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 Big Sky Round-Up by Robert Sheldon.
Cheers to starting the conversation!
Okay, this piece is a fun, as the title kind of indicates, a western-type theme.
It's very playable but has some challenging elements for a younger band.
It's a minute and a half long.
It's in 4-4 throughout.
It starts in the key of concert E-flat and moves to the key of concert F.
Your trumpets and clarinets need to be pretty solid players on this.
The first trumpet part ends up going up to a high E.
After the key change, clarinet goes up to a high F.
And the first and second trumpet parts are often pretty independent of each other.
You definitely want to make sure you've got some strong trumpets for this.
You also need a good snare drummer for this because it's a pretty active snare drum part.
As far as percussion, you can get away with 4 players.
Really even, you could probably make it work with 3 and modifying some of the parts.
You do not need a lot of percussion for this.
Great piece, easy to do.
The bass line on this, the tuba, the bari and bass clarinet, those lines are independent
from the tenor line.
You definitely want to make sure that you have a strong tuba and low reed section in
this because that part does not double trombone-nufonium tenor.
Yep.
So here at the very beginning, we're playing in key of E-flat.
That's pretty easy for most students.
It starts out with upper woodwinds and clarinets haven't gone over the break yet.
And the trumpets, it is up high like we mentioned with first trumpets.
So you may want to only program this piece if you have a more stacked trumpet section
in numbers or perhaps you could just do one student on first trumpet and a few more on
second trumpet.
You'd kind of have to play around with it, but tuning will become an issue for first
trumpet as they get more quote unquote tired or later into the piece.
Anyway, back to what I was saying.
So we have these, this starts out with a really big accented spirited part at the beginning
with the bells part.
Yeah.
And then the low, the tenor voices respond to it kind of like in an echo and we're all
having accents here.
And so we're just trying to make it sound like a very exciting Western beginning.
Whenever you do have slurs in the part, you want to bring that out more and keep it really
long and connected because they don't happen a ton in the piece.
Now you're going to see in this a lot of ties across the bar to eighth notes.
Those are simply written releases.
Right.
And we're just being very clear with the students about we're not trying to hold it
for half a beat.
Right.
Yeah.
In fact, Laura and I, whenever we mark on parts, we will like cross out the eighth note
for instance in measure two.
I would cross out the eighth note and write off on one or minus one, whatever works for
you.
That way the kids know that their sound stops on beat one.
Continuing on into four, as I mentioned, there are some slurs, but not a ton and it's
really there for the style.
So whenever the clarinet saxes, kind of the reed in and middle parts like horn, when we
have this little part right here, you want to keep the sound long.
Ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta,
and it has that accent at the beginning of measure five.
This theme comes back over and over and over throughout the piece.
So you want to work on that a lot with the kids, making sure that they really get the
articulation and they add in the accent for the style.
And then the, you know, as Laura just mentioned, trumpet flute, we have a nice hard release
along with euphonia bassoon on beat three.
And then we have a day crescendo in seven as we're going into eight with the trumpet
melody.
The woodblock comes in in measure five and it's really, really important.
So you cannot skimp on the accessories part on this piece.
So if you don't have very many percussionists, I would say do snare and the woodblock crash
cymbals accessories part, because those are really important.
If something had to go, the bells would be, would be fine.
Yeah.
Um, so at measure eight, the trumpets have the melody, but it's deceiving because it's
really just the first trumpet with the melody.
Now second trumpet starts with them, but then they split off into their own part often.
So it's really critical again to make sure you find the right kids to be on first trumpet
here as they are the only ones with the melody.
And that means the rest of the band has to really come down in volume.
So I would pre-mark their parts to say piano and like a race park, except maybe the baseline,
I think tube apart can come out here and help just really beef up that sound.
I think the most difficult rhythm in this piece is just dotted quarter notes and then
the and and three four.
Yeah.
But as long as you teach that with a rhythm sheet or just have everybody in the band clapping
count it.
So they feel that that's really the toughest thing other than the active snare drum part.
That's a classic example of something that I would write out as a melody study for my
whole band.
So I would write out the one, two, three, four and and three, four and do that a couple
of times and have the entire band learn that part.
You can most of them have it that they do at some point they will.
And so it's a great way to make sure that they're moving together and that stylistically
they're matching and everybody gets to play that, you know, kind of a more active part.
Yep.
So into eleven you've got first trumpet chilling on an upper C so really be sure that the pitch
is there and they really shouldn't be breathing as they go into twelve and then they're going
to be up higher on D.
So just making sure that your first trumpets have a lot of air for that so that they're
not running out and going flat as they're holding those upper pitches is important.
Then we have that fanfare part again with the accents.
So we just ended like kind of the smooth calmer part and now we're back to the accented style
at twelve with crash cymbals as well.
Then we have basically the same thing as the beginning with another hard cut off on three
each time here when the horn and euphonium have the like it measure fifteen one, two,
three.
I teach the kids to make that last note just a little bit long and not to clip it too short
not go one, two, three because then it just kind of sounds like like you know like a closed
off release instead of an open throat release.
So just it can have a little bit of space to it.
Then the pickups going into sixteen are for flute clarinet nobo.
And this part right here happens this is like a different idea.
This is just woodwind melody.
So the brass are taking right even the tube apart.
We don't even have a bass a bass line here.
So this is kind of a different orla reeds.
Yeah, this is a totally new idea.
You want to make sure that your woodwind choir that flute oboe alto clarinet clarinet part
sounds really, really nice together and is balanced appropriately.
We have the first clarinet's going up to a high F here and that can get really screechy
if your students aren't tonally making the best sound.
So I would when I've played this before I will have one clarinet for sure that part
of there.
That's we both already said we both did that in the past.
That's right.
The one that makes the best sound up there.
It doesn't make that be your sectional like audition before you even start the exact.
Exactly.
This one measure to see who sounds best.
So it does not do not feel like you need to have your entire section or entire first
clarinet section on that part.
I would just put one and take everybody else either down an octave or put them on the second
clear clarinet part just for those handful of measures where that happens.
Speaking of I would do the same because the flute nobo part is like written on the same
like part.
I would make sure that the oboes if possible if they can't make a good sound up above the
staff here I would take that part down an octave too.
Definitely.
Because that's pretty high for younger oboes.
Yeah it is.
And in that first measure in 16 when it's just the flute obo clarinet with that part
you don't even have the alto to balance down to like you do in measure 17.
So I would beef up the second clarinet part take the oboes down and octave but experiment
with that to make it work for your ensemble.
The brass come back in, trumpets come back in kind of echoing that same idea again at
measure 18.
We have a couple of accidentals in here so again that is where marking the parts before
you put them in the hands of the kids is really really beneficial to make sure that we get
all of those accidentals that fun little syncopated and three in the tenor part that you have
here baseline is really important.
This whole section right here just kind of goes back and forth between the woodwinds
and brass with different ideas.
And notice it's not accented so now we're back to the smoother more until you get the
little fun syncopated part.
Yeah the syncopated part.
Like just the little interception of that.
You want to make sure on snare because the part is not as active right here that the
roll quality for your snare drummer is really really good because that can be something that
becomes a distraction here if you can hear their hands in their roll.
Again we go back and again at measure 20 and 21 we repeat what we already had so this is
kind of a recap only now we've added the bells in.
The bells are really just like a harmonic foundation for what's happening in the upper
woodwinds.
If you don't have a bell player here it's not the end of the world.
It's perfectly fine.
At 22 we go back to trumpets coming in with this kind of echoing part but now the upper
woodwinds have the accented style with them so that's something I would make sure you
spend some time making sure that we're matching the style of those accented quarter notes and
not letting the half notes cover everybody up.
At 23 we start to prepare ourselves for the key change that's coming up so now we see
this little rhythm that we had back at the beginning again more ties being sure that
you've marked those releases in your students part the woodblock part is back and so again
it's really important for pulse and to give that whole western feel as well and then we've
made it to the key change.
And the key change is really important to mark your parts because you want to make sure
that you know now we're in a new key so go back through and find like those places where
they might miss pitches especially like trumpets they might have they're playing F natural
before now they're playing F sharp so I would go through and mark it in horns you can see
they wrote like a courtesy accidental here at 25 but I would go through and mark in a
few more just to ensure that the students really understand that key change.
I have heard this piece played before when I've been adjudicating where kids do miss
the key change here and that doesn't mean that they didn't spend a lot of time on it
but maybe just their brain didn't think about it on that day so I just hate to hear kids
miss notes here and then notice that it's going to day crescendo as we're going in and
now it's like a completely different thing at 27 watch the a naturals in the trombone
part making sure that those are in tune and quiet.
Because this is can have the tendency as most of the band does not have the melody to kind
of take over the trumpet part we're back to the trumpets having the melody alone again
and first trumpet having the melody alone make sure you mark that B natural for them
so they don't miss it and then we have a little counter melody for flute oboe clarinet and
again we're up kind of high especially flutes on a C and oboe on a C those are just not
great notes and usually out of tune so before when I've played this piece I've made this
be a solo so as a flute solo I didn't even have an oboe play it and then I had to clarinet
one play and one clarinet one and one clarinet two you can do whatever you'd like to do but
it's not the melody so if you want to make it cut it down in numbers and make it be a
little solo solely that's totally cool but whatever works for your group just be aware
that that's not going to take over the melody and you still need to be able to hear the
trumpet one part particularly all the way throughout this whole bridge section is really
nice but balance can be an issue for just experimenting with your ensemble and making
the numbers work for your group as you go from 29 sorry 27 to 28 notice that that's
all slurred and flutin clarinet and oboe and then at 29 it changes articulation to tongue
in 30 as we're crescendoing and doing accents in the low person part going into 31 with
the style change again so it's kind of like quickly morphing as you're going from 27
to 31 then we're back to the same style as the beginning just in a different key and
up much higher on the first trumpet part so again tuning is important kicking out on regular
D for trumpet two part is super important as well this this is kind of like a tricky
part to be in tune first first clarinets above the break second clarinet is on throat tones
so do whatever you need to do to just make it sharp yeah trumpets are flat yeah second
trumpet do whatever you can do to be to make this sound you know cohesive big crash cymbal
moment and then we have the response from the low people mid-people part tenor tenor
part again at 33 you'll see like alto sax has a and b against each other anytime mr.
Sheldon added in those parts clarinets had it back at 31 try to bring that out just a
little bit it's just a cool little dissonance that we want to make sure has its little flavor
in the piece and then at 34 again cutting off all together but not cutting too short
on the horn part just like before we also have a crash cymbal solo on beat four which
is really fun and then at measure 37 this is a complete recap of what we had 35 I'm
sorry at 35 this is a complete recap of what we had before so again all of the same concepts
that we've talked about the cross tuning between the upper woodwinds and the trumpets being
mindful of that and you've got the bells playing this as well that this more of the group has
the eighth notes moving together so making sure that the style is in agreement with everybody
and then in measure 37 we have this really cool effect where some of the groups are playing
half notes on one and three and then others others are playing quarter half quarter so
the effect should be one two three four we should hear those strong entrances on every
beat so that would be something you want to spend some time on maybe having your students
bop this part so that it's very clear and we work to match volume on all of those so
that that's really effective then same kind of idea at 38 but with the big crescendo we're
leading into the grand finale here so a crescendo with a really good sound low voices and middle
voices playing the one two and three and upper voices echoing and the last couple of measures
where we have those dotted half notes I would treat that dotted half note like a forte piano
note have everybody play da so that we get out of the way of the two three four one the
lower voices that are coming in we want to hear that moving part last note we always
want to think tone don't clip that last note too short but notice in the percussion the
crash cymbal should be choked at the end so we should dampen bass drum choke the crash
cymbal and then make sure that the wind players are really resonant on that last one I've
played this piece before measure 40 gave my trumpets a hard time because it was weird
for them to be on a C and a D against each other and it took a lot of time for them to
be comfortable with it and sometimes it would be really out of tune because it was almost
like they were hearing the dissonance and going that doesn't sound right so they're
trying to change it so just be sure that you're really listening to all the correct pitches
here at the end you have a G flat and trombone so there's a lot of like accidentals here
and it's just kind of tricky so I would do like one note at a time from 40 to 41 and
making sure that each one is correct in tune all the brass kids are on the right partial
all those different things I just remember that being kind of an issue last time we
played this piece but we love this and anything by Robert Sheldon is is beautiful sounding
always well written the students enjoy playing it it's a short piece but you get a lot of
bang for your buck yeah for sure and good teaching opportunities absolutely we hope
that you will consider programming Big Sky Round-Up in the future and thank you so much
for joining us on this episode of Band BFFs.