then flute and of course percussion so it's relatively easy but it does take a little bit
of time practicing that transition here. And this is the waltz section so it's one two three one two
two so it's got this little just waltz feel of course clarinet and euphonium get to have the
melody together it's a really pretty mellow sound um and you know whenever i've played this piece i
talk about the girl in the in the boy zombie and they they're starting to do a waltz here maybe
they're going to be more than friends who knows yeah could be a girl and a girl boy and boy whatever
so as we're going into uh this part here at 61 we have a really cool horn and alto counter melody
line which i like and i think it's really fun uh to bring that part out and then some more of the
little like descending lines going on underneath it and horn has several little moments like what
happened here at 61 where it's not the melody but it's really want to bring it out yeah so make sure
and make sure they're cut it's a little bit higher it's a little bit higher in their range so just
make sure they're really confident it's really solid um we get a cool muted part in the trumpets
at 68 and they do not have the same part at all so the melody is in sax one and trumpet one
but then trumpet two along with the oboe have this like counter melody part and they're they're
intermixing together so i always say these are the two zombies yeah they're dancing together
but it's very thinned out here and and that's what makes this piece a little bit more difficult
everybody's got an important part lots of exposed parts lots of exposed parts we get into 77 it gets
a little faster it's almost like they're they're going faster and faster on the waltz um and then
we have a little tuba moment at 84 leading into 85 where the in the score it says rockus it gets
even faster it's like the tempo is just picking up and picking up it's getting more exciting the
trumpet one part goes all the way up to a g um so it does get a little bit higher there's a cool uh
little descending line and trumpet two and clarinet two part and the whole band is is descending as
it gets more raucous but their parts really neat and percussion is important here too to add to that
raucous feel and i love that it's marked raucous but obviously you want to make sure that you're
working to to balance it out yeah so that it does that raucous does not mean noisy right so so making
sure that it's musically raucous but still controlled then there's a ritardando at 91 and that goes on
for a few measures then we're slower not by a lot but a little bit at 94 still in the waltz feel
and then it ends with percussion uh on the bells and then a little cute finish then we have another
time and uh key signature change and this section is called zombie crush so as we mentioned before
now one of the zombies has a crush on the other one and the kids always think this is really fun
because we always have some sort of little story to go along with it so the flutes and the clarinets
come in first with the the first zombie and then we have like kind of a lower voice come in and then
they're leading up and this is a very slow section it says tenderly in the music uh we're adding in
more voices as we go on it's got a lot of fermatas starting and stopping this is really more difficult
than a lot of the other parts because the kids have to be more musical and watch the conductor more
so this is a great piece for exposing students to getting their eyes out of the music and following
along and making it sound very musical so we talk a lot in our band rehearsals about the fact that
practice time is for learning your own part and rehearsal time is for learning everybody else's
part and how your part fits with theirs and this is a classic example of one of those like the
individual parts on their own are not necessarily overly challenging in and of themselves but putting
them together and making sure we move together and transition together that's the challenge
absolutely and that part's pretty small then all of a sudden we get back into the upbeat speed
and it says zombie fleas so one of the partners in the zombie crush decided i don't want you so
so somebody starts leaving they have the heartbeat comes back with chimes in the in the percussion
then the low brass have kind of a version of what they had before and it kind of picks up and gets
you more excited and then at one eighteen we're moving together tonguing together on all of that
yep at one eighteen we come in with a new little melodic line in the trumpet it's kind of reminiscent
of what we have before but a little bit different now snare drum is way more active here snare drum
is very important here so the tendency is going to be as this part picks up in difficulty for the
snare drummer to play too loud right so don't let it even though this is supposed to be menacing
here making sure that the snare is not overpowering what's happening in the winds yep then we have a
full band subitope piano and we are doing the the low brass line going downward again and then
little percussion moment and then the very very end so it's got so many cool transitions in it and a
lot of great teaching tools as well the next piece is cave you fear by michael markowski
and this piece is really pretty fun the kids love it and it's written on overcoming your own
personal fears um and not getting bogged down with um anxiety and being worried about things that come
i love the imagery in this piece like i feel like markowski does such a
a fabulous job of using of using sounds to convey those scary feelings that you sometimes have
as an individual and what a cool opportunity for us to have those conversations with our
students about that yep um at the very beginning we get to have uh these uh big swells crescendo
day crescendos in all the parts just kind of setting up the tone um and we have lots of
half notes and eighth notes it's nothing ridiculous but just making sure you move together and really
overdo the dynamics as much as you can your percussionists will love all the cool effects
that they get to do in this piece they get to make some really interesting sounds on the percussion
instruments the trombone and euphonium get to come in at 13 with a quarter note line and it gets
passed up to trumpet clarinet and saxophone and then we have a fermata in 16 and that's going to
be the tempo change now it's going to go faster to 144 it's 17 the flutes and percussion get to
start out with that little melodic part then clarinet and horn and sax take over with the melody
emphasis on the horn part with a really cool hi-hat part underneath where they're going to be like
grooving my kids like this piece because it kind of sounds like rock music i guess a lot of times
so the hi-hat kind of adds to that feel trumpets get to take over with some melody then the flutes
big ol glissando at 29 as we're going into 30 and i want to add like on that hi-hat part like a lot of
of younger players will make their accented notes and their tapped notes very close to the same
volume and then you're not going to get that same rock groove like katie was talking about right in
order to maximize that effect their accented notes need to be way stronger than their than
their tapped notes so just have the students work on that we have a big trumpet melody going into
34 35 36 37 is a big punchy part with the brass they love this in the little trill in the upper
woodwinds they sound kind of creepy at 39 and 40 and i love the mallets here as well yep so they
all get the chance to do this cool like kind of rock feel again um and again we've got rim shots on
the snare drum here so it's just kind of sounds really fun there's a lip fall at 43 we have uh
lot like the hi-hat is getting more intense here lots of mallet stuff going on and then at 45 we
have some crescendo day crescendo hairpin dynamics again so it's all meant to just be really
effectively yeah we're just trying to create an effect create an ambiance at 53 we immediately
slowed down to about half tempo and the upper people are on a cue the uh this piece calls for
something called a super ball mallet and you actually need three of them um one is being used
on the timpani and two are being used on the tam tam or gong um i believe there's even one for the
bass drum further in on the piece but i could be wrong on that but this piece you you should look
up how to properly play a a super ball mallet um so that you can show your kids how to do that but
it sounds so cool here it's meant to kind of sound like that like laura was saying like the anxiety
is coming up and you're not really sure what is that sound i don't know what that is and you want
to encourage your percussion to really go for all of this part the band is just playing long chords
and notes above them this is one of the cool yeah this is one of the coolest parts of the piece i think
and and certainly the that that effect that the percussion section is adding is what is giving you
this whole vibe here yes the alto saxophones get to play a multifonic note here that also adds to
that scariness and then a woodblock comes in at 59 and they're just supposed to free go
slower and slower on their instrument so it's like really kind of makes you feel like your
heartbeat is racing then we have a little bit more of the super ball mallet part in the percussion
along with trumpet having the melody here and we're kind of getting into some more
swells and falls we're still just kind of maybe trying to figure out why are we afraid that sort
of vibe as laura said here we have a little scrape on the the suspended cymbal or actually i think
it's on the timpani or not timpani i'm so sorry on the gong and then the trumpets get to say
so it's just supposed to sound like really spooky here and like unsure uh then we have some melodic
stuff in the woodwinds followed by the brass it's kind of conversational here all of this with these
instruments coming in and out like it requires a lot of confidence and independence in your players
they need to make sure that they're counting their rest really carefully you can't be leading into the
next section that's right you can't be held accountable for queuing every single solitary
entrance your students need to be really accountable for counting carefully we have a ritardando
going into 75 then we're back to the original faster tempo uh we have that horn and alto part
again coming in on their melody but then at 79 this is very rock feel here uh the low brass get the
melody and low reeds and oh my gosh the kids love this part so much it even says aggressively in the
part and they just go bananas for this it's like super fun for your low people and it's chromatic
and really cool and it sounds awesome yeah 87 we get some upper woodwind melody um and then euphonium
gets to add in with a cool counter melody um at 92 we've got some trumpet stuff leading us up into
the very end 96 is kind of a big moment for everybody um the low people have the the half notes
here and then the upper woodwinds are just playing on top of them not taken over and then the trumpets
get to flutter tongue and that's always easy and pick their own thing like they get to just
pick whatever parts they want to play and it's supposed to sound like a monster coming at you
and it's like super fun for the kids because they get to kind of play around with it and we get the
multifonics back on the saxophone so and in this upper woodwind part here just making sure because
the first clarinet part is up over the break your first flute part is up pretty high making sure
that they're matching style really well and not covering up all this cool effect stuff that is
happening in the brass there's trombone effects we're still we're doing lots of stuff in percussion
then we're going to slow down going into 104 we have a big uh Seisura and then we stop and then
come back in at the same faster tempo to end it out so this piece is really fun for just exposing
your students to different things that they can do on their instrument um but not in a relatively
difficult rhythmic way or anything like that one of the things that uh before we move on to our
final piece in um this series one of the things that I do think makes this a little bit more
challenging because there is not a melody that they're familiar with there's not you know like in
our final piece you'll hear that they they might be familiar with the beetle juice theme or the you
know uh the the theme from the um Halloween Christmas Halloween whatever uh there's not a melody in
this that they know so that independence again is going to be really really really important
making sure they know their individual parts and um and can put that all together like mature
musicians our last piece is music for a darkened theater uh by Danny Elfman and arranged by Michael
Brown and we love this piece in this piece this um covers music from tales from the crypt the old
tv show your kids are probably not going to know what that is but their parents will uh the night
bare before christmas that was the movie I was trying to remember the name of um Edward Scissorhands
Beetlejuice and Spider-Man so the kids are going to recognize a lot of these musical themes but
this piece is super challenging because it has so many transitions again lots of independence key
changes all of that and I would say the rhythms are more difficult in this piece than anything
we've seen so far yeah they're definitely more advanced we start out with a really really uh
brisk tempo even though everyone is on longer valued notes here bells are really setting uh the
the pulse when they come in in the third measure um then the saxophones and trumpets um enter with
their little punctuated parts then we get the cool if you've ever seen tales from the crypt you get
the cool one and two and three and four and uh that you hear at the at the start of that the saxophones
and the horns I like the entuba the instrument combinations in this piece I think are really
creative um they have the melody starting at measure 11 now I haven't said a whole lot about
percussion but there is a ton of percussion in this and all of the little accessory instruments
are really really important this is one of those pieces that you might have to have percussion
just run around and cover multiple parts right I will tell you as a percussionist those were my
favorite pieces to play I loved getting to run around and play multiple things but there's a lot
of things you need to make sure are covered in this at 11 again that melody is in tuba horn
and alto and again you're going to see lots of interesting um combinations of instruments in this
so we play through this whole tales from the crypt melody here which just keeps building we pass
the melody around to some different instruments opportunities for dynamic contrast forte piano
notes again all just effective stuff um as we get into the first um the new piece this is halloween
yep and this is of course the kids will probably recognize this piece from the movie
and it's a lot slower here it's in halftime so that's kind of nice um that you can just teach
what that means to the students um and this has got a lot of like staccato parts for the this is
halloween part but then it's also got like flowy parts on top of it um when it's not the melody part
so that's pretty neat just teaching the kids about differing styles and how to bring that out
like I mentioned a little bit more tricky rhythms here and there one and two and three and four and
comes back over and over it's not ridiculous but it's something and then we have a cool piccolo
and tuba solo that's always fun at 34 um and that's cute in nature kids love that um lots of just
cool parts here we have one little measure of three four um then we're going to have an alto solo
cool temple blocks part cool timpani part um as we're kind of keeping going into the same theme
and building in more and more voices at 43 we're all in and we're all on the same rhythm with
house top accents except for the baseline tuba bass clarinet um he changed here so be mindful of that
yep um and so just talking about moving together making sure we all can tongue at that speed
with ease uh 16th notes you know that can be a challenge for some students so just teaching them
all about how to uh tongue quickly with a great sound um and then we've got some cool little like
grace note moments coming into uh the little finish here and then we do a ritardando going into 49
where it says the introduction to titles which I believe must be the spider-man type thing this
one I think is the Edward Scissorhands oh Edward Scissorhands yeah and and this one of the things
that I think is so cool about this every instrument gets the melody at some point in this piece so
everybody has an opportunity to play something cool um this is faster than the speed that we were
going before so many accidentals in this section but it's not fast faster than we were going before
but not too fast lots and lots of accidentals this kind of reminds me that's right of that middle
section of kview fear that we've talked about that um that this is rhythmically this is not very
difficult uh we'll have to move together but that's exactly right this is a good opportunity to maybe
bop this section with your band to make sure they understand exactly the precision and the vertical
alignment phrasing making sure that we're all holding over those bar lines here um the uh
middle voice alto horn euphonium get some cool moments in this then we lead in with the fermata
the upper woodwinds and the bells before we go to the really really fast tempo change one of the
things I love about this tempo change here is there is no percussion instrument or any articulation
it's just long notes so it makes the tempo transition in this section a lot easier that's
always a good thing to have then we get into the uh beatlejuice theme at 73 you get the low people
to start out with a walking bass line then we have a one and two and happening throughout here
and the and part is from most of the winds so that's going to be kind of difficult to line up 100
percent working the alignment between the yeah downs and the ends and yeah playing on the ends is
kind of making sure your students aren't breathing on everyone of those eighth or s uh then we have
some melody in the horn at 81 and we have this really cool section at 85 where the 16th notes
are being passed back and forth one e and a two e and a one e and a two e and a um so making sure
that we're passing it back and forth it doesn't slow down it sounds very seamless through the parts um
this is where the rhythm gets a little bit trickier too we get some uh 16th triplets that come in
we have a lot more 16th notes uh being punctuated in here and there um and then at 92 we have an
entrance on the end of three so just we're getting a little bit more tricky with just rhythms than
most of the other pieces we've discussed so far today um and then we're coming in with again some
more punctuations on the melody and low brass has their moment here and they get to play the component
98 we're all in it's 2d uh we want the trumpets to be really important here along with the low
people woodwinds are just on top but they're playing you know kind of high on their instruments so
just make sure they're not screaming um and then we're all going to ritardando into 108 um and then
we have a really cool percussion moment this is a this transition here in this section the percussion
need to be really confident so the tempo um drops down pretty dramatically and we switch feels now
instead of all of the 16th note action one e and two e and three and four and we switched to triplet
mode this is where we're getting into that spider man main title uh theme here so those triplets need
to feel very even everybody is going to either have triplets or quarter triplets at some point in
here so this is a good teaching opportunity if you've never taught two beat triplets or quarter
triplets to your ensemble and that would be good if you are thinking and playing it for like uh one
of your pieces for contest like if you're going to have a piece with a lot of quarter note triplets
in it this would be a good one to expose them to that all of this here again tons of accidentals
so this i have found because this section right here is really thickly textured and scored like
we had to break this down to make sure everyone was playing all the right notes or know that is
a right note it's a weird chord or that's a wrong partial so you just want to make sure because it's
very thick here um that the that the students are confident on their individual parts we have a lot
more quarter note triplets here along with eighth note triplets in the percussion so just timing and
alignment there's even like a triplet coming off of a tie that's that's pretty tricky to put together
early in the year so this is not a piece for for young band not for not for the faint of heart yes
we continue on with the spider man theme then we have some more eighth note triplets leading us up
building to the end making a big big exciting finish it goes faster uh allegro goes quicker here
all the way to the end with lots of the it's the is that the beetle juice theme coming back yes
yeah with the accents going into the very end so this piece is just chock full of rhythms
learning opportunities style markings funky rithmic entrances yeah it is it is a lot but it's
so fun and this is one of those pieces that even if you didn't choose to program it for a fall
concert it might be a great end of year piece as well just because it has so many movie themes
but we love this we we hope that these three pieces today a little bit more difficult
um have given you something to think about considering programming for your ensemble coming up
yeah thanks for joining us on this episode of Band BFFs