Composer's Update - January 2010
Kenneth Amis
Florida Commission Project
With the first section of the march completed I traveled to Coral Springs, Florida to meet Neil Jenkins and his award winning musicians of the J.P. Taravella High School Band. The group Maestro Jenkins had assembled on the evening of January 28th was a lean wind ensemble of his most dedicated players--a perfect lab group to put some of my theories to the test.
One of the defining characteristics of a march is it's relentless rhythmic drive. The first section of music I had written relied greatly on the energy of the famed dotted-eighth/sixteenth figure. This rhythmic figure as been the bane of many conductors both interpretively (dating back to Renaissance and Baroque notation and performance practices) and practically. Once it is decided how the rhythm is to be played how much can I rely on the performers being able to execute it consistently? After all, even professionals must concentrate very hard to keep a series of dotted-eighth/sixteenth figures honest, especially in an ensemble setting. In a piece where rhythmic energy is the driving force how can I help a school band fend off the horribly contagious triplet feel that so easily infects the realization of this motif.
My initial solution was to change all the dotted-eighth/sixteenth figures to double dotted-eighth/thirty-seconds. This stood out visually as something different and the three beam-lets on the 32nd note would, hopefully, inspire a snappier execution of this rhythmic idea. As I sang through the melody of this opening section however, I found that there were times when the thirty-second note was too fast and that there should be a broader feel to certain passing tone than to others. So I put away my broad brush and used my fine tipped one to examine each and every occurrence to see which moments worked as thirty-seconds and which could relax, relatively speaking, as sixteenths.
Of course, there will now be some conductors who meticulously rehearse their ensemble on making a clear difference between the dotted-eighth/sixteenth and double dotted-eighth/thirty-second figures even though my intention behind the notation is only to help them maintain a particular rhythmic energy and rigidity. That's fine and is a good pedagogical exercise. The notation works if it is interpreted literally and if a band director has the time to focus on such literal detail with their students after dealing with all the other technical issues that they face, then more power to them. Neil Jenkins' exceptional players at J.P. Taravella High School showed no problems capturing the right feel of the music.
(BTW - In my experience, "ritmico" or some other such term alone is insufficient inoculation to the triplet virus.)
The second section of this march, like most parade and circus marches, will give the lower voices a chance to shine. But how much can I push the technique of young tenor, baritone and bass instrumentalists? Do band directors always assign the less developed players to the low instruments, like bass clarinet and bari sax or is it that the low reeds and low brass are simply never used to their full potential? What I have planned for them will certainly test the technical prowess and resolve of these often-neglected contributors.
For More Information on Kenneth Amis visit AmisMusicalCircle.com.