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 Spania by David Schaefer. Cheers to starting
the conversation. Spania is a fantastic Spanish style march.
It's about two minutes in length. It's in the key of concert, E-flat and 4-4 throughout
though it is riddled with accidentals. It has split clarinet parts, two clarinet parts,
two alto parts, two trumpet parts. The low brass part is combined, which is nice. It
requires about five to six percussionist minimum though you can split some parts if you have
a larger percussion section. You need a really strong shaker player on this and it has some
timpani feature. You need the snare player to have good timing.
If you have to leave anything out, the xylophone would be a part that you could leave out though
we definitely like the color that it adds to the Spanish style.
This piece is called a medium easy online. We both feel it's about a grade two, like a
pretty easy grade two. But it's so fun and the kids love playing this piece because it
is a Spanish style. It's very strong. It's got a fun achelorando at the end, which we'll
get to in a minute. It starts out like Laura said in 4-4 and very bold. It's not a fast
tempo. Everybody has accents. I teach the students to have a little bit of daylight
between the dotted quarter note and the eighth note. Ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, to keep
it really lifted in style. The kids just find this so fun. It's got a cool little alto and
trumpet two part at measure four where it resolves along with first clarinet. And then
it kind of repeats. Lows come in on beat two each time and it's like really impactful and
the kids think that's really fun too. The scoring of this is really blocked throughout.
So this is a piece that I think lends itself really well. You've heard us talk before about
doing a melody sheet where you take some of the most common themes that happen in the
piece and write them out for everyone in the band so that you're teaching it to everyone.
And this piece is scored in a way that I think really lends itself to that teaching tool.
When I've heard this piece performed before, a lot of times bands don't make a concerted
effort to hold from measure four to measure five when the main melody repeats again. So
making sure that that is something that always happens is important. And then everybody ends
together at eight and there's an immediate tempo change. Like Laura mentioned, it's
driven by the shaker and the clave as well as the snare drum and the timpani. So it's
like a percussion feature. The shaker part here, Katie and I were discussing when we
have played this before, the shaker part is so important and it needs to be as dry as
possible. So a larger shaker really does not lend itself to make that happen. So when we
have played this, I like an egg shaker. I think that's a great way to make that happen,
but you could even use, you could substitute a cabasa and take some of the beads off so
that you can make it that dry, crisp sound that it needs to be.
I mean, it's written at 142 and it's in eighth notes. So it's like really, really difficult
to keep it sounding exact if you don't think about the shaker part. So that is important.
The lows come in at 12 with this like really fun syncopated part and the beat four is marked
staccato and it should be short and not connected to the next part. One and four, one and four,
one and four, one and then a big four, Tapeano along with big timpani and woodwinds leading
into 16. So the timpani is super important.
Definitely. When I hear groups play this, one of the things that I hear a lot of groups
do is overly accent that staccato. You'll hear one and four, one and four and it needs
to be really light. It needs to be really light. I even taught out to our kids, we would
say firm, firm, soft, firm, firm, soft so that they really get it in their ear that
it is not accented. It needs to be light.
Good. At 16, the woodwinds come in with their little melody and the, all the lows need to
back off in volume along with French horn there, saxophone. There's not as many of the
woodwinds playing the melody so really like mark it in the parts ahead of time. At this
section everybody's going to taper down to piano level.
And it's in the lower tessitura for the glutes and the clarinet.
Right. It's not up above the staff or anything so you want to make sure they can be heard.
Talking to students about the rule of accidentals and how they carry through the measure is
very important. Trumpets come in with a little feature at pickups to 20 with everybody
doing a forte piano and the big timpani again going into that section. They should start
that very confidently. It has a crescendo marked underneath it, but we taught our students
to start strong and then just keep strong all the way into 20 just to make sure that
they can be heard on the melody because now they're the lonesome new part that needs to
be featured. So then you have to teach your upper woodwinds to taper down along with
the low brass and everybody to make sure that just the trumpets can be heard. Like Laura
said it's very thickly scored so making sure you can hear the trumpets over everybody else
can be a challenge. And that trumpet Katie was talking about that separated style in
the rhythmic ostinato that's happening in the lower voices, but the trumpets do not
need to do that. This is way more connected one and three, four, one and two, no space
in the trumpet melody. Yep. And teaching them to not all breathe in the same spot is important
as well because they're going to be very like they're going to want to breathe in 21. They're
going to want to all breathe together and maybe after half notes and after the forte
piano, but we can't breathe there. We need a lead into 24. So just teaching kids how
to like stagger breathe. I know I've done like a B breathing like two or three kids
are in a and two or three kids are a B. As are going to breathe on odd measures. B's
are going to breathe on Eva measures, whatever you want to do, but talking to the kids about
a breathing plan is important. So that way there's not big gaps in the sound. And I would
talk about that breathing plan earlier rather than later. Oh, for sure. Even though I know
obviously sometimes where students are taking a breath is going to change depending on the
speed of the piece, but that they need a plan and it needs to be practiced. Yep. At 24,
we still have the important part happening in the trumpet, but then the horns and altos
kind of change and have a neat little part that's a really cool character. And it's not
very high on the French horn, which is great. So they can sound really pretty, make sure
that the horns are featured more than the altos just color wise. But again, now we're
now we're layering the trumpet part down. So I think that that's actually the biggest
challenge that we found when we've played this in the past is that everybody gets tired
of kind of like layering down and playing quieter, but they have to in order to hear the next
new section that gets to be featured. Everybody has a big forte piano with again, a huge snare
and timpani moment going into 28 and then an immediate, what's the word for not a cello
rato? I mean, immediately slower. I thought maybe there was a word for it. There might
not. It just changes. It's just way slower. Yes. So it goes all the way down to 86. So
almost half time. And then we're going to build it back up. And this is difficult for
kids. It's very difficult because you have to practice every single human playing the
exact same style and rhythm together without people going too fast or too slow. And the
way that we have found to make this the most successful, you can find think all our marching
band director. You can program like tonal energy. You can put in a click track on tonal
energy that will build in the cello rondo. And that's what we did. So we were able to
practice with that a lot until it was ingrained in the kids. And then we took it away just
like you would with, you know, any metronome that you're using. And that really helps them
to internalize what that cello rondo is going to feel like and helps it to be consistent
not only for the kids, but for the director as well. Yep. We also worked on just counting
it like with no instruments and watching the conductor and learning how it was going to
happen. And then we just played it on a concert F for a long time. Then we added in the true
notes. But just keeping the consistent style is really important too. Kids like to get
longer the longer they go. That's right. So just keeping it short is important. At 32,
most of the band keeps going with the same rhythm, but the saxes and the clarinets and
the flutes take over with this really cool little melody part. And everybody else in
the band has to like really back off. We in fact, when we played this in the past, we cut players
there at 32 just so that it wasn't overwhelming and we could hear the little featured woodwind
part because again, it's not written above the staff. It's in the staff or below the
staff and clarinet. Right. So it's hard to hear if everybody isn't making it like a really good
effort to hear it. And that continues until you build back up to the original fast tempo at 36.
But we have a new idea. So I have found here that oftentimes kids want to go faster than you were
going before. Right. And then it gets out of control. Yes, it absolutely does. So there is this moment
where the upper woodwinds and the lower voices or upper voices and lower voices are playing off
of each other. One and two, three, four and one, two, three and four. So this conversation that
they're having together and articulation here is really important. You're going to find that most
of the students want to slur. Ta, ta, but it's written to be tongue slur, tongue, which will
really help the clarity lining up that rhythm if you insist that they do that correctly. Our kids
also tried to make the ta, ta too short. Yes. So they would go ta, ta, ta, ta, but it's marked in
accent. So we tried to like really ingrain in them to make it a little longer. Ta, ta, ta, ta, ta,
ta, ta, so that way it wasn't like staccato. It's an accent. And again, this like all these
little stylistic things Laura and I are talking about are really important because it goes throughout
the whole band at some point. So it's important to get it, you know, solid the first time you have it.
And an exercise like what Katie's talking about, making that accent, making sure that it touches
the rest and is a little bit longer. Put that on, do that in your daily drill, right? Do it just on
a concert F or do it on a Remington exercise so that you're using your daily drill and can transfer
that skill to your music. Then the whole band leads into 40. And then we have another little
tiny percussion break. And then at 40, which features timpani and snare. And at 42, the lows
come in again. And it's just like the beginning. So it's like a total recap. Yes. And then the
woodwinds come in again, and the lows have to back off. And then the trumpets come in and everybody
else has to back off. It's literally the exact same as the beginning. It's ABA. It's ABA. Which is
nice because if you want something that you can spend a lot of time working on style and tempo,
this is a great one because you don't have to spend a lot of time talking about like differing,
you know, rhythms and notes and things like that. And I think what's the most difficult rhythm,
a dotted quarter note? Yes. It's the syncopated part one and four. That's the most difficult
rhythm in the winds, at least. And then at 57, we start to have an achelorando. So now it's like
before where we slowed down, it's the exact same rhythm, but we're not slowing down. We're speeding
up from 142. And they really like to see it. Yeah, they do. Yep. And then like, and then it's
important because the tambourine comes in halfway through the achelorando. And they have to really
be right with you because that can either help your group or hinder your group if they're too slow
when they come in, or if they're trying to push the tempo too much. So make sure you have a solid
kid on that. You again, you have to layer down the lows and mids so you can hear the high woodwind
part again. And we have we did end up cutting kids here again. But then we let them join back in at
64 when they're when the lows have kind of a cool little part, then it all ends together the same way
one and two four, or sorry, three, four and one, two, three and four and one, then there's big
forte piano, big timpani moment. And then the woodwinds build up to the very end. And it's
short short long short. That's how we taught the last measure. So it's fun. And it's like the kids
get to go fast. So like what kid doesn't like doing that, which they love that it's great for
teaching different these different styles like Katie mentioned the different tempo opportunities
that you have to explore with us. We didn't talk a lot about the accidentals, but there are a lot
of accidentals in this. So as you go through the parts and pre mark them, you know, find the areas
in there where like your flutes need to maybe move there. It happens a lot. In fact, I had to like
pull our flutes when we play this and teach them like here, we're going to be on single thumb or
you know, bottom thumb here, we're going to be on top them. It most of the piece actually is on
bottom thumb. Yes. And it's easier to use lever when you need to. But I agree with Laura whole
heartedly this piece is like crazy town with all the accidentals and making sure that kids sound good
on all the accidentals. There's a lot of e naturals in the low brass. A lot of concert C
sharps or D flats in here as well. Yes. G flats too. Yes. So yeah, for sure. Tuning was something
that we spent some time on. I would definitely say style was like a big part of when we taught this.
I agree completely. I think style was the biggest thing. Of course, notes, you can do a lot of that
balancing and making it be more transparent where you can hear the melodic lines that you need to
hear. And a couple of times in here, I recall like big chord hits where the full band is together.
We re scored some of the way that the like, you know, we had too many people on the third,
which made the balance of it sound really weird. So just, you know, and that of course depends
largely on the instrumentation of your ensemble. So don't be afraid to make some changes like that
so that the balance is appropriate. But kids love this piece. Teachers love this piece. It's a great
teaching tool and a fun march that you can add to your repertoire. You can program at any time of
the year. Definitely. For sure. Definitely. Well, we hope you guys will consider programming Spania
in the future. And thank you for joining us on this episode of Band BFFs.