Dear friends,
1. Star Wars will be here today or tomorrow. I will do my best to pdf it for you for your downloading. If not, we may sight-read it from the hardcopy Thursday night.
2. Our band is growing by the addition of LU professors and LU students. While we welcome the expertise they will be bringing, those of you who are section leaders will retain your position of leadership. This is first and foremost a "community" band and you who have been with us for a long time have seniority within the group.
3. Tchaikovsky 4..Take a look at the enclosed attachment. This is the 3rd Clarinet part to this wonderful piece. (Trumpets have similar runs but not as many.) I’m having second thoughts about doing it now that I have studied the score.
Considerations:
- It’s 9+ minutes of running 16th notes.
- The 16th runs, for the most part, add color to the main melody which requires the added issue of finesse. (It’s one thing to knock out the technique, but it must be done with sensitivity = more personal practice and rehearsal time is required.)
- We could hammer it out but it would take an enormous amount of practice time at the expense of other music. Is it worth it? Your opinion please?
- We could do a read through with hard copies if you want, but even that would mean a lot of stops and starts and use up rehearsal time. Your opinion please?
Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to Candide is an option. It’s 5 minutes long and much more accessible. I can have that ready to go by Thursday.
My vision for most concerts is that we do 1 Classical transcription and 1 standard of the band literature, and fill the rest(most) of the program with lighter selections, hence the term Pops.
I would also like your ideas for programming the lighter music but there is a stipulation… there must be a band arrangement available of the piece you have in mind. Some of you have given me requests for songs for which there is no arrangement to hand out.
3 of the top resources for band arrangements are…
JW Pepper (world’s leading resource-we have an account with them.)
Stanton’s Sheet Music
Sheet Music Plus
Many composers publish their music through their own websites. You may recommend them if you send a link to the specific song.
An updated Thursday schedule is forthcoming.
Jim