No! Not Rain!

Weather is extremely important in the world of music. I know what you are thinking. 'How on earth does the weather affect music?' Why, I sure am glad you asked.

Some reasons are fairly obvious, such as weather affecting the venue. Many performances are outside during summer time and during the marching season. Marching bands perform outside on the football field in all sorts of conditions. During band camp in late August, it is extremely hot and you must stay extremely well hydrated in order to stay healthy and to not pass out. As the season continues the weather starts to change to a nicer, more controlled temperature. Many days it is very rainy outside and students are forced to trudge through the muddy, soggy field every day for rehearsal. Towards the end of the season, the weather starts getting very chilly. The wool uniforms that once heated up your body on the hot summer days now provide no warmth what so ever in the brutal cold. Sometimes the weather conditions are so extreme that the band can not perform at all. Football game half time performances are often called off at the beginning of the season because of the heat, and in extremely rare cases competitions are called off near the end in the case of a very early snow. In addition to marching band performances, there are also many community bands that perform outside throughout the summer. Usually the only time these performances is called off is when it is raining because the musicians have no way to protect their instruments.

The weather does not only affect the playing venue, it also affects how the instruments sound when played. Many professional woodwind instruments are made out of actual wood, which is a difficult material to deal with. The wood moves very often in accordance with the weather conditions. When it is hot, the wood expands and your pitch is raised so you become out of tune on the sharp side. On the opposite end of the spectrum, when it is cold outside the woods contracts and the pitch is lowered. This is because as the temperature increases the speed of your air also increases, raising the pitch. Similarly, when it is cold the air speed slows down, causing the pitch to go flat. The same things happens to brass instruments and saxophones, except the metal those instruments are made out of expands and contracts instead of the wood.

While the temperature outside affects the way your instrument sounds while playing, other conditions such as rain affect whether or not you will be playing your instrument at all. Brass instruments have no trouble playing in the rain, but it is a very different story for most woodwinds and percussion instruments made out of wood. Everyone knows that you should never get wood wet. The moisture gets trapped in the wood and then it slowly starts to decay away. This happens with instruments too. In addition to the wood, the metals on woodwind instruments also start to rust when they get wet. All of these things are extremely expensive to repair, so it is best to simply keep your instrument dry in the first place.

Auditions

Auditions are extremely stressful for many people. It is completely normal to be frightened about going into a room to perform for someone you do not know. Oftentimes if you are auditioning for something, it means you care about the activity and you want to do well in the audition. If you are not scared or anxious at all, it probably means you do not care about the result of the audition. Many people struggle dealing with this stress and it causes them to perform worse, making them seem less skilled than they actually are. In order to perform well in auditions, you must first master how to control your emotions and not let them affect your playing.

I, like many others, used to deal with major stress issues when auditioning for something, whether that be to secure a spot in All-State or simply the chair auditions for our high school band. I am not entirely sure how I overcame these fears, but I do remember that one day I put my foot down and decided I was no longer going to let nerves affect how I do in an audition. I was sick of being disappointed in myself for letting my fears get the best of me, so I simply decided that was never going to happen again. From then on, I have always walked into an audition room completely calm. My mother, a professional flutist, once told me, "Do not act cocky, but walk into that room with confidence, like you have already earned the spot." Some of my peers often mistake my calmness as a lack of care, like I mentioned previously. The opposite is actually quite true. I force myself to be calm and not let my nerves affect me because I care deeply and I am determined to do my very best in the audition. Whenever I walk into an audition, my goal is to absolutely ooze confidence. Often times, I do this very well. I work very hard to prepare the music and I am confident that my skills as a musician will earn me a good spot anywhere.

Many older, more experienced musicians may be able to come up with lots of different strategies you could use to calm yourself down or manage your nerves before an audition. However, unfortunately I do not have any helpful tips that could be of use. I know you have probably heard it a million times, but the only thing I can say is to be confident. Every time you step into an audition room, you should act as if you have already earned a spot and as if you own the room. It takes a lot of practice to fully master how to be in control of your emotions, but if you work hard enough, you can eventually overcome the stresses and fears associated with auditioning. Let me be a testament; you will feel one hundred times better when you walk out the room knowing that you performed to the best of your abilities and you did not let your nerves get in the way. Even if you do not achieve what you originally had in mind, it will feel wonderful knowing you can overcome your fears.

Cyclone Sound

Many students at my school have heard the University of Iowa, Iowa State, and UNI marching bands at sometime during their lives. College football is very popular around here, but some of the musicians only watch to listen to the bands. This year, the Iowa State band program has started another group: Cyclone Sound. This small group of around 50 members is similar to a winter guard group that performs and competes throughout the winter season. Today, this group came to perform their 2015-2016 show for my high school. I was very impressed with the quality since the group has only been running for two or three years. It is still gaining popularity, but I believe the school is promoting the group greatly to encourage more students to audition.

The performance started with several small group performances including a routine by the featured twirler, the color guard, and the drumline. Next, the whole band came out and played a few warm ups while the director explained what they were doing to the audience. Finally, the show started. This year's show was entitled "Stars". The group performed arrangements of three or four tunes that all had something related to stars. In addition, each member wore a uniform with a large star on the front. The tarp which they performed on was designed to be an abstract 'galaxy', and many of their formations were inspired by galaxies and shooting stars.

Overall, I enjoyed the performance very much. It was clear that the group was not as sophisticated as the marching band, but it was still very good. I believe the group will continue to gain popularity and it will become better and better over the next few years. It is difficult starting something brand new like this, but the program is doing very well with it. I am very excited to see what the future holds for Cyclone Sound!

Michael Markowski

Michael Markowski is a twenty-first century composer who has written many award-winning pieces for band. Markowski is quite young, but he is gaining popularity rapidly because of his immense talents and beautiful works. My band performed perhaps one of his most famous pieces to date, Shadow Rituals, last year. This is the song my band recorded and submitted to the Iowa Band Masters Association last year in attempts to be selected as the High School Class 4A Band at the festival. To be selected is an extremely big deal and a great honor. My band was selected to perform at the festival last year, and one of our opening pieces was Shadow Rituals. This year, we are going to play City Trees, another popular piece written by Markowski. While Rituals is a very fast, upbeat tune, City Trees is much calmer and slower. I am looking forward to rehearsing this piece very much, and I cannot wait for Markowski to create more beautiful pieces of music.

Suite of Old American Dances Music Review

Suite of Old American Dances by Robert Russell Bennett is a very popular band piece composed in 1949. It consists of five difficult movements that include Cake Walk, Schottische, Western One-Step, Wallflower Waltz, and Rag. My band is currently working on this piece and I absolutely love it.

I. Cake Walk
The first movement was inspired by a traditional competition among black slaves. The slaves would put on a play for their white masters, who served as the judges. The master would choose his favorite skit and would reward the slave(s) with a cake. This is how the competition became known as the 'Cake Walk'. This movement is very fast and upbeat with many different sections that reflect the stages of the competition.

II. Schottische
This movement was written based off of a Scottish round dance, hence the name. It is very similar to a polka, but it is a little slower. The style switches between two types of playing throughout the movement. At the beginning the song is very light and dance-like, and then it quickly moves to a very loud and rambunctious section with almost no transition. This switch occurs several times throughout the piece.

III. Western One-Step
The Western One-Step is a variation of an early ballroom dance. This dance was often a precursor to the foxtrot. It is a very catchy movement filled with lots of sound. This movement is interesting because many instruments that usually do not have the melody carry the tune, such as the trombones.

IV. Wallflower Waltz
The fourth movement of this piece is a charming 20th century take on the classic Viennese waltz. It is a soothing tune with its familiar 1-2-3 meter. This movement is very light and beautiful. It features large english horn and trumpet solos throughout. In addition, there are many special mutes and playing styles used by the brass in order to create unique, distinct sounds.

V. Rag
The wonderful conclusion to the Suite features a bright and wild take on ragtime music. The piece is full of syncopated rhythms and 2-against-3 patterns that challenge the players. Rag is written in cut time and it very upbeat and fast, making for a fitting conclusion to the celebrated tune by Bennett.

Less Commonly Known Band Instruments

Everyone is aware of the main instruments that are used in band, such as flute, clarinet, trumpet, and tuba. Apart from these well known instruments, there are many more that are not as common and not used in all pieces of music. Sometimes when a composer wants a certain part to sound a certain way, he writes a part for an odd instrument that is not used very commonly. Similarly, sometimes a composer wants to feature that instrument in a solo or small group, so he incorporates it into the music. The instruments I will be discussing include piccolo, english horn, and cornet. There are many others, of course, but they are less confusing than these three. For example, there are instruments such as alto flute, soprano saxophone, and bass trombone that are not used very commonly in music. However, it is easier to understand them because they are simply deeper or higher versions of the main instruments, as the name suggests.

A talented, advanced flute player will have to learn how to play piccolo sometime in their studies if they wish to continue music to a certain level. A piccolo is much smaller than a flute, and it looks quite different. While most flutes are silver or gold, piccolos are often jet black or a dark colored wood and roughly less than half the size. Piccolos are very high pitched and are able to play notes higher than any other instrument. An unskilled player often makes harsh, shrill noises that are not pleasing to the ear. However, a talented flutist is able to make the piccolo sound just as good as he/she does with the flute. Piccolos, like flutes, are very hard to tune and do not sound good when two are playing together out of tune. Because of this, it is extremely rare for there to be more than one piccolo player in the band at a time. Piccolo is actually the most common of these three unknown instruments. Many songs call for a piccolo, people just do not know it.

While most flutists start learning piccolo at a younger age, oboists do not start playing english horn until much later in their musical careers. I learned how to play english horn when I was a freshman in high school, which is younger than most. A piece we were performing called for an enormous english horn solo in the beginning, so the duty fell unto me. An english horn is about twice the size of an oboe and it is much deeper. I love the sound of the english horn because it is extremely dark and rich. When playing english horn, I feel very regal and majestic. It looks exactly the same as the oboe with one exception: the bell at the bottom of an english horn is puffed up, so it looks like there is a ball of something stuck inside. The bell of an oboe has a slight flare towards the end, but it does not have a lump at the bottom. Not many songs call for an english horn, so it is rare that you would need one. Even less common is an english horn solo, like the one I mentioned above. Most composers do not think to incorporate and english horn part, let alone write a solo for it. However, I think it is a beautiful instrument and I would love to get the opportunity to play it more often.

The final instrument is the cornet. Cornet and trumpet are extremely similar, almost exactly the same in fact. There is only one tiny, unnoticeable difference between them: the way their bells are shaped. Trumpets have cylindrical bores that are consistent throughout the whole length of the tubing while cornets have conical bores that gradually decrease in size down the length of the tubing. The instruments sound and look basically the same, so they are practically interchangeable. Once in a while, pieces of music call for a section of cornets instead of a section of trumpets. The difference in sound is so miniscule I do not see the point, but some composers are extremely picky about their choice of instruments.

I always find it interesting to play or listen to pieces that use odd, uncommon instruments. It adds character to the music and I find those pieces much more enjoyable.