Brandon Community Band Concert on June 7th

[blueeuph]

The Brandon Community Band which I'm the only euphonium player, is doing a joint a concert with the East End Middle School Band at BU on June 7th at 7:30pm. This will be my second concert playing with a concert band since moving back to Canada 3 years ago. The band which is composed of high school students and adults has come a long ways since forming last fall.

The pieces which the Brandon Community Band is playing:

Second Suite In F by Holst, playing all 4 movements: Gustav Holst, revised and edited by Colin Matthews

As Summer Was Just Beginning (Song for James Dean) : Larry D. Daehn
They Hung Their Harps In The Willows : W. Frances McBeth
The Thunderer : John Phillip Sousa arr. Brion / Schissel

[keithbarton]

Brandon Community Band Concert on June 7th

Sing out! on Second Suite, we know you will.
I googled your band, you're up in Manitoba?

[davewerden]

Brandon Community Band Concert on June 7th

The Holst 2nd contains my favorite euphonium solo within band literature! On my site there is a nice section on preparing for military auditions. Because the Holst is often used on auditions, you can find some advice there on how to phrase the solo. Go to the Auditions page and click on the Strategies tab. You will find it there, along with tips on playing a half dozen other common band pieces.

[RickF]

Brandon Community Band Concert on June 7th

blueeuph,

Yes, play out. I guess if you're the only euph, you've got that great solo! It is one of my favorites as well.

David Werden,

Great notes you (and Neal Corwell) have on that solo from Holst 2nd Suite (good air on lower notes). It does need to be played louder than mf. In one band where Fred Dart is conductor (and euph player) he's always wanting more. In another band, where the conductor is also a trumpet player, would tell me not too much - LOL.

I've seen your notes on 'Festive Overture' before but is was in pdf format (have it saved on my computer still). I like this set up on 'strategies'.

[blueeuph]

Brandon Community Band Concert on June 7th

Thanks, guys. Keithbariton: I'm in Brandon, Manitoba. The Brandon community band formed last fall so there wouldn't be anything on the 'net about the band. The band director at Crocus Plains Highschool (an euph. player btw) didn't had the instrumentation for a wind ensemble with his students. With the school board's permission, he was allowed to have rehersals on Thursday evenings and get community players involve. There's 35 or so in the band. Instrumenation in the band is good, could use another horn, another tuba player (the tuba player in the band is a pretty good high school player), maybe another decent euph. player (it gets a bit tough projecting with that band at times and there's a couple of pieces which there was 2 euph. parts, I give the bass bone player the 2nd euph. parts when that happens) , a bari sax player, an oboe player that plays in tune, and definately need a bass clarinet player. But atleast we have a good high school bassoon player which kinda tough to come by.

I will play out ofcourse. The trombone and horn section have backed off a fair bit for me so I don't feel like I'm going the edge projecting the solo. The Fantasia sounds a bit rough in the 3/4 section. It doesn't sound natural. The woodwinds don't like counting in one and the one trumpet player, is making the Greensleeves melody sound a bit jagged. I'm helping the tuba player out a bit with the tuba / pic. solo at the end just for a bit of reinforcement. I wished Holst actually written the tuba part at the end for the euphonium as written as it works alright for me even with playing pedal G.

Dave: I downloaded your tips on the Holst a while back. The tips are very helpful. I'm having a bit of trouble getting 8 bar phrases as the conductor is taking it slightly below a solid rehersal. Any tips for The Thunderer? The band and every now then I get suckered in, struggle with the trio melody with the dotted quarter followed by the eighths rhythm.

Speaking of the Thunderer, I was grr. at the conductor who will be conducting it for the concert. She's one of the band teachers in Brandon, plays flute. We spent 35 minutes on it. Though she didn't say anything, a couple of the trumpet players kept playing 20 some cents sharp!!! and made life miserable for me trying keep things in tune. When it was all said and done, my chops were next to dead on the second half of the rehersal which we went over the Holst. The regular conductor said to me not too worry about it too much.

[davewerden]

Brandon Community Band Concert on June 7th

RE: Any tips for The Thunderer? The band and every now then I get suckered in, struggle with the trio melody with the dotted quarter followed by the eighths rhythm.

That's a tough one. It's not too bad to play them correctly when you are practicing, but if the rest of the group is playing triplet rhythm it is hard to do it correctly. Then you have to ask yourself if it might be better to play with everyone else rather then being the only one who is right.

One technique some of my students found useful for this particular section is to play syncopations. So instead of a dotted quarter and eighth, play an eighth and a quarter on the first pitch and the normal eighth at the end of the cut-time beat. That can encourage you to delay the last eighth note long enough to keep it from sounding like a triplet. An example is below showing what I mean. But it's a little tricky to get used to because it's so different (and because it presents it's own technical challenges). So the other way to work on it is to use alternate fingerings that let you create a change everywhere that would otherwise be a lip slur.

[blueeuph]

Brandon Community Band Concert on June 7th

My concert went not too bad. Due to the time which the community band got on stage (8:30ish), we cut out the Fantasia On The Dargon of the Holst, likely a good thing. The start was a bit interesting, mainly the trumpets and a few of the adults were sure blowing too hard and not letting the shell do the work for them. My solo went alright, everybody backed enough for me though due to the tempo, I 'cheated' and did 4 measure phrases at times instead of the full 8 (shhh.). As a band, we settled down for the Summer Was Just Beginning Harps went alright except a few people got lost one spot but because how dense the voicing where a few people got lost, nobody would of noticed too easily. To a bit of my surprise, The Thunderer came out alright.

The band can be proud of themselves of how much they came since last fall.
On a side note, last week, a few people in the band said I'm the heart and soul of the band.