Sorry for the protracted absence. I feel like I've finally gotten dug out from last semester and have the first-week-of-the-semester business out of the way.
This semester I'm teaching harmony IV (my first time since I've been at TTU, believe it or not), aural skills IV, and Analytical Techniques II (essentially, post-tonal theory). You can read about what I'm doing in the post-tonal course here (so far so good).
Every year at TTU we do a scholarship concert in the spring that the orchestra and choirs participate in together, and last year the combined forces performed Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem. So, we took about six weeks in the sophomore harmony and aural skills classes and dedicated them to study of the piece as a sort of capstone project for the theory sequence. We did large-scale and small-scale analytical projects, talked about orchestration and transposing instruments, did melodic and harmonic dictation from the piece (both reduced and from the recording) and sung both the instrumental and choral parts. They even had excerpts from the work on their final exam, for which they were allowed to bring their marked-up score. The students gave us quite a lot of positive feedback--many who were not performing brought their scores to the concert!
This year, we have a new orchestra director and are currently without a full-time director of choral activities, so we weren't sure if there would be a scholarship concert, or, if there was, what form it might take. So this semester we decided to make Handel's Messiah the capstone work for the sophomores.
I played a performance of Messiah over the summer (!) (the whole thing), and it's a lot of work. It's a piece that I've played I don't know how many times. But I've never formally studied it in either theory class or, back in the day, in my double bass lessons. It occurred to me, though, that this is precisely the type of piece we should be studying and acquainting our students with, both in applied lessons and in the private studio. Don't get me wrong--it's valuable to study the Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky violin concertos, and the bass parts for the Beethoven Symphonies, but in about a dozen years now of performing professionally, I still have yet to play Mozart 35 (the last movement of which is nearly impossible on the double bass), Strauss's Ein Heldenleben (the entirety of which is nearly impossible on the double bass), and so on--works that I spent months of my life learning.
I find, though, that I'm often called upon to play Messiahs and Nutcrackers and Morton Gould's American Salute, works that I haven't devoted any formal study time to, but have had to play dozens of times in the past however many years. I think our students would benefit from going out into the world with a working knowledge of these pieces from both a technical standpoint (how do I play this part?) and a theoretical/musicological standpoint (When was this written? Why? What is the form? What's the oboe playing when I have these quarter notes?).
So I started thinking about a "B-list" of orchestra excerpts--things that I might teach a double bass minor, for instance, or things that we should add to our pool of "Masterworks" in music theory. Among them, Messiah, Nutcracker, (anything by Tchaikovsky, for that matter--I play his fourth symphony at least once a year; it's on the scholarship concert this year, as it turns out); Leroy Anderson's Christmas Music; Morton Gould's American salute; Dvorak symphony no. 8; Copland's Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo and a few others.
Any suggestions for works to be added to this B-list (either for double bass or, more appropriately, for theory class)? What would a B-list of excerpts for your instrument look like?
This semester I'm teaching harmony IV (my first time since I've been at TTU, believe it or not), aural skills IV, and Analytical Techniques II (essentially, post-tonal theory). You can read about what I'm doing in the post-tonal course here (so far so good).
Every year at TTU we do a scholarship concert in the spring that the orchestra and choirs participate in together, and last year the combined forces performed Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem. So, we took about six weeks in the sophomore harmony and aural skills classes and dedicated them to study of the piece as a sort of capstone project for the theory sequence. We did large-scale and small-scale analytical projects, talked about orchestration and transposing instruments, did melodic and harmonic dictation from the piece (both reduced and from the recording) and sung both the instrumental and choral parts. They even had excerpts from the work on their final exam, for which they were allowed to bring their marked-up score. The students gave us quite a lot of positive feedback--many who were not performing brought their scores to the concert!
This year, we have a new orchestra director and are currently without a full-time director of choral activities, so we weren't sure if there would be a scholarship concert, or, if there was, what form it might take. So this semester we decided to make Handel's Messiah the capstone work for the sophomores.
I played a performance of Messiah over the summer (!) (the whole thing), and it's a lot of work. It's a piece that I've played I don't know how many times. But I've never formally studied it in either theory class or, back in the day, in my double bass lessons. It occurred to me, though, that this is precisely the type of piece we should be studying and acquainting our students with, both in applied lessons and in the private studio. Don't get me wrong--it's valuable to study the Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky violin concertos, and the bass parts for the Beethoven Symphonies, but in about a dozen years now of performing professionally, I still have yet to play Mozart 35 (the last movement of which is nearly impossible on the double bass), Strauss's Ein Heldenleben (the entirety of which is nearly impossible on the double bass), and so on--works that I spent months of my life learning.
I find, though, that I'm often called upon to play Messiahs and Nutcrackers and Morton Gould's American Salute, works that I haven't devoted any formal study time to, but have had to play dozens of times in the past however many years. I think our students would benefit from going out into the world with a working knowledge of these pieces from both a technical standpoint (how do I play this part?) and a theoretical/musicological standpoint (When was this written? Why? What is the form? What's the oboe playing when I have these quarter notes?).
So I started thinking about a "B-list" of orchestra excerpts--things that I might teach a double bass minor, for instance, or things that we should add to our pool of "Masterworks" in music theory. Among them, Messiah, Nutcracker, (anything by Tchaikovsky, for that matter--I play his fourth symphony at least once a year; it's on the scholarship concert this year, as it turns out); Leroy Anderson's Christmas Music; Morton Gould's American salute; Dvorak symphony no. 8; Copland's Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo and a few others.
Any suggestions for works to be added to this B-list (either for double bass or, more appropriately, for theory class)? What would a B-list of excerpts for your instrument look like?