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On today's episode we will be discussing some of fanfare by William Owens.
Cheers to starting the conversation!
This is a fantastic, great one on the Texas PML piece of music that is kind of as
the title would indicate fanfare kind of March style.
It's in the key of concert E flat and 4-4 throughout minus 1, 2-4 measure grand pause.
It is less than 2 minutes in length.
It has split clarinet parts, split trumpet parts.
The trombone and uphony parts are not doubled.
They have some independence.
You really need five percussionists to make this work.
The bell part is important.
The new bass and an accessory percussion line for symbols and triangle.
I would say five percussion minimum on this.
One of the things I love that William Owens often does in his music writing is he gives
a simplified snare drum part or an advanced snare drum part.
I love that ability to differentiate depending on the skill level of your percussionist.
So this piece is, as Laura said, really great.
It's in lifted style all the way throughout.
You must have really good trumpets and again, it split trumpet parts.
So you should have a fairly large trumpet section in order to make this work.
The piece starts off with a fanfare between trumpet flute and Obo.
They come in on beat one and then the rest of the band comes in on beat three with a nice
accented front, then the rest of the band's going to back out of the way so we can hear
the melody but there's a nice little intro.
There's some cute little chromaticism in measure four that is really nice.
But you do want to make sure that that lines up really well between your flute and trumpet
part, your upper people so that that way it doesn't sound like a wrong note or anything
like that.
Then immediately there's a four tapiano in measure five.
The horns and the tenor sax and clarinet two get to continue on with trumpet two with
like a little fanfare type moment.
It's softer, the whole band kind of backs out of the way and we build up the excitement
into the first melodic point which is going into measure eleven.
The nice part is, everybody is tungging like pretty much 2D rhythms.
It's just one, two and three, four and one.
I don't even remember they're being any dotted or dotted, so it's fairly easy for kids
to line up and to make it move together and have really nice alignments so you can focus
on balance and things like that.
At measure nine right before the first moment of melody there's a big timpony feature.
So as Laura mentioned you definitely want to make sure you have a strong timpony player who's
not afraid to play out and then the band kind of day crescendo's and the clarinet's
come in with the melody.
The melody here that the clarinet's have, it is below the break.
It's in a great register for them.
The first and second parts double except for for at least the moving line then it splits
to harmony.
Flute and obo come in and echo them along with the alto saxophone.
It's a nice little woodwind feature here.
There are no brass players playing but there are cues in the brass so if you needed some
support.
Like if you don't have any low-reads exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah, good use of brass.
But I love the little woodwind feature here.
Bells play a really important role.
They are not doubling the flute part here so they are adding this nice little tinkling
moment accompanying the clarinets here.
Really nice woodwind feature moment.
When they are dropped out we just have that bell or churn.
The bell or churn.
And they keep the tempo moving for sure.
I love this part too because again it's kind of like a typical march even though it's
a fanfare and not a march where the woodwinds do get to be featured.
It feels almost like a trio.
Yeah.
The beginning of the piece.
The articulations are really well laid out by Mr. Owens.
It's tongue, tongue, slur, tongue, tongue, tongue, tongue, tongue.
So getting a chance to work on that with your students and making it not it's not something
horribly difficult.
But making sure that they can line up.
That's right.
The tendency to add an extra note under the slur.
So when you are marking your parts ahead of time that would be a perfect opportunity to
write TST above a few of those moments so they are getting in the habit of how to retung
from the get-go.
There's a fun little harmony in measure 17 where the note should be an E flat but it changes
to an E natural and makes it a different chord.
So making sure that the flutes and obo really align there and the alto saxophone so
that they sound like one.
From the last time I remember playing this piece every time there would be an accidental note.
It just didn't sound right.
It was probably partially my kids fault but you know it just didn't always settle.
So just working on those chord changes and making sure that it sounds really accurate
would be helpful just to help the kids ears.
There are some accidental also written in the clarinet part so when you're marking your
parts ahead of time make sure you mark that that it carries through the measure at least
a few times to remind your students.
And then we have some trumpets taken over the melody.
The trumpets come in at measure 19.
They are taking over exactly what the clarinet stood.
And I should say each time the melody occurs in this piece it's always on a pickup
note on four.
Yes.
So we worked really hard to make sure that everybody who was passing on the melody would
hold all the way to beat one so that it would touch and not be let go early.
And that the pickup note plays really confidently so it's obvious that it's not just
one, two and three, four.
It's four, one, two, and three.
Long pickup.
Yes.
Pick up notes leading to the downbeat.
So trumpets take over right here at 19 the same melody that the clarinets had before.
So now it's a little bit more of a brass feature but we do still have a lot of the woodwinds
playing flute, no bow or out at this point.
But the clarinet and saxophone families are playing with the brass kind of supporting what
the brass we're doing but trumpets are leading here for sure.
And they're in split parts.
You have the melody together for one measure and then they're split.
So as I mentioned, you want to make sure you either have a really confident trumpet
section or a big one where you can have enough players to get both parts to come across.
Stylistically, I feel like I have heard this played times before where people put a lot of
space between these notes and I really don't think that that is how this should be played.
There needs to be clear fronts to the notes for sure.
Firm articulation to find note fronts but there does not need to be space between the
notes.
So just making sure firm fronts to the notes but note space in this section.
Yes, I completely agree with that.
We get a little bit of some space coming up in a moment.
Again, the brass are kind of having their moment here.
lead us also with a crescendo into another new little section at measure 22 with an A flat
in the low brass so just making sure again that you're really positioning right on third making
sure that it's correct. Sometimes the kids have trouble with that and you can hear that whenever we
have judged people before. Then there's a pickup and the flute to add in with the with the trumpets
along with the obo. Flutes are above the staff a little bit here so just making sure that intonation
is really solid between flute and trumpet one is a very important detail to pay attention to here
and this is a repeat of the opening statement. The first couple of measured opening statement right here.
Because they're alone. Nobody else is playing one and two then the full band comes in on three. Yes.
So that needs to be accurate and intuned because it's all by itself. Then we get this
some more accents in the low brass like I mentioned before. Now we actually have some stylistic markings,
accents, decado, accent, accent, accent, accent so that the lows are doing something a little different
underneath as kind of like a little fanfare as part. The clarinet alto and horn here as we transition
into this new section have a cool little not really so much accountability but like a response
to the statement that the flute and trumpets have made. It's really important. It does have an accidental
in there so you want to be really mindful of that but that moving part right there while everyone
else is holding long notes is really important. We land on a full chord at the end of this as we
start to transition into this new section and it's important to make sure that that chord is intuned
and balance. William Owens is fantastic about scoring this stuff really well for
middle school ensembles. So you know unless your ensemble is instrumentated in a unique way,
you shouldn't really have to do many regrets here. He's written it so well. There is another
tempany moment here while everyone is holding this long moment getting ready to transition into
the new section. So again, as Katie said at the beginning, timidies important. Really important.
You want to have a strong player. This chord I remember whenever I played it with my group and
you know everybody has different instrumentation. Our trumpets were good but not the best at playing
an upper C in tune. So I remember what we did to rescore is we had only one student play the
upper C because we're holding it for a long time against the flutes and all the other first trumpets
moved down to the A and played a different part the third of the chord. So that's something for sure
that you can always do is just have one person on the upper note. The flute part is even split here as
well. It's a G and a B flat together. So I think I think B flat sorry it's cut off a little bit.
But you could just say only one flute gets to play the upper note and everybody else can play the
lower. So that's always a good option. Or take some down an octave so you don't get too many
people on the third that will look the chord sound really unbalanced if there's too many people on
the third. That's absolutely right too depending on the instrumentation. And then at 27 the
clarinets and the trumpets take over with melody but this time the melody starts on beat too.
And now I love it. It's a little sexy. And now we're getting a little bit like spicy. So the articulation
changes it's slurred in the melody but it's staccato in the other part. And you even hear this in
the percussion. We had clavise in the percussion. So there's even that more that more staccato
element in the percussion accompaniment here as well. So like all the low brass now have staccato
quarter notes. So making sure that they're light and quiet behind the melody is important.
All the upper woodwinds just have one in for in one in. So they're light and quiet behind the
trumpet and clarinet melody. And trumpet and clarinet does not have staccato. So their parts
actually I take that back. clarinets have the melody with the trumpets for like a second.
Then they go to the accompaniment and it's just trumpets with horn on harmony. So at 28 trumpets are
alone on the melody with y'all on the melody. So they need to be really confident and they have
no staccatoes here. They are playing long like they were before and everybody else is playing a
different moment. Horn and alto do have a counter melody to the trumpet part here. And again
they are not staccato either. So making that differentiation between the accompaniment and the
melody I think is very important stylistically. And then with the melody and counter melody
working to balance that out so that you like the ratio between what's happening melodically and
with the counter melody. And he wrote it really well. We're like trumpets have a dotted half note
at the end of their melody and horn and alto have one two and three four. So it's always like
they're interplaying their parts. But it's good to just teach students you know through this piece
that longer valued notes are usually not that important and moving notes are more important. So
you're going to have to write in like B softer on this note, B louder on this note. And I think
that's good for us to teach kids really early on you know just because it says forte doesn't mean
you're actually going to play forte. No, you have a whole note it's not forte. And then the
melody kind of continues on between trumpet horn and alto in the counter melody. There are some
accidental in measure 33 that are important to note because kids like forget them sometimes
because there's so few in the piece there's an e natural in the trombone part. So just making sure
we're really into and when we hit those moments. And then the melody ends with a nice whole note
and a new pickup in the flute section. And now the flute's take over the this part that the
brass just played before. So much like we had earlier now that was more brass focused. This is
woodwind focus. So flute's are playing the same longer connected melody. Altos have this with
them as well. And the clarinet's are the ones who have the counter melody part. Well it's slightly
different than what was played before but it is a counter melody part. And then the accompaniment that
crisp staccato light accompaniment is happening in the low reads in this section and tubas. We did
add tubas in you phonyms here. I like in the percussion part here that there are this whole little
section we've started adding accents and it gives it it helps to give it there's a little rimshot
moment leading into this which is kind of cool but it gives it it gives it a little bit different
feel instead of it just being a timekeeping mechanism. Now we've kind of added like Katie said
it was a little spicy before. Now we've given it a little spicier sound. Yeah, it gives a little syncopated
type feel. Yes yes I love this horns come in here as well joining the clarinet's on the counter
melody. So lots of that color grouping in this piece. We add all the trumpets back in joining the
flutes with the same idea for one two and three. And everybody goes back to the longer style here
as this new melodic section at 40. So now that the trumpets have added in with the melody now
everybody's back to the same melody or the same style no more staccato. No more staccato's.
Yeah. So this is building again everybody together on this line this is kind of building to a recap
of what we had at the beginning. The low brass parts are moving here a little bit more
you know they're still on quarter notes but they're not just playing half notes or whole notes
or they're not just repeating the same quarter note here. So they're moving around a little bit and they
have a couple of accidental and those accidental happen across the ensemble not just in the
in the low brass. I like this just like we had earlier in the piece we start to get this one two
and three four and almost kind of starting of the fanfare and the low voices rest two and three four.
That part is really important. We want that to project and come out through the ensemble.
Then it leads us into a a uh, Timothy has another just brief little moment before a grand pause
and it is actually written out its meter doubt to be one measure of two four on that grand pause
which I like that that way it's it you know it's very clear to the kids
and just in case they're not watching the witch. What never happens. Yeah of course it does. Of course it
doesn't. And then we get to measure 46 and this is exactly like the beginning back to the fanfare.
Yeah that's the same thing with trumpet and flute there's the cute little two and three
and the horn and the sax again and then they do it another time and then we have like a little belltone
type thing three from the end. Everybody's got an accent on one or three and then everybody plays
on the next measure on one with a big timpany moment. Or timpany. Big timpany and then everybody
finishes together on beat two. So this piece is just fabulous for a young band. It's it's very
readable, very doable. The balance is it's well written to where any well instrumentated band
could easily pull this off and make it sound fabulous. Yes I think it's it's a piece that makes a band
sound. The piece sounds harder than it is and I think it's I love the key. I love the way it's
orchestrated it it can make your band sound really good. Absolutely. Well we hope that you have found
a way to possibly play some at fanfare in the future and thank you for joining us on this episode
of Band Big AFF.