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 A Walk in the Morning Sun by Pierre LaPlante.
Cheers to starting the conversation.
Well, everybody, sorry this episode is a little bit late coming out.
It has been quite a Band-cember, if you will.
It has been pretty busy.
We went to school all the way up until the 20th of December.
Had to make sure all your Christmas shopping was done by the time you got out of school.
That was stressful.
Very stressful.
Fortunately, I did like 98% of mine online.
Yeah, I know.
Why don't you tell everybody about that text that you sent?
Ridiculous.
So, my husband and I, who's also band director, we both had concerts on the same night and
my son was going to a GDYO concert in downtown Dallas.
So, I was coming home from my concert thinking, I'm going to have a nice relaxing evening.
I got home first.
I'm going to change in my PJs, get into bed early.
I went outside to check the mail and stacked up outside life.
Like literally like 30 boxes.
Everything got delivered all on the same day.
Nobody stole anything.
So, that's like a big deal.
That was a big deal.
I was really thankful for the neighborhood that we live in, but I did not have a relaxing
evening.
I got to sit there and wrap all of those gifts.
But then it was done.
Then it was done.
Yes.
But it's been busy.
So, sorry for the delay.
But we're very excited to talk to you today about A Walk in the Morning Sun, which is one
of my personal favorite, Texas PML Grade 3.
So, this piece sounds exactly like what the title indicates.
It is a nod.
Maybe even Laplante talks about in his program notes that this is a nod to Leroy Anderson
and all of that fun kind of music that he is known for writing.
This is in 2-4 time.
It's about three minutes in length.
It's in the key of E-flat to start.
It goes to A-flat and then comes back to the key of E-flat.
So, there are some key considerations in this and 2-4 throughout.
Percussion considerations.
There's not a whole lot of percussion going on.
You need a minimum of, I would say, five players.
The timpani part is real light.
So, I mean, if you had to do without the timpani part, it's not going to hurt the music to
do without timpani.
Everything else you really need in the percussion section.
Split parts in clarinet.
Three parts.
Three trumpet parts.
Four horn parts.
So often, they're doubling, the first and second horn are doubling, third and fourth
horn are doubling, two trombone parts plus a bass trombone part.
So, this really is instrumentation-wise.
It's kind of old school.
Yeah.
And a piccolo part.
Yes.
But this piece is super fun.
I think the piccolo part is actually very important.
It kind of adds to that walking in the morning sun feel.
It starts off with bassoon clarinet and then cues and bass clarinet and e-phone, in case
you don't have a bassoon.
But it's real jaunty, like Leroy Anderson.
So it just sounds like somebody stepping out for a walk in the morning sun.
And it's a bassoon and clarinet player a little solely.
They have a fermata, and then the piece starts off on measure four with the one and two and
one and, or one and two and one and two.
It's got a real jaunty style, and that kind of continues through the whole piece.
So we've got a lot of what I call oompa parts.
Real playful.
Of course, in horn a lot of the time, sometimes in trombone, later on.
So it's very playful.
The tuba part is pretty important for a walking bass line, along with bass clarinet, a lot
of the time.
So you just have to kind of have everybody's got their own little moment in the sun, if
you will.
And so I think that it's just a great all around piece to play.
And euphonium does not double what's happening in the trombone part.
Like it is often in its own little line.
So that's something to keep in mind.
So the piece is at a nice little walking tempo, about 100, 110.
As I mentioned, the whole like jaunty part starts at measure four.
With the woodwinds kind of starting off with the little style, alto sax kind of leads it
into measure nine.
And we have the oompa part starting with tuba bass clarinet, as I mentioned, with the pause
being horn and clarinet here at the beginning.
And then at 11, we get our first moment of melody that happens in flute and oboe and clarinet.
And then there's a secondary counter melody and tenor sax and euphonium only, which is
just kind of like blowing in the wind, like half notes, and it's just kind of moving on.
But it's got just this cutesy little melody.
It's very catchy.
Yeah.
And articulation is very important because it does change a lot.
So maybe taking all the slurs out to begin with when your kids are first learning it
to make sure that they just have the rhythm.
It does have 16th notes in it, one and a two and often.
So I think that just getting that taken out and then later on adding in the slurs to make
sure that they're not compressing their fingers is a great technique for learning.
Definitely.
At 17, the lows get their first little moment of one and two.
It's like this little syncopated moment that comes back and over and over and over.
When I played this piece, I taught the kids to put a little bit of like a hairline of
space between the dotted quarter note and then the tied eighth note to the quarter note
to the next quarter note, just to make it sound a little bit more jaunty and light in
style.
And firm articulation on the front of that note too.
At 19, we kind of continue, but now the piccolo adds in with the same people having the melody,
same counter melody in the Euphonium and Tenor sax line.
Often the brass just kind of acts as like a background track.
It's like just coming in and little pops of color.
And first trumpet is really taking the lead in the brass section.
Second and third trumpet are often not doubling what's happening in first trumpet.
Right.
Like the horn and thunder or something.
Yeah, they're more playing that harmonic function instead of less melodic function in the trumpet
part.
And the first trumpet adds in four measures later at 23 on the melody and immediately
coming in on an upper D, going straight away to an upper F.
So the first trumpet part is a little bit higher in range on this piece.
But it adds to that little jaunty feel like you're walking in the sun.
Little pops of xylophone in here as well when we get to like measure 27.
So woodwinds are playing and then xylophone and some of the brass are kind of hitting
in those rest one and boom and one and boom.
Which makes me think of Leroy Anderson.
Definitely.
It's kind of like a little sleigh ride-esque feel.
Saxophone gets a little moment of glory adding in with the flutes.
And then we're back to kind of the melody part at 34.
This time the trumpets get to have a little moment.
And then oboe flute takeover.
It's like a little echo.
Going through the ensemble.
Yeah.
It's almost like two people are walking along the path and you know they're just conversing
throughout.
I feel like the trombones in this like you want to have pretty decent trombones.
The trombones are almost like playing the role of a horn a lot of times through this.
So they're split into into thirds or fourths.
So tuning is going to be really important in that low brass.
The tuba and euphonia are doing something completely different.
And the bass trombone part a lot of the time.
That's right.
The bass trombone kind of goes back and forth.
Sometimes it's with trombones.
Sometimes it's with euphonia and tuba.
So yeah you got to have pretty solid trombones that are okay like doing their own thing.
And what I like when I when in my low brass when they have something similar to this we
will do a lot of on longer valued notes.
Like if it's written like in this case it's written as eighth notes often.
So we'll play it as hold the note out for a half note value and really sit on that tonality.
Here what it sounds like adjust for intonation make everything a lot longer than it should
be kind of like taking the slur away.
You know when you're talking about technique and some of the upper woodwinds.
So really letting them hear what that what that tonality is supposed to be so that when
you go back and put it on the rhythm you get those chord sounds in short bursts and it's
not just tongue.
Yes absolutely and that's really important when it's like in fifths like it is here.
In the trumpets kind of take over the melody again passing back and forth.
Piccolo gets to talk this time with clarinet one.
It's just kind of passing its way through 44 the trumpets all of the trumpets have the
melody one two and three and they're not in parts here this is just melodic feature and
then flute piccolo and oboe get this cute little counter melody.
They're just doing like a cute little grace note trumpets continue with the melody and
then at 56 we get up into the melody here with first trumpet piccolo and flute and they
are piccolo and flute are in the same range like as in not the same range but they're
playing the same notes which means piccolo is an octave above and so tuning is kind of
crazy down here so you really have to make sure.
And doubling the first trumpet which is in a higher tessitura too.
Right right it's like it's a lot.
Up and even the clarinet part is up at the top of the staff not above the staff but still
there's a lot going on at 56 tuning wise that you want to make sure you got your tuners
and you're really making that be a big thing.
Every time that we get this is like a big 2D moment here and then we're getting softer
and softer taking parts out so at 60 we've thinned out to just the trumpet playing with
the bassoon again kind of like beginning when it was bassoon and clarinet now it's
trumpet.
We're having a moment then we change key and we add a flat kind of like a march and now
we've got like the trio like a march even though it's not march like at all but there's
like the flute and the clarinet have the melody it's now very slurry.
This is where the walk gets a little lazier.
Yeah.
Start meandering off the path a little bit.
They're picking a rose and they're smelling it or whatever right.
And just like lots of woodwinds here so your brass are getting you know there's some horn
accompaniment but brass are basically getting to sit there and take a face print.
Yeah.
So clarinet and flute have the melody oboe will have little pops of coming in on the
melody the tenor sax gets to come in eventually.
There are cues in the low brass in case you don't have some of these low reed parts like
tenor sax bassoon but it is just woodwinds for a long time.
And I really think this section shines if you can do it with just woodwinds that woodwind
color is just so nice.
But at 80 we add in the the chords in the brass again but they're just there for chordal
function they're just getting stronger and softer just like background music to the woodwinds
they're still shining we've also added trumpet one on the melody.
And again this is way more slurry than it was before before it was jaunty and stylistic
now it's just all very slurred phrases and you want it to sound that way like a trio
in a march like you want it to be not everybody breathing at the same time to connect it follows
you.
Euphonium and tenor sax get this cool moment at 86 where they kind of take over and they
add in some horn and such as we're building up to 88 88 is a big focal point moment where
everybody's playing.
It's like the part in the walk where they've kind of arrived kind of seen their destination
yeah and then it's getting softer and softer and we're kind of all dying down again horn
is still important with trumpet one and upper woodwinds here with Euphonium a little bit
then we kind of die down and it kind of sounds like this piece is going to end but it just
gets a little slower a little quieter and then at 98 we pick back up again with the same
little jaunty melody from before so it's still in the same key but now we've got bassoon
and clarinet being featured again with a little bit of the upper woodwinds one tuba
playing one little trumpet like interjections but they're not the focal point at 110 we
get to have everybody join back in again and it's more of that a couple of it where Katie
was talking earlier about putting a little bit of space a little sliver of daylight we
are coming up to measure 114 where we go back to the original key now yeah we're back to
the key of E flat like we were at the beginning it's back like measure four and yes it's done
a recap and we have these little punctuations again of the one and one two and with xylophone
and some of the other things popping in between on those rest so again just a restatement of
what we had earlier in the piece and that's really kind of how this goes to the to the
end it really is just a recap of what we had at the beginning this I envision Katie and
I talked about it sounding almost like movie music like you could totally see it you know
like the title sequence to a movie with you know your main character just skipping walking
their dogs that's how I've talked about it when I've played it yeah and the kids like
it because again it's very jaunty it's not the most fun piece for like percussion necessarily
but it would be a fun like little interlude of a piece if you're programming for you
yl putting it in the middle it features woodwinds heavily plus you've got to have at least one
or two good really solid trumpets but the decent function yeah and the function of the low
brass though is not as melodic so if you have a little bit of a weaker section then this
would definitely like hide it a little bit but I think woodwinds are definitely shine
in this piece yes for sure so this is a good one for that and like Katie said percussion
parts are limited so you know if this would be something that I would pair with something
that's a little bit more intriguing for your percussion section because they're not going
to have a whole lot to latch on to in this but their parts the parts that are there are
important and you need to make sure that they're you know the kids are solid on it a lot of
that upbeat stuff the end is very cute though it's a little different from the beginning
it thins out again after Lara said it's kind of the same as the beginning which it is at
150 we get our last little moment of and and one and two and then and that's in piccolo
and then flute no bo have and one and two and they kind of keep it going for a second
then bassoon and clarinet have and one and two and so it's like a little echoing of the
melody the last little moment of melody is in the tuba it's a tuba solo it's cute so
it goes like low read like tenor sax and then tuba and then everybody two one and it's just
like really quiet and cute at the very end like you imagine like a little twinkle on
their little toe or something you know like it's it's very cute and I you know if your
kids like hearing stuff that sounds movie-esque it's not super difficult like I said the hardest
rhythm is the one one and a two and basically in the whole piece there are some grace notes
in the woodwinds but that's probably the hardest technique and just in articulation being able
to move your fingers in time and do the articulation style is the best of the style yeah absolutely
well we hope that you will consider programming a walk in the morning sun with your group
it's just such a fun little piece and I think there's something in it for everybody absolutely
well thank you so much for joining us on this episode of band BFF's