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Welcome to our podcast, Band BFFs.

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The podcast where we make your music selection less complicated.

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On today's episode, we are going to be discussing The Thunderer March by Sousa, arranged by David

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Shaffer.

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Cheers to starting the conversation.

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This fabulous arrangement of The Thunderer is great for a younger ensemble.

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It's about two minutes in length.

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It's in the key of concert E-flat throughout, so it does not change keys, even at the trio.

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It is very, very playable, split clarinet parts, split trumpet parts.

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Everything else is pretty easy.

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You really need five percussionists for this.

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So it's just really basic percussion, bells, timpani, snare bass, crash.

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And really all of those parts do need to be covered, but the bell part really just kind

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of...

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You could do it without if you had to.

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If you had to.

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If you had to.

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Right.

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So this piece starts off at just a nice march tempo, stays the same all the way throughout.

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As Laura said, it's very accessible.

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Starts off with a dotted quarter note rhythm, one and three and one and two and three.

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So like the normal march, but then it goes into like half notes and quarter notes for

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quite a while on the melody and then on the bass line.

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The piece does have style of mostly staccatos written in to kind of keep that lighter march

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style going, but you want to make sure obviously that the kids aren't like clipping the notes

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or making them too short.

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I think because of those stylistic considerations, because they are written in, this isn't something

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that I would do with a super young band.

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Like Katie and I feel pretty strongly that the younger the ensemble, the less staccato

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you need to do, just have them work on full value notes and sustaining their sounds.

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So you want it to be an ensemble that has established that and understands that and

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can play staccato notes maturely and correctly.

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We don't want it to be something...

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With all cracking and squeaking and things like that.

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And we don't want it to be something that gets in their way.

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But this is so great for introducing traditional march to your band.

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First Strain, Second Strain, Trio Dogfight, the whole thing.

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Great for balance and all of that.

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It's really well written, really cute.

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So at the first Strain at measure three, the snare drum part is a bit more active comparatively

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to other parts.

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So you would just want to keep that in mind.

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Very minimal slurring going on just a little bit in the melody.

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There's an accidental written in just in a few parts.

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Little timpani solo every once while on four one.

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Four one.

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So you do have to have the timpani player.

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It is different than all the other low brass parts.

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At eleven, the melody continues on but now with flute and trumpet.

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And the trumpet two part is pretty much the same as trumpet one, except it just splits

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for like harmony on a chord every once in a while but they're playing the melodic part

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together.

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Yeah, they're doubled.

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Yeah, and it's just tongue slur, tongue tongue tongue.

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So that's not like ridiculous.

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There is a tie, tongue slur, tongue tongue hold, two, three.

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So you just have to teach the tie going through the measure but that's it.

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It's not like a ridiculous rhythm that a younger band cannot achieve well.

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And then really just focusing on making sure that half notes are sustained all the way

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through.

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This is a piece that definitely this is something that I would want to go through and make sure

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that phrase markings are marked in and everybody is in agreement on that.

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That is one thing that can make it sound immature.

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So you want to make sure that you're really focusing on phrasing.

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Even in the like low brass, low reed part, same thing about the immature breathing.

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We want to make sure that they're not breathing at all at the same time.

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Like the easy place to breathe would be after a half note on a bar line.

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And so talking to the kids about, you know, you are going to breathe after beat two in

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this measure and you're going to breathe after beat two in this measure just to like

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split up your groupings.

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So they're not all breathing at the same time.

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I think that's totally worth the individual part marking or doing that in sectional time.

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As we're getting towards the next little part at 19, we have another little one accidental

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in the horn and clarinet part, one in the upper flute part and that's it.

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And a cymbal crash so low and then the lows get to take over at 19.

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So we're going to start the second strain idea and I like the way it's written here.

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The trumpets and trombone euphonium are actually by themselves with snare, but the part is

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cued in your low reads and tubas.

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Now when I have played this, we played this with a non varsity band and when we played

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this, we had our low reads and tubas read the cues just because personally I liked the

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thicker texture and the octave having that lower octave in there really kind of filled

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it out, but you have the flexibility to do whatever you choose.

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I love that even though it's a relatively simple and straightforward March, the low

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voices have an opportunity to kind of shine here.

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Right?

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So they often in easier music don't get chances to show off and they do in this one, which

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is really cool.

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Right.

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Like there's no woodwind part playing if you don't read the cues.

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It's just trumpet and trombone and euphonium.

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So that is cool because they do get featured.

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So this is like they get the melody part and the trumpets are kind of like the countermelody

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kind of in the background.

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Lots of accents here.

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So talking to the students about that, every single note is accented.

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So it just wants to be like a nice firm tongue.

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And that continues on till the next box number at 27 where we pick back up again with flute

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and trumpet and oboe on the melody and on the harmony part.

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They now have accents on all of their part and the lows go back down to playing the same

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thing, but we layer them down.

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They're not as important as they were before.

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And the tuba and the low reeds join in no matter what at 27.

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That's right.

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Even if you didn't do the cues.

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And they're carrying over the same melody that the trombones had, trombones and euphoniums

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had before.

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I like this section at 27 because now everything comes all together.

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So we have what the low voices were doing.

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We have the cool countermelody that the trumpets were doing.

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And now we add the upper woodwinds in with another thought.

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So it's a great opportunity to teach priority.

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And you have the ability to kind of make that how you want it.

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What do you want to be the most important line here?

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And it's great for that.

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The range in this, I failed to mention this at the beginning, but the range is very playable.

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Clarinets don't cross the break.

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Trumpets are not ever getting really high.

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Low brass don't go above B flat.

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Yeah.

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Trumpets it looks like just goes to C. Flutes go up to B flat.

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And not above that.

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The range is very, very playable.

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So this really is more about balance and exposure to good music.

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To an actual march.

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That's right.

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I mean, you could play like the reel, the thunder for the children and they'd be like,

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see, this is cool, right?

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Now listen our version.

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They'll be like, oh, it's so easy.

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But it is easy, but it's like your first step into big boy literature, as I call it.

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We're continuing on in this section.

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It keeps on with the style of the accents.

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And then we all have a rest going into 35.

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Now we have our first like different rhythm.

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There is dotted eight, sixteenth notes, but that's on the same note the whole time.

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So it's one, a two, and three, and one, a two, and three, and so that's not crazy difficult.

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Right.

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Because you're not changing your fingers while doing that rhythm.

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It's unison note throughout the ensemble for the people that have that.

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It's usually just, it's just the upper voices that have that.

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So making sure that we're articulating really clearly.

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It's easy because they're staying on the same note and it's easy to make sure that that

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style aligns, get lots of clarity and strength on the sixteenth note and that rhythm of that

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dotted eight, sixteenth.

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But this, this is the only like slightly complicated rhythm.

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And the, like the low voices come in and join them on three and so one, a two, and three,

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and everybody plays that.

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So if you did have a woodwind player who could not tongue that fast for some reason, you

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could just modify their part to either be rest, two, and three and, or they could do

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rest, rest, three and and play with the lows.

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You know, like you could easily modify that part if for some reason that was too much.

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Then it's just like the beginning again.

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So in trail one and three and one and two and three rest.

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And then we got a cutesy part again.

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That's right.

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While we get to 39, this is where like the, the upper woodwinds get to take over, you

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know, like the cool little obligato part here.

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So they do have dotted eight, sixteenths in this.

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The melody is really happening in the brass.

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We've got the brass, like the trumpet, the horn and trombone phonium that are playing

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the melody here, and then the tuba and some of the low reeds are your motor part.

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And then we have the cool counter melody or obligato that's happening in the upper woodwinds,

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which is the, the flute, even the oboes do not have all of the moving technique that

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the flutes do, which I think, you know, Schaefer writes really, really well.

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So it's the flutes, the clarinets and the altos that are actually doing the moving part

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here.

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Another great opportunity for teaching, you know, hey, now this is something new.

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Let's bring out this new part right here.

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Right.

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And it's one and two and three and four and one, two, three, four, a one.

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And now we are changing notes, but they're slurred.

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So it's two, two, two, two, two, two, two.

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So again, it's not like you're having a tongue fast and move your fingers, you're moving

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your fingers and doing the slurring.

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So there are options for if that's too much for your students, they could just leave out

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the dot eight sixteenths and play one, three, one, three, four.

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That would be totally appropriate.

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Now when we did this with our group, one of the biggest challenges I remember in this

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section is making sure to tongue the quarter note after the dotted eight.

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Right.

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That was their tendency.

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Ta, ta, ta.

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So making sure, and you know, again, that's something you can help prevent by pre-marking

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parts and marking T's over those tongue notes, because you know that's going to be something

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that they anticipate.

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And that's it.

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We stay with the same little idea, building all the way to the very end, close out in

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these last four measures.

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This is such an adorable march.

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It's written really well.

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The range is fantastic.

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It's very playable, but still has lots of cool, I think, teaching opportunities for younger

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ensembles.

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For sure.

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I hope that you will consider programming the Thunder Arranged by Schaefer in one of

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your programs in the near future.

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Thank you for joining us on this episode of...

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And BFFs.

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Later half hour.