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Friends,

I am looking for suggestions for pieces to play for a relatively small school with a young band program. They have three bands, basically elementary, middle and high school, and the level is not very advanced. I would like to play something they can play that has a solo part that might be inspiring without taxing them too much in the accompinament. Blue Bells, the director tells me, would be a stretch.

ideas?
Tony Kniffen

Tuba smarties has a very easy band part.
Trumpet repeats the tubas solo.

Pick something they already know and make a theme and variations out of it on the solo part. All they need to do is follow along and repeat.

Hi Tony,
This is Mike, (from our ASU days...). I have two arrangements which you may want to consider - I wrote them with this exact situation in mind, great tuba parts with accessible band parts. The band parts are pretty much quarter notes and eighth notes in accessible keys and the ranges are accessible as well. If you are interested, have questions, or would like to see the scores, just PM me and we can talk.

Mike

The Bencriscutto "Concertino"

A few years ago I had the pleasure of having a Marine trumpeter play Carnival of Venice with my 8th grade band. The accompaniment parts are very accessible (I didn't have a very good band that year, and it was my first year teaching, so I probably didn't have them as prepared as they should have been).

Here is the link to the piece on JWPepper.

http://www.jwpepper.com/The-Carnival-of ... dPOs_lViko" target="_blank

Blue Bells tough? Wow...
Carnival is probably about the same level, but either should be accessible to even a bad band with time. It would be a good pedagogical step for the kids.

You might want to read this discussion thread that came up a few months ago for possibilities:

Tuba Solo with Middle School Accomp

Beelzebub isn't to hard for band and is fairly nice.

Tuba Tiger Rag?

There is a Canadian Brass concert band version available through Hal Leonard. Fun piece, audience will like it.

I did the solo part many years ago with band and remember the accompaniment being pretty simple. But I can't say if it would really be any easier than Blue Bells.

I think most of the Arban and Sousa style theme and variations would work. Most of the accompaniments are very simple.

I performed "Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms" in front of a community college band, and after a few weeks, they got it. Very simple piece for the band.