Jeff Girard and M-R Music present

The Wind Band Report

Resources for Wind Band teachers

Vol. 3, No. 2 February 2015

Want to be added to a particular newsletter category?

Update your information to receive the newsletters you want.

and thanks for reading. Most of the state conventions are over for me, so I have time to get back to my research. I've discovered so many new works and references this year it's difficult fro me to keep track of it all at times. I guess that's a good problem to have.

This issue I wanted to share a few resources that can help supplement your own studies as a wind band director. Like with any educational profession, you can never really stop learning if you want to remain an effective teacher. There are countless resources out there, but here are a few that I think may help in both general and specific ways with various areas of wind band study. Some of these are new, some are older but lesser known, all of them can be useful in one way or another.

Sourcebook for Wind Band and Instrumental Music

Battisti, Birz, Girsberger

This book is one of the most amazing resources for wind band directors I think I have ever seen. It's a book about how to research information as a wind band director.

Specifically, it categorizes and indexes a huge number of various resources to help you find information regarding numerous areas of wind band conducting. There are sections of detailed bibliographies of wind band resources, biographies, and histories. There is a section detailing websites for band directors. There's a section on annual wind conducting seminars throughout the US and how to register for them. There are websites of composers and wind band organizations. There are resources for finding program notes, resources for conducting, orchestrating, rehearsing, music notation - and so much more.

This book has so much information it's hard to take it all in with a casual perusal. It's the kind of book where you focus in on one section at a time, either when you need to for research purposes or when you just want to brush up a bit on what's available out there. I can't imagine the number of hours that went into compiling all this.

Book - $39.95

Time and the Winds

Frederick Fennell

This book has actually been around for a very long time (since 1954!), but was out of print or otherwise unavailable for a long period of time. Thankfully it has found a new home and is once again available for reference.

This book originated as a series of 10 lectures Fred Fennell prepared and delivered to the service men and women who frequented the music room of the Fifth Avenue USO Club in San Diego, California, during his stay in that area as National USO Music Adviser. Fennell collected and edited these presentations to make this book, which tells the history and development of wind instruments and their use.

It's a very user friendly read, not as dry as other scholarly historical texts on the history of the wind band. It's also detailed with a wealth of detailed information to give you a well rounded knowledge of the origins of the wind band and wind ensemble. I know some schools used to use this as a supplemental text in their wind conducting classes.

Book - $19.95

Quality of Life Habits for a Successful Band Director

Scott Rush

There's more to being a successful band director than knowing your score and conducting a clear beat. It's a demanding career, and finding a way to balance it all and maintain a happy and healthy career can be a challenge for many.

The book covers several topics you won't get through your conducting classes or continuing education studies. Early career strategies; balancing family, spouse, workplace, and personal needs; motherhood and band directing; some perspectives from conducting masters Ray Cramer and Frank Battisti, and more. It's a great resource to balance out all the academic studies of your job.

Book - $39.95

Tuning for Wind Instruments

Shelly Jagow

I've mentioned this one before, but it's worth repeating if you don't have it yet. This book has everything you need to know about teaching intonation in band instruments, from practical approaches to teaching to in depth-scientific explanations of sound physics and intonation. A full color section detailing note-by-note standard intonation issues for each instrument is inside, and that alone makes the book worthwhile.

It also includes sections on alternate fingerings, tuning brass slides, fine tuning chords, and exploring numerous tuning facts and myths. This is the go-to book when it comes to dealing with this essential part of wind band teaching.

Book - $24.99


Teaching Music Through Performance in Band, Volume 10	Teaching Music Through Performance in Middle School Band

Once again, here's the latest entries in the ongoing series from GIA publications. Volume 10 is another standard book in the series, covering grades 2 through 6, but Teaching Music Through Performance in Middle School Band is a slightly different entity. It focuses exclusively on grades 1-3. There are seven chapters/articles pertaining specifically to middle school band issues, as written by prominent middle school directors. The repertoire is all new, no repeats from the other TMTPIB books or the two beginning band books. What is different though is the separate section on Middle School marches. This is something that hasn't been covered before, and I'm glad to see a resource available for that now.

The Middle School book CDs are available, as is the Grades 2-3 CDs for Volume 10. I'm pretty sure the Grade 4-5 CD will come out by next Midwest.

Volume 10 Book: $59.00 Volume 10 CD (Gr. 2-3): $39.50	Middle School Band Book: $59.00 Middle School Band 5 CD set: $59.50

Errata Studies, Vol. 1-7

Timothy Topolewski

Timothy Topolewski is both a respected wind band director and a wind band scholar as well (and he hand-crafts professional level batons as well - ask me about those some time). He served as the co-editor along with Fred Fennell on the current, full-score edition of Lincolnshire Posy that has become the staple of the repertoire. Over the last several decades he has taken upon himself a monumental project.

The music printing and publishing world in the pre-computer age was a very different beast. Sometimes a special typewriter-like machines were used to individually typeset the parts from a full score. Sometimes stencils or stamps were used for each individual note and marking. Sometimes they were hand written. In all of these cases, human error allowed for a number of inconsistencies and mistakes to occur in both the score and the parts. Many of us have had the situation where the band just isn't playing a passage correctly, only to find out there's a wrong note, phrasing, or other error in the part.

Timothy has taken printed score and parts to standard works of wind band and wind ensemble literature, then carefully goes through the entire piece one note at a time, comparing the score to the parts, and finds every inconsistency. Every. Single. One. He then lays them all out for you, score errors and parts errors. Often it's an obvious transcribing mistake and he'll note what the correct note, dynamic, phrasing, or articulation should be. In the few cases where the answer is not clear cut, he simply points out the inconsistency and leaves it to the director to resolve it.

This is all standard repertoire, so anyone conducting one of these works should have the errata list beforehand so you can make all your corrections before the parts even get handed out. There are currently seven volumes:

Vol. 1 - Chester Overture; Four Scottish Dances;Incantation and Dance; Al Fresco; Symphony No. 3; Sketches on a Tudor Psalm; Symphony in B Flat; Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral; Circus Polka

Vol. 2 - Enigma Variations; Kaddish; "March" from Symphonic Metamorphosis; Octet for Wind Instruments; Overture to Candide (Beeler); Sinfonietta; Suite Francaise; Symphony for Band (Persichetti); Theme and Variations, Op. 43a; Trittico

Vol. 3 - Serenade Op. 7 (Strauss); Rondino (Beethoven); Petite Symphonie (Gounod); Serenade No. 1 (Persichetti); Histoire du Soldat (Stravinsky); Octet (Beethoven); The Good Soldier Schweik Suite (Kurka); Hill Song No. 2 (Grainger); Serenade Op. 44 (Dvor�k)

Vol. 4 - The Hounds of Spring Overture; Variations on a Korean Folk Song; La Fiesta Mexicana; Huntingtower Ballad; Psalm for Band; Esprit de Corps

Vol. 5 - Chorale and Alleluia; Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night; Symphonic Dance #3 "Fiesta"; Havendance; Watchman, Tell us of the Night; Symphony No. 5 "Finale" (Shostakovich/Righter); Lincolnshire Posy - Percy Grainger (Fennell edition - yes he found errors even in the revised edition); Eternal Father Strong to Save

Vol. 6 - Canzona (Menin); Toccata for Band (Erickson); Fantasia for Band (Giannini); Kentucky 1800; Emblems

Vol. 7 - Toccata Marziale. Yes, the whole volume is JUST about Toccata Marziale. It's based on the eariler, pre-Battisti edition of the work, although it is my understanding that the Battisti edition focused more on cleaning up the score rather than the parts.

Vol. 8 (FORTHCOMING) - Russian Christmas Music; Salvation is Created; Galop (Shostakovich/Hunsberger); Flight (Smith); Beowulf (McBeth); Armenian Dances Part 1 and 2. He's more than half way done on these. When it's ready I'll be sure to announce it here.

Thanks for reading. I'm getting ready for the Arkansas All-State Conference, then preparing for the CBDNA conference in Nashville. The next issue will cover the works of up and coming composer Philip Rothman. Until them, in honor of John Stewart, here it is, your moment of Zen: