Literature for a Pandemic
(and Beyond)
Forgotten Children by Peter Meechan
Overview:
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Key signature: None (uses accidentals) Length: 6 minutes
Time signature: 4/4 Style: Dramatic, Programmatic
Tempo: Quarter note = 66 Dynamic range: pp - ff
Grade level: 4 Scoring:
4 part Full Flex with electronic accomp.
Instrumentation:
Part 1: Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Alto Saxophone, Trumpet, Treble Clef Euphonium
Part 2: Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Alto Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone, Trumpet, Horn, Trombone, Treble Clef Euphonium
Part 3: Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Bassoon, Alto Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone,
Baritone Saxophone, Trumpet, Horn, Trombone, Euphonium, Tuba
Part 4: Bass Clarinet, Bassoon, Baritone Saxophone, Trombone, Euphonium, Tuba
Percussion (optional): Bass Drum, Suspended Cymbal
**This is a full flex piece. Above is suggested instrumentation.**
Special Considerations:
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Forgotten Children was originally composed for brass ensemble in 2013 and was arranged for wind orchestra (wind ensemble) with electronic accompaniment in 2014. The current version is a full flex arrangement with an electronic accompaniment track, so any instrument can play any part (1-4). Above is a suggestion about how parts can be assigned, if possible. Parts 1a-4a are simplified versions of parts 1-4 and they are fully interchangeable. For example, you could have 1, 2a, 3, and 4a playing together and it would work.
Conductors should be prepared to spend time outside of the rehearsal (especially before rehearsals with the band begin) conducting with the click track, while being able to audiate the wind parts. The band should start to learn the piece by using a metronome. As they become more familiar with it, they should switch to using the electronic accompaniment track with the click track and eventually, the electronic accompaniment part without the click track.
In the performance notes, Peter Meechan writes,"Experimentation with, and exploring of, instrumentation, colours, and textures is encouraged, and octave changes, where appropriate are possible."
In the program notes, Peter Meechan explains, "Whilst originally conceiving the piece, the subject of the war in Syria dominated news headlines, specifically the refusal by Western nations to intervene. There were, of course, political reasons at the heart of the decision, complicated by a situation that no one understood in a country no one understands. The harrowing images of chemical weapons being used on children was seemingly not enough to persuade the West that their help was needed, but those silent voices fell on even deafer ears. They were, and still are, the Forgotten Children."
Programming this piece opens the door to studying other pieces of music (band literature, classical music, pop music, etc.) that have been created in response to social and political events around the world. Currently, there are entire ensembles devoted to social issues affecting the world today, including Orchestra Amadeus, The Dream Unfinished Orchestra, and Chineke Orchestra. Musicians can choose to explore these organizations and others, if they wish.
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Rehearsal Suggestions
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Musical Expression:
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Artists have a long history of using their art to draw attention to important social issues. After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Leonard Bernstein reflected, "We musicians, like everyone else, are numb with sorrow at this murder, and with rage at the senselessness of the crime. But this sorrow and rage will not inflame us to seek retribution; rather they will inflame our art. Our music will never again be quite the same. This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before." The same sentiment should apply to our music making today. Through
Forgotten Children, Peter Meechan brings into focus the unimaginable pain and suffering of Syrian children.
Studying and performing this piece offers musicians a chance to emotionally connect
with the children of Syria and bring a deeper dimension of expression to their
performance. In 2018, I was fortunate to participate in a three day workshop with Bud Beyer and explore concepts from his book, Completing the Circle.
One of Bud Beyer's lessons that stuck with me is that in order to enable the audience to experience genuine emotions during a performance, the conductor and musicians must allow themselves to have feelings about the music. It is not important what emotions the conductor and musicians express. It could be the same or different for each person, but purely by having feelings about the music and expressing them during the performance, the audience members are able to experience feelings based on their individual lives and experiences.
Tonality/Intonation:
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While Forgotten Children is written without a key signature, the tonality is g minor. In addition to g minor and g minor 7 chords, Eb major, Eb major 7, and Eb major 7 add 9 chords also occur frequently.
Musicians must know how to tune properly before they can play major, minor, seventh and ninth chords in tune. Edward Lisk provides an extremely detailed explanation of the hows and whys of the tuning process in many of his books, including The Creative Director: Conductor, Teacher, Leader.
It is best to set a pitch from either a drone or a tuba (or lowest instrument in the band). A drone is advantageous, if possible, because it provides a consistent pitch. Using the Yamaha Harmony Director HD 200 keyboard is helpful for hearing chords in just intonation and tuning them accordingly.
Concert F is the best pitch for tuning almost all wind instruments because of the overtone series and where it lies on the instruments. The exception is Eb alto and baritone saxophones, but the benefits of F in all the other instruments outweigh this. After the winds have tuned to F, the drone or tuba should play Bb and all winds can join the Eb saxophones in tuning that note. Tuning should begin with principal players. After the principal euphonium is in tune with the tuba, they should keep playing and then the principal trombone player should join them. The process repeats through score order (ascending). Everyone else should tune by listening to their section leader. Only one person in each section (who has not yet tuned) should tune with the section leader at a time, so each musician can clearly hear themselves and identify if there are beats in the sound. It is not necessary for the musicians to know if they are flat or sharp because they only need to listen for beats in the sound. If they are pinching the embouchure to slow down beats, they are flat and if they are relaxing the embouchure to slow down beats, they are sharp. They can adjust their instrument by moving the slide/mouthpiece/barrel in or out or adjusting the reed. They need to identify if the beats got slower or faster. Faster beats means to go the opposite direction on the instrument and slower beats means to continue in the same direction until the beats have been eliminated. When musicians are perfectly in tune, their sound is indistinguishable from the sound of their section leader. As the rest of the section tunes, musicians who are already in tune continue to play. In addition to blending within the section, each section needs to balance within the
ensemble. In general, musicians should listen down to the tuba or lowest instrument in the ensemble or the instrument playing the lowest part.
After tuning, musicians should use the Circle of 4ths from Edward Lisk's Alternative Rehearsal Techniques - Creative Director Series as a warm up. They should play unison pitches around the Circle. After they can play unison notes in tune, add perfect fifths. Next, add major chords and minor chords, and eventually, seventh chords. Being able to hear and feel how to tune chords in all tonalities is necessary to performing great literature.
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Even though Forgotten Children is written with an electronic accompaniment part, a good sense of internal pulse is required to align rhythms accurately. The electronic accompaniment part is not groove based, so counting and being aware of pulse is still the musician's responsibility. Edward Lisk describes how to develop an ensemble's sense of internal pulse in The Creative Director: Conductor, Teacher, Leader. With my students, I refer to the internal pulse game because I want to develop the idea that becoming better musicians through concentration and focus is fun. To lead the game, hold your hands out with the palms up and count aloud 1-8 (at a tempo of approximately 60 beats per minute). Next, the musicians should count with you. Everyone should be counting with a crisp tone of voice and be focused on listening to the space between the beats. It is necessary for musicians to keep their bodies very still during this time. The focus is on
internal pulse, not on external elements such as foot tapping, head bobbing, etc. After the pulse has been established, turn your hands, so your palms are facing down. When your
palms are down, you and the ensemble members should switch to counting silently.
During silent counting, no one should be mouthing the numbers to themselves. Remind musicians of the internalization process or "thinking in your brain". At first, only indicate one or two beats of silence at a time. As the musicians improve their internal pulse, keep your palms down for more beats. It becomes a fun challenge for musicians to see how long they can count silently and still come in on the correct number and with their voices exactly together.
After the musicians have learned to perform the pulse exercise correctly, they should
transfer it to playing around the Circle of 4ths. Start by having them play in unison on concert F on the Circle of 4ths for pulse 5. Ensemble members should be counting to five (internally) while they are playing for four beats, releasing on beat five, and then breathing and entering with the new pitch on the next beat. After they have played concert F, they should play concert Bb, then concert Eb, etc. At first, you can conduct a "one" pattern and indicate the entrances and releases. When the ensemble is secure in the internal pulse,
stop conducting and let the musicians continue to play pulse 5 around the Circle. It is important to stop the ensemble when precision in entrances and releases is lost. Remind musicians to breathe together and play together. Whenever the entrances or releases lose precision, name a new pulse (for example, pulse 4 or pulse 3) and begin on a different note in the Circle (concert Bb, for example). Eventually, the internal pulse of the ensemble and precision of entrances and releases will improve. As this occurs, indicate pulses between 3
and 7 (or longer). Rests should also be added. For example, pulse 5 rest 3 would be "play, two, three, four, release, two, three, breathe" and would be notated as a whole note followed by a whole rest.
As Forgotten Children progresses, there are some unison sixteenth note rhythms as well as some figures that are passed back and forth between parts (for example, measures 57-58 between parts two and four and parts one and three). To achieve rhythmic precision, encourage all musicians to think the sixteenth note subdivisions throughout those phrases.
The most rhythmically challenging element of this piece is the use of grace notes (as in measures 46-47).
Instruct musicians that grace notes should be played on the beat (not before). In this case, grace notes would start on beat three in measure 46 and on the "and" of beat one and the "and" of beat two in measure 47. Rehearse this by setting a metronome to 66 beats per minute. Have ensemble members speak the eighth note subdivisions and clap once each time the grace notes should begin. Next, have students practice thinking the subdivisions and playing fragments of each phrase, starting with the grace notes and ending where each set of grace notes land. After they can do this with rhythmic precision, instruct students to play each phrase as written, including the notes before and after each set of grace notes.
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To achieve balanced dynamic levels, I use one hand to indicate a dynamic level pianissimo through fortissimo, where zero is pp and five is ff. Have musicians play around the Circle of 4ths and cue each note at a different dynamic level.
To effectively create crescendos and decrescendos of varying lengths, Edward Lisk explains, in his Creative Director Series books, that musicians should count aloud the number of beats the crescendo or decrescendo lasts. If it is an 8 beat crescendo from piano to forte, have them start counting aloud softly at "one," gradually getting louder until their voice is forte at "eight". If the crescendo is longer or shorter than eight beats,
have them count to the exactly the length of the crescendo (for example one through nine for a nine beat crescendo or one through three for a three beat crescendo). After they can do this evenly (or at whatever rate you wish them to do it in the piece), then they should think the same thing while playing it into the instrument. This skill takes time to develop, so trust the process. The important thing is to be able to say it correctly and then think the same way, while playing. The process is the same for decrescendos, except counting backwards 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 (or 9-1 or 3-1), starting with the voice louder and gradually getting softer. Decrescendos are usually more challenging to do evenly at first, so continue to draw attention to making sure the voice is correct and then apply it on the instrument. With time, players will be able to play crescendos and decrescendos of various lengths.
Remind the musicians they should never be whispering or shouting because that does not represent good tone quality on the instrument. Encourage musicians to play only as soft or loud (or short) as they can play with good balance, blend, intonation, and tone quality. This is especially helpful to remember when ensemble members are playing fortissimo because it is easy for them to get excited and play with a poor tone quality. It also applies when they are playing piano and pianissimo passages, especially at the end of a piece, when they are likely to be tired, which could also result in poor tone quality. In both cases, musicians need to continue to use proper air support, maintain their embouchure support, and adjust their volume based on the tone quality they are able to produce in any given moment.
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Articulation/Style/Phrasing:
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Forgotten Children consists of many slurs and long phrases. To achieve smooth slurs, the players will need to adjust their air speed, air direction, and voicing (shape of oral cavity and tongue position). Musicians will need good breath support and likely staggered breathing to produce good tone quality throughout each phrase. Along with that, work with the ensemble members to decide where each note in the phrase is going to or coming from and where the high point in each phrase lies. In The Creative Director: Conductor, Teacher, Leader, Edward Lisk explains the three natural laws of musical expression. If musicians know that short notes look for long notes, low notes search for high notes, and high notes search for low notes, they will be able to shape phrases within each piece.
The dramatic nature of Forgotten Children requires players to understand how to gradually build intensity to the climactic point of the piece and how to pace the energy and flow to the end. Share the score with the musicians and encourage ensemble members to realize how the bass drum part in the electronic accompaniment evolves throughout the piece. Also, pay attention to when voices are added to the texture. Help them use the knowledge of both elements to inform their phrasing on the macro level.
Trills:
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In measure 48, parts 1, 1a, and 4a have trills. In measure 62, parts 1 and 1a have trills again.
Because of the flexible instrumentation in Forgotten Children, the trill fingerings for these notes will depend on what instrument is playing them. Make sure woodwind players have access to fingering charts that include trill fingerings, such as The Woodwind Fingering Guide website. Be sure that brass players know the alternate fingerings or
positions for their instrument or have access to a fingering chart with this information, such as the one on the Band World website.
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