Greetings Capital Crescendos,
Theme of the Week: how to warm up & why we practice scales. Tradition of Excellence Book 2 is a great source for warm ups and tone exercises (for our “chops”) and technical exercises, as show by the examples we played through. As always, good to review scales, and become more familiar with the different key signatures.
And yes, keep listening to the audio links.
Administration and Social:
At the suggestion of Helene (clarinet), we’ll be organizing a showing of the movie West Side Story in the next few weeks. We have located a copy of the DVD and are now in search of a location where we can enjoy some refreshments and even sing along with the score. Kathryn (French horn) has agreed to organize the event. Please contact her (kathryn.elliott@rogers.com ) if you are able to help out or have a suggestion for a venue.
St. John’s Music is having a flute showcase this Saturday, October 28 at their location at 1541 Merivale Road from 9:30 to 5:00.
Sheila reminded us that we’ll be having an end of session concert tentatively scheduled for December 10 at which we’ll play either three or four of our pieces. There will be more details about the concert as we get closer to the date.
This Week’s Rehearsal
We started our rehearsal with Tradition of Excellence page 42, B♭ Major chorale, followed by lines 38 and 62, Warm-up: Chop Builders. Next we turned to Broadway Favorites, part of the Essential Elements series. The pieces in this book are arranged both as solos (to impress your friends and relatives) and as band arrangements. We played Cabaret initially in 4/4 time then in 2/2 or cut time and added a decrease in tempo at bar 69.
Turning to our repertoire, Sheila encouraged us to note the key signature for a piece, whether the key is the Major key or its relative minor which has the same key signature, and practise the scale before beginning the piece.
As our instruments were now warm, we tuned at this point, noting that we are tuning to another instrument, this week the oboe.
We played through Celebrating My Best Friend, Angel and West Side Story. Sheila reminded us that our arrangement for West Side Story is for concert band and varies slightly from the music in the film. Following our break we sight read Edelweiss from Broadway Favorites, adding a break at the end of bar 68. Next we turned to Riu, Riu, Chiu, and tackled some of the more challenging parts. We finished with French Canadian Suite.
We’ll be putting Feller from Fortune aside for the rest of this term.
Next Week’s Rehearsal
Review all the pieces, and isolate sections that you may find challenging. Next week starts with sectionals – remember that the sectionals are a time for asking particular questions about any of the sections you may find challenging. The clinicians are always happy to take specific questions, about your instrument and/or particular sections of the pieces we are working on.
Next week, we’ll start with clinics. Full band will be in the room across the hall from our usual practice venue.
Important Dates
Thursday November 2, 2017 at 3:15: Beer (or whatever) after band at Kristy’s located at 809 Richmond Road
Sunday December 10: tentative date for our seasonal concert
Listening Links
Celebrating My Three Best Friend
West Side Story:
Hail the Conquering Hero:
You Must Know:
Angel:
Riu, Riu, Chiu:
