This guide includes:

1. Learning Goals

2. National Standards Addressed

3. Score Analysis

4. Unit Study

5. Warm up Strategies

6. Student Guide information and Answers

7. Assessment

8. Resources

Learning Goals

1. -The students will gain the musical techniques to make a difference between legato playing and march-like playing.
   

2. -The student will use critical listening skills to play together in tune and in tone and pass the melodic line from section to section.
   

3. -Students will become comfortable with their sound to play in a soloist-type manner.
   

4. -The students will utilize listening skills in order to play with the same color as their neighbor and as the group as a whole.
   

National Standards addressed:

Standard 1: Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music

Standard 5: Reading and notating music

Standard 6: Listening to, analyzing, and describing music

Standard 7: Evaluating music and music performance

Standard 8: Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts

Score Analysis (PDF File)

Unit Study

Unit 1: Composer

Anne McGinty is one of the most prolific composers in the band composition fields. She has composed over 255 titles, which range from the elementary level to the professional level. McGinty has commissioned more than 40 works, including works for the United States Army Band, and the Bicentennial of the United States Military Academy at West Point. She was the first woman composer to write an original work for the Army Band.

In 1987, McGinty and John Edmondson formed the infamous Queenwood Publication Company. They were in charge of creating, promoting, selling, and distributing within the United States and internationally. They then sold the company to Neil A. Kjos Publishing Company and are now writing exclusively under the Queenwood/Kjos company name.

McGinty studied music and flute at Ohio State University. She then left Ohio State to play in the Tucson Symphony Orchestra as their lead flute player. Her mentor, band director, and flute professor at Ohio state was Donald McGinnis. McGinty then gained a degree from Duquesne University concentrating on flute performance, music theory, and composition.

Currently, McGinty works as a guest conductor, clinician, and speaker, as well as composing. She is a member of the ASCAP and has received numerous awards in her lifetime so far.

Unit 2: Composition

The Red Balloon is an original composition inspired by a painting that McGinty saw once. The painting is of an old man and a child holding a red balloon. Although McGinty saw the painting just once, the fact that she composed an entire piece based on it tells you how much it influenced her. This piece is meant to be programmatic and encourages visual imagination and interpretation. That imagination comes from the flight of a balloon in the air and the journey that that balloon might take.

Unit 3: Historical Perspective

Programmatic music has been one of the most prominent types of band literature since the Romantic Movement in the early nineteenth century. Programmatic music depicts an emotion, scene, person, or any other subject that a composer feels compelled to write a composition about. For McGinty, it was a painting, which is a very appropriate medium for painting and art are both forms of artistic expression. There are many other pieces in the wind band world that are based on paintings, including Samuel Hazo’s “Blue and Green Music” which is based on Georgia O’Keefe’s paintings, De Meij’s “Voice of Space” which is based on a surrealist painting by Ren Magritte, and also De Meij’s “Empire of Light”, which is a second song of four by Meij that features music based on paintings.

Unit 4: Technical Considerations

The instrumentation of this piece is wonderful for a young developing band and has optional parts or instruments that could serve as the bass voice.

In the woodwinds, intonation, register breaks, and ranges are just a few issues that might need special attention. For example, in measures 17 – 24 and then 63 – 70, the melody is in octaves, which will have to be worked on. At a young age, intonation is always a constant struggle. In this piece especially with a band with a lot of flutes, tone on a D above the staff will need to be work on for it is help for a long time in the middle of the piece. Clarinet players will be at that age when they are learning about crossing the break and how to master that technique. This piece can teach them that and independence among first and second parts. On the other side of the spectrum, saxophonists might struggle in this piece with going a little bit lower than their comfort zone, in particular the notes D, E-flat, and E. Those notes played at a piano will need a steady air stream, good control, good tone, and maybe even a popping of the first finger in the right hand to get the air flowing.

The brass players in this piece don’t have too many tricky spots because the piece is at a grade 2 level and so are their ranges. For players maybe more advanced, there is an optional trumpet solo that students could audition for.

The percussion parts are rather simple, but require a lot of control that players may not have developed yet. In particular, the bell, snare drum, and auxiliary parts need a sensitive grip and musicality.

Unit 5: Stylistic Considerations

The style of this piece is very smooth and legato and connected. It will require students to use their air wisely, rest attentively, and play with good control. The airy and dreamy quality of this piece would be the image of a balloon floating into the sky and should be played with that picture in mind. Articulations and tempo changes should be marked, but are up to the interpretation and discrepancy of the conductor playing the piece.

Dynamics and balance are other issues that may come up when rehearsing this piece. Especially with such a legato and delicate piece, students will have to start developing their ears and listen across the band. The bell part is intended to add color to the melodic line and should be heard along with the melody.

Unit 6: Musical Elements

The melody of the piece is always an important four bar line. There are variations in scoring but is always presented the same. Much of the time the melody is presented and complete before a new voice ever presents it. The harmonies of the piece are heard in the Lydian mode for the most part, but bases parts on many other modes. The rhythms in “The Red Balloon” are of a grade two level and for a young band to have success with. There is a dotted-quarter-eight rhythm in the melody but nothing tricky otherwise. The timbre of the piece is, again, very delicate and airy and has lots of color, just as a painting would.

Unit 7: Form and Structure

This piece is in binary form and has a transition in the middle at theme A’ and then a closing theme A section from measure 81 to the end.

ThemeMeasure

Theme A1 – 9

Theme B9 – 16

Theme A17 – 24

Theme A25 – 36

Theme A’37 – 46

Theme A47 – 55

Theme B55 – 62

Theme A63 – 70

Theme A71 – 80

Theme A81 – 92

Unit 8: Suggested Listening

“Blue and Green Music” …………. Samual Hazo

“The Venetian Collection” ………….  Johan De Meij

- Red Tower

- Voices of Space

- Magic Garden

- Empire of Light

“Chant Fantastique” …………. Anne McGinty

“Cherokee Rose” ………….  Anne McGinty

Warm-up strategies

Some great warm up strategies to accompany this piece would be breathing exercises, singing, and playing chorales.

Breathing Benefits:

1. -Taking full and proper breaths is one of the easiest ways to get students to play with better tone and better tuning.
   

2. -With daily practice, students will break bad habits and begin to see, feel, and hear a difference in their playing.
   

Singing Benefits:

1. -Singing teaches students to use their ears and become aware of sounds around them.
   

2. -Singing also helps students match pitch and learn when they are incorrect.
   

3. -Students can also benefit from singing in chords and gain knowledge in a more theoretical way.
   

4. -When singing occurs daily, students begin to develop a better ear and even a better voice.
   

Chorale Benefits:

1. -Chorales teach students to listen and match, especially when taught to play with great breaths and good dynamics.
   

2. -They learn to know what to listen and why they need to listen to that part.
   

3. -Chorales can also be used in bettering an ensembles vertical alignment.
   

4. -They are great for getting the instruments warm and ready to tune.
   

Student Guide Instructions

This guide should be placed in the students’ folders and be completed as the semester goes along. It can be used in class or as homework. The students can be prompted to take it out or can make that decision on their own. You can implement weekly checks to make sure they are completing it to your standards.

At the end of the student guide is an assessment.

Student Guide.pdf

Student Guide.docx

Student Guide Answers.pdf

Assessment for Objectives

1. -The students will perform on a playing test to demonstrate their lyrical and legato playing, and also their soloist-like playing.
   

2. -The students will listen to their final performance and assess whether or not they played together, in tune, in tone, with the same color, and passed the melodic line to each other.
   

Resources

Teaching Music Through Performance in Band

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqPA7vBG1qw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BmxS-iPKRI&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drEczrpDmLg&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysAKcZrGoj8&feature=relmfu