Welcome to our podcast, BNBFS, the podcast where we make your music selection less complicated.
We're continuing our winter concert series with three of our more medium to medium difficult
pieces today.
They are entitled Frosty's Caribbean Holiday, arranged by Ralph Ford, Hip Hop All the Way,
also by Ralph Ford, and To All a Good Night, arranged by Michael Storey and Robert W. Smith.
Cheers to starting the conversation.
Frosty's Caribbean Holiday is about a minute and a half, a minute and 40 seconds long.
It is in the key of B flat and 4-4 time throughout.
It has so much cool percussion.
It's got congas and bongos and cabasa and all kinds of Caribbean flavored type percussion
instruments for your band.
This one, all three of these pieces have a little bit more difficult rhythms, a little
bit more range to the pieces, more style, just not as many 2D parts.
So there's all of that to be considered in these pieces.
Frosty's Caribbean Holiday is literally what it sounds like.
It's Frosty the snowman, but with Caribbean flavor to it with that syncopated rhythm.
Really adorable, like have your entire band wear sunglasses and a Hawaiian shirt over
their performance for this piece or just your percussion section even if you wanted to do
that.
But you can really kind of ham up some of the cutesy things in this.
So it has this syncopated rhythm all the way throughout 1 and 4, 1 and 4 and that gets
passed around to many different voices throughout.
So again a little bit more rhythmically challenging throughout, but fun for the students and again
hopefully by now you guys know that we're huge advocates for marking parts.
This is a really good one for helping with rhythms with up and down arrows and you're
going to come in on an and entrance here or you're going to come in on a big beat here,
that sort of thing which really helps the group.
Lots of style in this piece and that makes it sound more Caribbean.
And I like that it's really cool for teaching some unique rhythmic interpretations.
Your students cannot just play Frosty how Frosty goes.
Exactly, you're going to have to hold them rhythmically accountable for what they sing.
And it's very stylistic.
So the first melody in the flute and the trumpet along with clarinet is rest Frosty the snowman
and you like have to do the style exactly how it's written for it to sound the right
way.
So lots of tenudos, staccatos, accents, all kinds of great teaching tools throughout the
Frosty melody in this piece and the lows get to continue with that syncopated rhythm.
Lots of times they have like accidentals written in and then it goes back to the key signature
note so that's a good review for the students as well.
At 17 it has the exact same melody again.
Each time between the big melody sections there's like either a bongo roll or the low
brass might have like a little walking bass line downward but it's got cute little transitions
for sure.
Then we have a very rhythmically difficult section from 20 to 24 and the upper wood winds
with the Frosty the snowman four and one two and four and one two and.
So just getting that rhythm aligned can take some work because as Laura said students are
so used to like just playing the way that they know Frosty the snowman.
And then we have a fun little feature.
So right here at measure 25 now we're all just kind of light and crisp.
This is a woodwind feature with the support of the mallet percussion.
It's kind of conversational between the woodwinds and the brass here.
Really a light and crispy nothing nothing too challenging rhythmically in this section
until you get the fun little sports on.
Yeah.
This is the part where Frosty falls down in the lyrics.
So I don't know all the lyrics by heart unfortunately but done and done done done done and then
it's a sports on the fall.
So the kids love that with again a little bongo sixteenth notes I think or snare but
it's fun.
And then we get into a new part.
They have to still have the melody and the upper woodwinds but then trumpets get this
little new counter melody part to and and for one and and for and to and lots of syncopation
ties.
This is just a great piece for teaching students to be like more rhythmically accurate and
you have to know exactly how your part fits with everybody else's precision is really
important throughout there for sure.
Then at forty one we get a cute little interlude where it sounds like you're on the beach.
So the kids think that part's fun trumpets get a little feature and again we get back
to the frosty melody at forty nine.
This piece does go all the way up to an upper G at the very end and the trumpet one part
and an E in the trumpet two part.
So it is like we mentioned a little bit more challenging in range.
The trombone part goes all the way up to an E flat as well.
So this is definitely a piece you want to be really careful in considering if you if
you don't necessarily have that range in brass and then it ends really cute with one cha
cha cha.
So the kids just love this piece.
The audience loves it.
I've played this piece so many times with all region bands that I've had the honor of
conducting and the students just absolutely love it.
Our next piece is hip hop all the way.
This is also arranged by Rob Ford but you can tell I guess we like him.
We really like the way he arranged his music since we've chosen two of his pieces.
This piece is about two minutes long.
It's in the key of E flat and in four four time throughout it has a drum set part that
I think in order to really get the hip hop vibe you need a drum set player for this one.
This is the best piece that you can play when you go on an elementary tour.
The students lose their mind because it sounds hip hop.
It's fun.
It's got like lots of cool style to it.
I staged the drum set player up front.
Yep definitely.
In fact I let them wear sunglasses and put on like a cool looking hat last year whenever
we played it on our tour and it was such a hit.
So I think this is a great piece to play but it is a little bit more challenging in the
range for each instrument.
Your first trumpet player comes in on an E flat.
But it starts off really fun with the drum set and then three one and then big drum set
four one one and two and three.
So it's very hip hop and the kids think it's fun.
Then it has jingle bells theme and trumpet and flute and upper woodwinds.
But then there's such a cool bass line for your bassoon and your tuba and they go one
three and four and one four one.
So it's just really fun.
It's a fun little like bass line almost like an electric bass.
Below your kids you could even stage them up front too.
That might be kind of cool so you can definitely hear the low people.
But they have this cool bass line part all the way throughout and it's not repetitive.
They actually have to like learn a lot of different things.
It's fun for tuba players if you have strong ones.
Then we get everybody together gets this three and four and one and two and three four one.
So it's just neat because it's got just some cool like chromatic stuff in it.
And it's cute.
It's just jingle bells back and forth trumpets get it again and then but we kind of modify
yeah we kind of modify the rhythm a little bit.
It kind of changes every time and two three four one.
Yeah so it's a little bit more challenging but nothing crazy like it's not fast.
It's just fun and groovy.
Yeah it should be real funky.
Yes yes again lots of cool bass stuff.
Then we've got forte piano into 22 and this is where the lows get to take over with the
actual jingle bells melody.
And it's not even all the lows like I said the bass line part is still going on.
It's the tenor voices.
And then we just get these little punctuated hits in the upper people and this part's actually
pretty tricky for rhythmically counting.
Yes so this would be a good part to go through and mark in what beat everybody's going to
enter on.
This rhythm is super fun in the trumpet part.
It goes two and three and four e one.
So the kids think that that rhythm's really cool.
This is probably not a piece where you could like play it across multiple like bands.
I think it would have to be like a varsity band a high school sub non would be this would
be super fun.
So then we get back into the same melody again in the tenor voices with the same little
interjection then the upper woodwinds take over the melody with trumpets again.
Then we have a transition into concert F and we kind of change parts you know leading
into that where now the tenor voices are doing those little punctuated.
And they go all the way up trombone goes up to E natural.
So it's up high in the trombone part often in this piece because it's very different
from me phony even to a part.
At 41 we have the melody and trumpet and upper woodwinds again still have the bass line it's
getting more and more difficult and more demanding but it's so fun.
I just love the tuba part and the low reed part on this piece.
Then at 49 we have trumpets are going all the way up to a G and with more difficult
rhythms with the four e one again we have the punctuations again in the tenor line and
then the upper woodwinds still are having the melody they're not going up too high it's
really just big brass demands.
The trickiest rhythm in the whole thing happens right here this is at measure 51 where you
get a sixteenth note eighth note sixteenth note a four e in some of those upper woodwinds
that I think is the that's the rhythm that they are least likely to have ever seen before.
And I think that makes this piece even cooler because the kids are getting exposed to lots
of different ways to see sixteenth notes in time for preparation for contest music.
It all ends up with everybody kind of lining up together doing a cool little forte piano
at the end and everybody ends together with a bang so this piece is super super fun a
huge crowd hit yes for sure huge huge huge.
And our last piece is and to all a good night arranged by Michael Storey and Robert W Smith.
This one is about two and a half minutes in length in the key of concert E flat and four
four this piece the thing that I love about like Katie talked about hip hop all the way
being a great piece to do for an elementary tour.
This piece is also a great one for an elementary tour because the whole purpose it's called
a holiday encore for band every instrument section is featured every instrument section
gets an opportunity to have their little eight measure melody and phrase which I think is
great every time I've played this I've had the kids stand up every time their section
is featured.
So if you are doing this on an elementary tour it gives the students in the audience
a chance to hear what each of these small instrument groups sound like by themselves
while still playing in the full ensemble.
That's so fun.
So it starts off at the beginning in a very bright tempo of 120 with just everybody coming
in on the same rhythm little trill on top like Laura said it's kind of like a little
encore so it starts off with the with like a little rhythm at the beginning one and three
and and one and to set it up and then the flutes come in with the first feature and
they're going to play deck the halls here at the very beginning for their feature.
It's written well where it's just them with like a little bit of a rhythm underneath like
clarinet course it's it's not in percussion but it's not like they're having a fight for
the spotlight or anything like that.
They get featured everybody else that kind of things out so that works out very very
well for this piece really cute.
They get to do some really fun little rhythms here one and two and three and four and the
technique throughout most of this does lay pretty easy.
It is tricky you'll see when we get to the clarinet feature that's where the technique
is the trickiest but for most of these instruments even the technique that they have is is pretty
simplistic when we get to 13 it's now the double reed feature so even though the oboes
are the ones with the melody the bassoons are doing the fun little Irish beyond beyond
with the grace notes with them on the house top which is super fun.
So the oboes and you can have optional saxophone like if you don't have double reeds in your
program you can just do a saxophone feature here instead and so they get to play and again
it's very ornamentated like the flute one was lots of styles to Kato's accents just
a ton of fun stuff to make it sound even cooler but your bassoons get to interact with the
oboes here as well so it's kind of a feature for them in the same regard.
And the whole band comes in at 24 with like a little transitional transition to the next
section which is our clarinet section so you can see in this one because of all of the
one into two and three and four again and those are big skips that is some challenging
technique it's ACA and then GCG and if you needed to modify that at all you can take
out the second sixteenth note and just have them play one into two and three and four
and one and two or you know one and two and three and four and you can take that out if
you need to modify that for any individual players and then the kids that can handle
the technique it's great practice for them.
And this one's supposed to have kind of a polka feel to it so it's got a different
rhythm underneath with like the horn section along with the clarinets here and then at
36 you have the saxophone feature so now it's Alto, tenor and berry they get to have their
own part together because you know they don't need anybody else they have all three parts.
That's right saxophone choir we don't need to.
And then the clarinets join in with the saxophones and they kind of finish out their little melody
part with a lot of ornamentation again not ornamentation but just the rhythm sixteenth
notes making it sound fancy.
And then we have the whole band doing one two three four one and two and three four
again going into forty six with a march.
So here this is like a full band but really the trumpets are kind of leading this section
here even though full band is playing.
We wish you a merry Christmas in the trumpet melody.
So they even though this is the first time that we're like 2d when a section is being
featured I still had my trumpets stand when they did this.
Okay cool and then there is a trumpet feature at 54 so if you didn't want to have them all
stand up during the during the 2d time you can wait and then they're going to get to
play on the first time going into three four time and they're going to get their feature
on I can't tell what song this is.
Wish you a Merry Christmas.
Yes we wish you a Merry Christmas.
So it's the trumpets and then and both trumpet parts are equally important here so you want
to make sure strong players on both with a little woodwinds here and there underneath
them but again we've thinned it back out again.
Then the horns are going to come in pickups into 62 and get a chance to kind of have the
last part of that melody going into 66.
Now I really like that this is cued in saxophone so if you have like your horns might be more
confident all playing the top horn part so that we're not having to worry about split
harmonies and then you can have your altos play the harmony part and if you've got a
strong horn section that splitting those parts is no big deal great and it can truly just
be a horn feature but I like the way that you're given the option of helping the horns
out with the saxophones.
66 the tubas and the low reeds get a feature together.
By themselves they're not lumped in with the trombones.
I know that's so fun and they're going to keep going on the we wish you a Merry Christmas
and then the trombone euphoniums come in and then they get to stand up and then they join
in and have their own feature on the same March thing that the trumpets had before and
the whole band is playing again but now it's just trombone and euphonium being featured
and they're going to be standing the whole time and I would let trombones go crazy here.
We let them wail.
Yep and lots of accents but again nothing crazy rhythmically lots of repetitive rhythms
throughout all of the different accompaniment parts.
You do have a little spoken part at the end that does if you have your students do this
which I did every time I've played this we say the happy holidays to all but it's very
rhythmic so you have to make sure that you practice and get that rhythm in line or if
you wanted to leave that part out completely you certainly could.
Something else that I've done with this piece that I like and I 100% as I know all good
teachers steal from everybody I totally stole it from Robert Herring's when I heard this
piece for the first time it was when his band was playing at Midwest several years ago and
he had every instrument section wear a different type of hat and it was the same hat for everyone
in the instrument section but everyone wore something different.
Well I did the same thing with my band and I let the sections choose what type of cute
little hat that they wanted so you know the flutes had a little elf hat and the clarinets
had a Rudolph nose and the tubas had some crazy long stocking hat that went down to their
feet but everyone in the section had their same hat.
It was kind of a cute way for them to have some ownership as a section in their own part
and I loved getting to steal that idea from Robert.
Super cute.
So that is just another fun opportunity for you to let everybody shine in your band on
your winter concert.
So we hope you were able to find something for your band and we hope you enjoyed it.
Thank you so much for joining us on another episode of Band BFFs.