Welcome to our podcast. Band BFFs. Podcast where
we make your music selection a little less complicated.
On today's episode, we are going to be discussing
Dragon Dance by Michael Storey. Cheers to starting
the conversation. Roar. Like a dragon. Like,
I mean, a very small dragon. A teensy one. A
little one, to be clear. So we were just talking
about, we feel like, sorry that these pieces
are kind of short, but we are on our fuse, our
little fuse right now in our band jobs. I mean,
just like limping to the end, right? I'm sure
many of you feel the same way. We tried to term
a, wait, coin a term, coin a term. We figured
band prole. Was about as close as we could get
I just saw something on social media that someone
said and I can't I cannot for the life of me
remember. I'm pretty sure that April rivals October
in band world, especially middle school band
world. I completely agree. And my coworker just
had a baby, which is awesome and incredibly exciting.
And I got to meet him today for the first time
and he's precious and perfect. But yeah, that
just makes things even like more crazy in this
season, right? When you're even... down a staff
member. Yay, April. Yes. But now technically
we're in May. Yeah. And so it's the slow. The
slow decline to the end of the school year. Yeah,
it really is. It's actually just limping. Yeah.
Yeah. But we are so excited to talk about Dragon
Dance. This is a great little beginner band slash
possibly sub non varsity band piece to do in
the fall. It just uses the first six notes on
each instrument. Therefore, it makes kids feel
very successful when they perform it. It is in
the key of concert B flat. It's a minute and
a half long, so very, very short. No split parts
anywhere, very simplified percussion. And one
of the things that I like about it, the snare
part is written for the snares to be played off
on tom. So if you're doing this with a beginner
class and you have a larger percussion section,
you can throw several people on that tom part
and it's not going to overwhelm the ensemble
as opposed to if it was snares on. easily overbalance
an entire group but that's kind of a nice thing
for the percussion because there's not a lot
of percussion you've got snare bass some cymbal
triangle fun and bells that's it yeah but very
very playable for everyone it does have some
some skips in yeah the brass that you know I
think can offer a challenge but otherwise very
straight ahead yep so Key of B flat, super easy.
We start off with low brass, actually kind of
giving a little bit of a pulse. The dragon part,
I would guess, one, two, three, four, one, two,
three, four, one. And then the upper people are
just doing half notes on top of that. There is
an accent written on the last note, which is
measure three. And there's like a little percussion
break, very cute. And with like a little gong
part, which is fun. And then at measure seven,
trumpets come in with the melody alone, lots
of Ds on this piece. So this is a great opportunity
to teach or review kicking out on Ds with your
trumpets, making sure because at the ends of
every phrase, they're usually playing a D. So
it's just a great way and tool for teaching the
students about how important that is, how that
affects tuning between not just them, but also
other instruments across the ensemble. I also
think this is written the melodic phrases are
written obviously in in four measure chunks but
every two measures the melody has a half note
at the end so this is a now he has written this
really well where the accompaniment part is always
covering quarter notes when the melody ends on
a half note but it is a great opportunity to
insist that your young players push across the
bar line and play in full four measure phrases
and not break that phrase up into two measures
and again Again, that goes along with what Katie
was saying about kicking on those Ds, because
most of the time it's on that concert C. And
like the low brass and low reed part is literally
just a concert C. And so they have to also learn
how to articulate really firmly. They just have
C, C, C, C, C, C, you know? And so that's a great
way to teach students like, hey, sometimes you're
going to see repeated material in your part and
the composer does... want it to sound like a
whole note. Right. They want the rhythm to be
there. tonguing firmly, making sure your tongue
is sitting in the right place. That's going to
help everybody to sound even better as we're
playing as a full ensemble instead of just our
class. And the trumpets are the only melody right
here at measure seven. There's no woodwinds other
than low reeds that are supporting there. So
I mean, your trumpets need to be really strong.
They need to be confident. It's a unison trumpet
line, no split parts. So that helps. But yeah,
lots of the trumpets need to be confident for
sure. At 15, the saxophones, tenor, and alto
join in with the trumpets on the melody. And
then there's a cute little counter melody with
flute, oboe, clarinet, and bells. And their part
is marked forte just like the melody part. So
this is, again, another good opportunity to teach
students like, hey, we've already heard this
melodic line. Now the cool thing to do is to
have that melody and the trumpet back down a
level. and we call this layering. And then the
flute and oboe and clarinet line can layer up
and be the more important part. So again, this
is great for just teaching because they're all
playing really similar lines. It's a good first.
foray into layering and balance for the kids.
This would even be something that you could potentially
do with beginners at the winter concert, just
because the range is not. There are, like I mentioned,
a couple of skips. There are some skips in all
of the instruments of a sixth, where it goes
from a concert G to a concert B flat. So just
being mindful of that. I don't think that that
is too much of a stretch, but again, it's a teaching
opportunity, right? Like the clarinet part doesn't
go above A. Neither does the trumpet part so
if we can use the opportunity to teach right
hand down on a for clarinet Like we just said
with kicking out on D and these are all good
things to review with a sub non varsity band
in the fall So that might be a good opportunity
To program for as well. There's not too many
slurs, but there are some in the melody Just
also keeping everything long but but allowing
them to know that even when they do the slurs
That they have to keep the second note of the
slur long to keep it in style. There are no dotted
rhythms in this and most of the time that the
eighth notes are Articulated they are the same
note when not all the time. Yeah. Yeah when the
notes change they're slurred. Yeah, so Again,
just something - Most of the time. Yeah, most
of the time, yes. So we just finished out that
little melody line and counter melody line in
the upper woodwinds at measure 22 and we're gonna
teach the students to push all the way to the
bar line at 23. There is a breath mark written
in for the melody part which is clarinet coming
up at 23 and the counter melody line which is
an alto sax. Those are the only two voices playing
at 23 along with triangle. Very thinned out.
So the clarinets take over the melody they do
have some eighth notes here, but again, they're
changing, but they're under a slur. There is
one set of eighth notes that they have to change,
but it's D to C where they articulate. After
those four measures, they get to take a breath
again. And then we all come in the flute and
the oboe joining in on that part with the clarinets.
And saxes change over to also having the melody.
They were just like a harmonic foundation before.
Now the trumpet takes over that. that. Roll roll.
Yeah, and the bells come in as well triangle
keeps going again It's very thinly scored just
basically what there is not a while motor going.
Yeah, there's no snare Yeah, I mean, it's just
not even a baseline Exactly triangle and then
bells when they add in so no pulse or motor in
the percussion here and then at 30 the you know
We're starting to add everybody back in again.
It's marked mezzo forte You could even take it
down to mezzo piano to kind of build up the suspense
here the low brass come in with one two three
four and one but on the same note again and then
we're just kind of all building it up for two
measures a crescendo everybody gets to breathe
together on beat four of measure 31 and then
at 32 the low people get the melody so now the
low reeds and the low brass get the same part
that the trumpets had before but this time it's
in a round which is fun yeah so like the low
brass low reeds start the same melody idea that
we have before and then one measure later the
trumpets and the altos come in and one measure
after that the flute oboe and clarinet comes
in so again Katie mentioned this layering idea
this is another really important opportunity
to teach that hey this new thing is come in let's
make room for the new voice and that means when
you don't have it you can mark it down that's
right and you know if you are a fan of marking
your parts before you give them to students like
we are I would write in their part after the
two measures of the melody I would change the
dynamic to mezzo piano so that the students know
okay, that's why I'm doing this is because Miss
Lewis wants to hear this part come out more or
whatever Then we start the kind of the round
idea over again at measure 36 It gets a little
bit quote -unquote busier here because there's
other stuff going on everybody's playing at this
but the melodic material is still in the low
people part and Um, and again, it's being passed
around from part to part again. Um, and then
we kind of finished that out, that idea out at
measure 40 and we start off again with kind of
something similar from the beginning. It's just
like what you have at the beginning. And then
we end with a cute little cha cha cha and keeping
the last note long and there's accents on the
last note. So just a really short, you know,
43 measure. piece, but really great for teaching
or refreshing a lot of those musical ideas that
you need to teach again in a younger band. Yes.
Yeah. Well, we hope you will consider programming
Dragon Dance in the future and thank you for
joining us on this episode of Band BFFs.