Fanfare 2012
...or as I almost typed it, "Fafnir 2101".
So today was day trip day, which for me was a band thing. We were a small group as was, and smaller when they separated the strings from the winds/percussion. Also, pretty much every girl plays flute and there are far to many flutes for such a small group (maybe 40 of us? And around 10 flutes?). But ah well.
We sightread 6 pieces and voted on 4 to play tomorrow in a mini-concert. They are:
The Walking Frog- old-timey march/rag in 2. The first few times we played through it, myself and 3 others had to just wait because there wasn't enough music for us. In fact, there was only 1 flute part copy, so lots of copies had to be made, in installments. Overwhelmingly voted down.
Cantus Jubilante- something the middle school or maybe 9th/10th band would play. If we'd had more than today to work on it, it would have proved very easy. As it was, it was hardly a challenge- a generic school band piece which was reminiscent of Swearingen (sp?) stuff. The fast section of it was fun and had a good tune; it would make a good theme for a[n adventure] game or movie. The slow part, though-- the obligatory slow part in the middle of the fast, generic school band piece-- was dreadfully dull. It sounded like someone was trying to make one of those sappy new-age hymns and was using lullabies as their basis. It would put you to sleep or make you want to gag. Or both.
POTC 3 Medley- had singing at the beginning (Hoist the Colors) which you couldn't get everyone to sing with, and was an annoying arrangement. Those points, and the fact that I preferred other pieces, made me vote "nay" on this one. It got dropped.
Marriage of Figaro Overture- lots of fun, and a piece shikuchi has played. :) Difficult to learn well in just a day, but manageable. Overtures to operas then were kind of like movie medleys now, I guess...
Danse Bachanale from Samson and Delila- awesome. Has shikuchi played this before? Anyway, I liked this piece a lot, though most of the flutes hated it. I didn't even have the worst runs or patterns, so I don't know why. But we voted to keep it! :D At times it sounds pretty similar to our last piece (not last in the concert, but last listed here), which is
Palladio- when we got this piece, the director said, "You all know this from the Zales commercial." I had not seen said commercial, but it did seem awfully familiar as I looked over it. When we all started playing, I realized why: I had heard a techno modification of the piece, titled "Allegretto" (and sure enough, that was the tempo marking)! Great piece. Here's the the original for comparison.
So today was day trip day, which for me was a band thing. We were a small group as was, and smaller when they separated the strings from the winds/percussion. Also, pretty much every girl plays flute and there are far to many flutes for such a small group (maybe 40 of us? And around 10 flutes?). But ah well.
We sightread 6 pieces and voted on 4 to play tomorrow in a mini-concert. They are:
The Walking Frog- old-timey march/rag in 2. The first few times we played through it, myself and 3 others had to just wait because there wasn't enough music for us. In fact, there was only 1 flute part copy, so lots of copies had to be made, in installments. Overwhelmingly voted down.
Cantus Jubilante- something the middle school or maybe 9th/10th band would play. If we'd had more than today to work on it, it would have proved very easy. As it was, it was hardly a challenge- a generic school band piece which was reminiscent of Swearingen (sp?) stuff. The fast section of it was fun and had a good tune; it would make a good theme for a[n adventure] game or movie. The slow part, though-- the obligatory slow part in the middle of the fast, generic school band piece-- was dreadfully dull. It sounded like someone was trying to make one of those sappy new-age hymns and was using lullabies as their basis. It would put you to sleep or make you want to gag. Or both.
POTC 3 Medley- had singing at the beginning (Hoist the Colors) which you couldn't get everyone to sing with, and was an annoying arrangement. Those points, and the fact that I preferred other pieces, made me vote "nay" on this one. It got dropped.
Marriage of Figaro Overture- lots of fun, and a piece shikuchi has played. :) Difficult to learn well in just a day, but manageable. Overtures to operas then were kind of like movie medleys now, I guess...
Danse Bachanale from Samson and Delila- awesome. Has shikuchi played this before? Anyway, I liked this piece a lot, though most of the flutes hated it. I didn't even have the worst runs or patterns, so I don't know why. But we voted to keep it! :D At times it sounds pretty similar to our last piece (not last in the concert, but last listed here), which is
Palladio- when we got this piece, the director said, "You all know this from the Zales commercial." I had not seen said commercial, but it did seem awfully familiar as I looked over it. When we all started playing, I realized why: I had heard a techno modification of the piece, titled "Allegretto" (and sure enough, that was the tempo marking)! Great piece. Here's the the original for comparison.