F
inding the “goldilocks” piece for your young ensemble can be a challenge in itself, but add in matching that piece with all of your curricular goals, instrumentation and other considerations? It’s enough to make anyone want to rip their hair out.
Fear not colleagues! Richard Saucedo’s Regal Fanfare is a remarkable piece that reinforces all of the countless hours you have spent teaching various 16th note rhythmic permutations, syncopation, compositional concepts (canon and melodic augmentation), various articulations, dynamics, multimeter and has a melody you and your students will have stuck in your head for the rest of the school year.
We have been using Regal Fanfare as one of the culminating pieces on our final 7th grade band concert for ages and it will give your top tier and struggling students just the right challenge; there is something educational for everyone in this fanfare. Your low brass and low reeds will have looks of concentration you never thought a grade 2 piece could muster. Your trumpets will learn to play in a beautiful fanfare style, while your woodwinds and percussion play exciting technical passages. The inner parts are of utmost importance and are scored in a way that gives them confidence in numbers, but also leaves them feeling as accomplished as the first parts. Want to teach your students about canons and melodic augmentation, there’s a section for that as well as detailed work on playing legato and marcato. This is a piece that will push your students in all the right ways and will have them begging you to play it again and again!
Colin Hunt has been an assistant director at Rockwood Summit High School and Rockwood South Middle School and will be taking over as head director at Crestview Middle School in the Rockwood School District. Hunt was selected to represent Missouri in School Band and Orchestra Magazine’s 22nd Annual 50 Directors Who Make a Difference.
