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Okay...I'm sure EVERYONE here has played it or will play it at some time...at least I think...so, my question is, has anyone done anything during Pomp and Circumstance to make it more entertaining during rehearsal?
I'll go first. At the end (you know, the end part of it...)
I made this loud moan at the end...made some people laugh, and it made the rehearsal more enjoyable...

Don't think I've had to play it since 6th grade and grammar school commencement. We played it enough times on that occasion that it was my first glimmer that not all music was fun.

Jim "Now it's running through my head again. Make it stop." Wagner

This is my second year of a 2 year rotation at school. Last year I started the orchestra, sat down and did a crossword puzzles and got up just as the ritard started. I thought it was pretty good trick until I realized my principal bass player was reading a book.

Among the more colorful things I found written in the parts were words the cello section was singing to the tune that I can't print here, the epitath "Elgar must Die" and "Please, Mom, Make it Stop" in large enough letters to be picked up on the Jumbo-tron whenever the camera panned the back of the orchestra. Gotta love Bass players.

FWIW, the high school I teach at is one of @30 in Las Vegas that enrollments of @3000 (that's not a typo). Do the math and factor in that each high school has only 1 1/2 hours to get them it, sit 'em down, get 'em grajitated, and get 'em out before the next herd comes in. Big fun. Goes all day for 4 days.

The interesting thing about P&C is that where most other music builds its tension and musical release by inherent dynamic of either volume, tempo, articulation, or some combination, P&C does it by just the opposite in the most English of idioms: by the pedantry of the lower voices. No, it's not ostenato in the conventional sense, but the execution of the repeated quarter notes in almost seamless tenuto combined with the suspended resolution of the chords definitely makes for its own brand of understated yet intense emotional impact.

I actually enjoy P&C when done correctly.

Pomp and Circumstance, the arrangement used by most high school bands, is a chore, not a work of fine music. Most school administrators will take the band directors' jobs away from them if it's not played boringly for every May or June graduation.

I have played with a few community orchestras, some made up of both amateurs and seasoned professionals (and all earning a Union paycheck!) Anyway, for one orchestra I played with, one of the Symphony Guild members request that Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No.1 be played. The conductor had the parts out two weeks in advance. Those in the orchestra who were band directors, but never in an orchestra before, remarked, "My gosh, we have to do it here, too?"

But everyone was pleasantly surprised. It's a great piece. It has a nice tuba part, too.

Look at a tuba part from the original version before you start calling Bill a liar!

LoyalTubist wrote:Pomp and Circumstance, the arrangement used by most high school bands, is a chore, not a work of fine music. Most school administrators will take the band directors' jobs away from them if it's not played boringly for every May or June graduation.

I have played with a few community orchestras, some made up of both amateurs and seasoned professionals (and all earning a Union paycheck!) Anyway, for one orchestra I played with, one of the Symphony Guild members request that Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No.1 be played. The conductor had the parts out two weeks in advance. Those in the orchestra who were band directors, but never in an orchestra before, remarked, "My gosh, we have to do it here, too?"

But everyone was pleasantly surprised. It's a great piece. It has a nice tuba part, too.

Look at a tuba part from the original version before you start calling Bill a liar!

I receive CBC Radio Two at my home across the Straits from Victoria, B.C., Canada. It has a classical format and they played P&S #1 last week. I agree that it is a really nice piece of music and I enjoyed it.

I have to say I'm a big fan of Peter Schickele's "modifications" to P&S that was used in Fantasia 2000.

Doug@GT wrote:I have to say I'm a big fan of Peter Schickele's "modifications" to P&S that was used in Fantasia 2000.

"Pomp and Sirkumstants"?

Chuck(G) wrote:
"Pomp and Sirkumstants"?

Sometimes I wonder why they didn't try calling it something like that--just to see who'd notice.

But you've got to admit that adding a soprano soloist at the end is pretty clever.

Doug "whose school uses a nice mix of Trumpet Voluntary, Pomp & Circumstance, Rondeau, and Trumpet Tune and Ayre for graduation"

LoyalTubist wrote:Pomp and Circumstance, the arrangement used by most high school bands, is a chore, not a work of fine music. Most school administrators will take the band directors' jobs away from them if it's not played boringly for every May or June graduation.

After looking at the original part, that looks like a fun part. But, what I quoted...THAT is hilarious. We started being a really good band last year...and our band director left since our administrators were becoming jerks to him.

Thanks so much for scanning the tuba part, Wade. My scanner is in my mother's storage bin in California. Allied wouldn't let me send most of my extra computer equipment to Vietnam.

While on the subject of what Allied would and wouldn't allow me to bring here, after everything was packed and ready to go (and I was in Hong Kong by that time), my mother was given a list of prohibited items (according to Allied Van Lines). When I showed the list to Altus Van Lines, Allied's affiliate in Saigon, they just laughed... "You can't bring computers here? Books about the Vietnam war? Sealed food?" At least they were going to send my high school, university, grad school, and military yearbooks/memory books.

When I got here the first box I opened had:
-A 10 GB hard drive for one of my ancient Macs
-All my books on the history of the Vietnam War
-Ten canisters of gourmet coffee

Not one of my yearbooks or my memory book from basic training made it!

tubaguy9 wrote:our band director left since our administrators were becoming jerks to him

That's known as Pomp and Circumcision

And it happens when the band director refuses to play the lamebrained arrangement of Pomp and Circumstance we all hate to play, but have to play, for obligatory school graduations.

It's like turning your head and coughing for your physical exam. You hate it but you have to do it.

Get over it!

(as head is turned)

cough, cough