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 looking at Synergy March by William Owens.
Cheers to starting the conversation!
Synergy March is an adorable, easy, little six-note march that is great for a sub-non-varsity
band or a beginner ensemble.
Or even a developing non-varsity band.
Definitely.
It is one minute long.
It's in the key of concert B-flat, single clarinet trumpet parts, really basic percussion
parts, just snare bass, crash cymbal, triangle, and bells.
So if you have a larger percussion section, you can certainly double the bells part on
marimba or anything like that.
But also if you have a small one, you can cut the bells part and just have snare bass.
I mean, and crash cymbals, there is one part with crash cymbals.
But we played this one time with two players, and the bass drum player played the crash
cymbal part on a suspended cymbal.
So you can do it even with very little.
What I love about this piece, it's very blocked 2D rhythms.
It is great.
My favorite thing to use this as a teaching tool is phrasing.
It has so many four bar phrases, but a half note in the middle of that phrase at the end
of the second bar that kids want to take a breath after.
So it's a great teaching tool for we don't breathe on bar lines.
We want to connect those longer phrases.
It's written so well and scored easily for you as a band director too for teaching different
lines of music.
There's an obvious melody line, a little harmony, and then a little bass line, and then just
the percussion.
So it's easy to talk about, you know, you're not as important here.
Make sure you're softer with those developing players, which is awesome.
I love that Mr. Owens uses a limited number of articulation markings in this.
So there are just accents actually.
They're just in just a couple of places where there are accents for the most part.
That is kind of left up to you.
And I like that the style for this eighth note wise, the eighth notes do really need to be
crispy, right?
But I love that like it allows you to talk about firmness of articulation on the fronts
of the notes, but letting the clarity of the front of the note define the articulation
in the style.
So you don't have to worry about getting kids to put separation between the notes, which
we like to avoid with younger players.
Yep.
We talk about the eighth notes are like air darts so that their air keeps going.
That's how we teach it.
So that way they don't like try to cut them too short or even make the quarter notes too
short in this piece.
Definitely.
I do think they need to be more full value.
So it starts off with a woodwind like flute oboe clarinet and the trumpets have the melody.
Altos have like a little count actually Altos have a little bit of a counter melody along
with the clarinets.
Along with the clarinets.
Yep.
And so it's really pretty.
And again, like Laura said, working on just like extending your phrases for younger players
is very important.
The bass line is pretty easy E flat and B flat and a few F thrown in there.
It's a lot of one five one.
Yep.
And at the end of the four measure phrase, everybody has three accented quarter notes.
So you can line that style up really well.
And then a cute little crash cymbal on beat four, which is so fun.
And again, like I mentioned, we only had two percussionists last time we played this in
our third band and the kid played it on a suspended cymbal and it was fine.
At measure five, the whole band has a marking of mezzo forte.
So we teach the students to come down more.
We changed when Laura and I, well, whenever I marked my parts, we changed the low brass
part to be mezzo piano or piano.
So they would stay out of the way because this part is trumpet melody along with the
saxes and clarinets.
But the trumpets are the more featured color here for sure.
Now in the accompaniment parts here, one of the things that I found that young players
like to do is they like to play that it has a quarter note followed by quarter rest, quarter
note followed by quarter rest, and they like to play those really short.
Dah.
So like even marking the parts with a tenuto over that or I always use the word tone with
my kids.
We talk about making the note as long as it as it takes to say the word tone, tone, tone,
so that it's a full value note and touches the rest.
We talk about making sure that you're off on the next foot tap.
So tap off, tap off, then don't breathe here, tap.
And they always want to breathe there.
They do.
You know, two measures.
And it's like, come on, you don't need to do that because in the very next measure, they
have another rest on beat two.
So they can make it.
But marking that in their part too, like a no breath here that will help them.
Even the trumpets, clarinets and alto sometimes like to sneak a breath there just from like
what they're used to, but they should not breathe on the between the second and third
measure.
Instead, they should take a breath between eight and nine.
And I let them breathe there because the lows have like a little one, two, three, four,
one leading into measure nine.
So that kind of lends itself to just letting them have a release.
And then at nine, they continue the melody part and the horns have like the same sort
of part as the low part.
So making sure if you've got like a lot of horns, they're not too loud.
And then there's a dotted half note going to beat three.
And then there's a pickup note in the flute oboe and clarinet part.
So that's important again for Fraser making sure that the beat three goes all the way
to four and there's no gap in the sound.
And like I remember when we played this, we would like record like that one measure and
then be like, okay, listen back to yourselves.
Is there a gap or did it stay steady the whole time?
I think sometimes kids like hear us say it all the time, like, there's a gap there.
There's a gap there, but then they don't believe you.
So if you just record like one measure, how long does that take?
Right?
And then just play it while they're all quiet on your phone or whatever.
And then they go, oh yeah, there is a gap there.
And you're like, yeah, I know, I've been trying to tell you that.
Yeah.
The ability to give them that instant feedback like that, like it's like putting a mirror
in front of them, right?
For sure.
And then, which is really, really helpful.
This next section here at 13, the upper woodwinds takeover, this would be like what I would
consider the closest thing to a trio in this cute little baby march.
But the flute oboe and clarinet takeover and alto takeover here with the melody.
And it's just a nice easy little two bar phrase where they pass off to some of the lower instruments.
They end the little two measure phrase with a half note and then go into a rest.
So that is one of those places you need to make sure that they go all the way to the
rest.
I have my students subdivide it with eighth note.
So we go one, two, three, and four, and off so that they really get the feel of what it
is.
It feels way longer than they think it is.
I remember one time on a block day, we had like a contest to see like which sections could
like pass it the best between themselves.
So we did like flutes passing to trumpets, were they the best ones?
Obo's passing to French horns, you know what I'm saying?
So you could make it fun like a fun little game.
It's not horns because horns don't play it, but like obo's passing to trombone.
Clarinets passing to euphoniums, you know, that's alto's passing to tuba.
And then have the kids vote.
Who did it best?
Who passed these phrases?
Because Laura's about to tell you I'm sure it goes to the lows and then highs and then
the lows and it goes back and forth here.
So making it be fun for your little small younger babies I think is really crucial because
it's not hard.
It's all quarter notes, half notes and eighth notes.
So just giving them the tools to make it fun but yet make it as perfect as possible.
That's right.
And teaching them the importance of that follow through.
I like right here also in the percussion part, it goes to the rim.
So the snare gets something that's just a little bit different.
It's always a lot of fun.
And then it goes on the rim to go so cute.
Exactly, yes.
Yes.
And then the lows get to have a little like response.
So it's like a call and response section.
Now we're back on the drums for percussion and they get the accented part, the portion.
So we had the little trio for two measures.
Then the lows get to have like a little response.
Then it goes back to the highs for one measure.
Then the lows for one measure again with the accents.
And then everybody together.
And those half notes at the end for both sections.
So again, just really talking about that follow through over and over and there cannot
be any gap in the sound here.
We want to make sure it goes all the way from woodwinds to brass.
And then everybody together has some moving quarter notes.
Then we have a whole note leading all the way into 21 and the lows have a little walking
bass line coming up.
And then at 21 we get this cute little counter melody.
I love this little part at 21.
So now we have the melody in the trumpets just like it was before.
We also have some harmony happening in some of the other instruments.
And then the flutes and oboes get a really cute little counter melody part.
The bells by the way does not double the flute and obo part here.
And I love this little cute little counter melody.
Half, half, one, two, and three, four.
It's really, really cute.
And again, because of the half notes, more opportunities to just think about following
through.
Right before this section, one thing I just want to touch on.
The percussion, Katie mentioned the whole note leading into this new section.
The percussion has what's almost like a roll off for leading into this next section.
One and three and one, two, three and four.
And so I would like have the percussion and your low voices with those quarter notes add
that crescendo into this next measure.
And then that will also help the whole note people have better follow through and hopefully
not take a breath.
Yes.
Hopefully.
So again, this little part's got the cute little counter melody in the upper voices,
but everybody else is doing what they've had before.
At 27, we all come together on half notes, except for the flute and obo who continue
to have a little special part.
Like a little fanfare almost.
Yes.
And then it finishes with everybody having three accented quarters.
And so just making sure everybody thinks tone, tone, tone.
A longer value, last note.
Yes.
But gosh, this is such a precious march.
It is very, very playable by any level of group.
You can make it sound really good.
Nobody's going outside of an easy range on their instrument.
And it's just such a great piece to pick.
And if your students need a little bit extra challenge, it's got a wide range of tempo
variations on it too.
So if you need to go at like a nice 120, that's fine.
If you want to push it more to the 136 side, you can do that as well.
So it allows for a little bit of differentiation depending on the skill level of your group.
We hope you will consider programming Synergy March and thank you for joining us on this
episode of Band BFFs.