so we're gonna shift gears a little bit and talk specifically about what you do in composing and
arranging for the win band and in particular we can kind of talk about the marching aspect
of it sure what are some of the mistakes you see arrangers are making and how would you encourage
them or how would you avoid those kind of mistakes well it's interesting that you're asking that
Scott because I did write for um a small band this year in Missouri called Liberty High School and um
great a great little band you know but not a lot of players and so I had to be careful about how I
scored Etc I just wrote with the sound of the band in mind taking the instrumentation that they had
and then orchestrating for that instrumentation in a way that those kids were going to have a
really good chance of sounding good I know their director is really good even though there's not a
lot of kids yet in the marching band he'll get it there but I that's what I concentrated on
am I writing for the mellophones in a Range that they're going to be able to be very
successful occasionally I push them just a little bit because if the truth be known
no matter what the difficulty level is you're doing if you go to a competitive event and
you're excellent at what you do it doesn't matter how hard it is if you're truly excellent very few
bands are you know so you can play something simple and if you do it really really well
you're going to get credit for it and your kids are going to feel great about it and your parents
are going to feel great about it so it's about so like I said earlier setting them up for Success
so I just am very careful about where I place the notes a lot of people think that to be successful
you have to score the flutes really really high so they're heard well what you hear when you score
flutes really high is Out Of Tune flutes all right so you have to be careful to put them Just high
enough that they'll come through but that the kids have a fair chance of playing in tune and sounding
good that's when you'll hear the flutes if they're clearing in tune just using common sense and like
I said writing for the kids that are actually going to be playing it how do you approach the
pacing of a show in terms of it's entertainment value versus maybe not wanting to tire out the
performers I mean how do you I guess pacing is the question for you yeah I still think pacing is one
of the most important things in putting anything together any kind of program together you have to
think about the audience you have to think about the effects the effect doesn't always have to be
loud and that's what I try to get young directors to understand you don't have to play Loud all
the time you know it's there's something to a subtle moment where the audience has to lean in
and then you smack them in the face with a big moment and they're like whoa that's pacing you
know and that's also effective writing really good friend Lindsey vento encourages people to
write a timeline to put together a timeline and where is the peak of your show going to be and
if the peak of your show is at the end then where are all the mini Peaks that lead to that and what
are you gonna after you get that decided okay cool that's going to be great for the audience they're
going to stay with us what are we going to do in this segment to get to this little mini Peak or
um if we're if we have the peak going the other way where we want it to be so subtle that everyone
is leaning in listening what are we going to do there to get that to happen but if you have that
timeline kind of established it's much easier for them than you to plug in music or plug in visual
ideas or color guard ideas so I think she has a great way of explaining that and that's what I
would encourage people to do what do you wish you more of from a director when they're right when
you're writing for them um I've been lucky because the folks I write for are really good about giving
me information sometimes I get so much information you know it's really kind of cool I mean someone
will send me notes and it will say flutes two all-staters three wannabe all-staters kids that
aren't sure what end to play in of the horn I mean they're that detailed with what they have
so when I'm writing first flute Parts obviously it's different than the second flute part that
I write and when I have that kind of information it's great because I know who I can write for if
if they say to me keep the third clarinets below the break that's what I do actually the clarinet
sounds great below the break so a lot of times I'll write for the whole clarinet section but
yeah I'd say I'm really lucky that way but I'd say for people out there that have their shows
arranged make sure your arranger has that kind of information so what's the creative process
look like for you and you're writing a show do you start with a piano sketch I mean how does it work
for you yeah I'll use the sketch on piano and I learned that from my dear friend Mike Sweeney
at Hal Leonard who's really good about doing sketches you know it was hard for me at first
because I just wanted to get it done you know I wanted it to get done I thought if I'm doing
full measures of time or get done quicker but I learned it doesn't mean it's going to get done
better so I'll tend to do a piano sketch but when I'm sure of something I will I'll have the piano
sketch I usually have the piano score in between the woodwinds and Brass on the score but when I'm
sure of something I'll just take that part I'll go ahead and throw it into the woodwind part or
low brass or wherever it's going to be or Miller phones or trumpets because that's a moment where I
feel confident that's what I want and other places where I don't I'll finish the sketch go back look
at the places that I was really confident about and then work backwards from those places to see
how we're going to orchestrate are there certain kinds of music that influence your posing is there
something that is that you resonate with more than others um I'm a big musical theater person uh
you know recently the musical Wicked I thought was just amazing what Stephen Schwartz did
um it was funny because we did Arrangements of it for Hal Leonard and Steven didn't
necessarily understand the mellophone and the ranges and I remember we wrote some notes that
weren't quite the melody because the melophone needed to stay in the range he said nope put
that note back in there so we've had some great experiences in learning from those folks too but
Jazz Pat Metheny has always been a huge influence on me I'm still waiting by the way not that I'm
critical about what's being written today but I'm still waiting for music whether it be orchestral
Jazz whatever to hit me the way that Pat metheny's music hit me years ago because nothing has hit me
like that he was that unique and and different and listening to him changed the way that I
wrote especially harmonically so and then Aaron Copeland I I still love listening to anything
written by Aaron Copeland because he just wrote so beautifully so yeah I you know I was motivated by
a lot of different kinds of music a lot of great band composers out there that I continue to listen
to and try to model myself after so what advice would you give a young composer a ranger looking
to get started in their path that you've been on study scores study scores studying scores are just
as good as any composition lesson I really believe that you look at a great orchestrated score
um John Adams and people as soon as I say that they're gonna people are gonna think now wait a
minute Richard he's a minimalist composer if you think he's a minimalist composer go in and look
at one of the scores and because people say oh he just throws a bunch of rhythms around go look
at one of his scores you will be blown away how everything is connected everything has a reason
um it just I don't know how he does it I think he's from another planet you know but by looking
at those scores I still realize how much I have to learn and he just writes these operas in a few
days you know he writes all these pieces these Orchestra pieces that are amazing you know in a
few weeks and I'm like man I'm struggling to get a measure done in a week you know so it's it's about
studying scores and study scores of people that you particularly enjoy listening to and see how
they do it because it's a great way I think it's the quickest way to learn how to do what we do
well it has been absolutely awesome spending this time with you thank you
for your insights and being a part of this great to be here with you and thank you