Ever have on of those AHHH moments?

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armysax
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Ever have on of those AHHH moments?

Post by armysax » Sun Feb 13, 2005 9:54 pm

I was just thinking about the last tour I went on with the Army Band I'm in and I couldn't think of any moments that hit me. I was longing for one of those moments when the music reaches a climactic moment that just gives you goose bumps. Like the dramatic pause in Tschesnokoff's Salvation is created. Or the shrill high chord at the climax of Barber's Adagio. Or the moment in Debussey's Prelude to the Afternoon of a fawn when it gets ready to resolve and just sort of dissapates. Great stuff. Any body else have any favorite Ahhh moments?
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Re: Ever have on of those AHHH moments?

Post by PGOK » Mon Feb 14, 2005 9:15 am

armysax wrote:I was just thinking about the last tour I went on with the Army Band I'm in and I couldn't think of any moments that hit me. I was longing for one of those moments when the music reaches a climactic moment that just gives you goose bumps. Like the dramatic pause in Tschesnokoff's Salvation is created. Or the shrill high chord at the climax of Barber's Adagio. Or the moment in Debussey's Prelude to the Afternoon of a fawn when it gets ready to resolve and just sort of dissapates. Great stuff. Any body else have any favorite Ahhh moments?
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Last edited by PGOK on Mon Feb 14, 2005 11:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Hostrauser » Mon Feb 14, 2005 10:19 am

Too many to list... Most of these I've experienced as a performer...

Chorale and Alleluia (Howard Hanson) -- About 2/3 or 3/4 of the way in (just before the finale), the fantastic modulation in the brass beneath the chirping woodwinds.

Liturgical Dances (David Holsinger) -- Just about everything after the opening chorale; the entire French Horn parts (screamin!); the "marching" section in 7/4 towards the end of the piece.

Allerseelen (Richard Strauss) -- The climax of this piece is one of the best in the band literature.

Marche Slave (Pyotr Tchaikovsky) -- The wonderful brass fanfares and low brass support in the finale.

Scherzo (Edwin Franko Goldman) -- The gorgeous, lyrical trio melody (particularly when the soloist is a euphonium and not a trumpet).

Victory at Sea (Richard Rodgers) -- Fantastic lyrical section in the middle of the piece (just before "Guadalcanal March")

Symphony #1 "The Lord of the Rings", Movement I "Gandalf" (Johann de Meij) -- Terrific brass chorale towards the end of the movement, after fast section.

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Post by Bandmaster » Mon Feb 14, 2005 1:32 pm

I have had many "oh wow" moments over the years, but I have had only one "oh my god, wow" moments as a musician while playing. Strangely enough it happen during a marching band performace with Long Beach State's Big Brown Music Machine. At our last home game (at Anahiem Studium) in the fall of 1977, while we played our post game concert. We had performed in exhibiton earlier in the evening at the awards ceremony for the All-Western Band Review at the Long Beach Arena and then bussed to the game in time for our half-time performance. We had an arrangement of "Send in the Clowns " by Marvin Branson that really very pretty. It started slowly with the baritone section on melody and built to a huge climax at fff near the end. Leading into the climax I started getting goose bumps and it just kept getting more and more intense until it felt like the hair on the back of my neck was standing up. This feeling just sucks you in and makes you try to play even better and with more emotion until you feel like you're going to bust open. When the director, Larry Curtis, released the last note he mouthed the word WOW to us and just dropped his arms to his side and shook his head in amazement. I remember looking down the row of fellow sousaphone players and saw everyone's mouths dropped open staring at each other in shock. EVERYONE had had the same "oh my god" moment. A good friend was an alternate that night so he was sitting in the stands with his girl friend. He said he felt the goose bumps too while he listened to us play. He really regetted the fact that was not out on the field playing with us that evening.

Send in the Clowns - recording of Long Beach State's Big Brown Music Machine, but not of that particular performance. (darn...) 3.4 MB This recording was made on the same night as above, but at the All-Western Awards ceremony. The post game concert was light years better...
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Post by lowbrass89 » Mon Feb 14, 2005 11:15 pm

last year for festival. The ending of Elsas Proccesion to the Cathedral. It was a great moment because the trombones had a cool part at the end and they played it great and sounded great to.
In American Elegy in the beggining of it
in Firs Suite in Eb the ending of the March
In Folk Song Suite right before the trio
theres more that I have but I dont wanna list them all

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Here's another

Post by PGOK » Tue Feb 15, 2005 1:16 pm

A couple oy years back I heard Mt. Carmel HS play "Elegy for a Young American". For those of you who do not know, it was written in memory of President John F. Kennedy. The concert included a multimedia presentation of slides synchronized to the music. As the music builds to the climax, it changes from slides to the "Zapruder" (sp?) film. It continues to build and build in intensity. It stops and the band hits the climax, a giant bass note, followed by the main theme FF and augmented (in rhythm) at that exact moment, it switches to a slide of the bullet, in extreme close-up. WOW!

This explanation does not do it justice. It was one of those "you had to be there" experiences.

I have never been much for multimedia things of this sort, however... I have heard hundreds of concerts. Most of them are vague memories. That moment of that performance will live with me forever.
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Aww moments

Post by JCYS » Tue Feb 15, 2005 6:19 pm

My first one, like Dave, was in the CSULB marching band doing Marvin's arrangement of the National Anthem at Long Beach's Veterans Stadium with the lights off, when the band gets to the part about "..and the flag was still there"..which Larry Curtis always thought was the high point of the anthem..not the end..and all the fireworks started going off on cue...talk about hair on the back of my neck standing up...and in those days I had hair.. :cry: :wink:

Another was when Cal Poly SLO did Russian Christmas Music on tour, back in the 70's..it was, like most of Bill Johnsons bands, incredibly emotional playing..and when they got to the end where the horns go up to the high note, big time AWWW moment.

There was a couple more on tour with the CSULB Symphonic Band doing Feste Roman and Fanfare and Allegro.

With my own band we've had a many of those big moments, mostly in rehearsal I'm afraid to say rather than performance, for instance, "On a Hymnsong of Lowell Mason" and "American Elegy" and "October." When you just get to a release and everyone goes.."WOW."

As much as kids love "fast, high, loud and exciting," those "AWW" moments happen on the big slow pieces.

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Post by armysax » Tue Feb 15, 2005 9:05 pm

Oh Yeah, there was another one I forgot. Maybe you can help me out with the title on this one Phantom, It's a piece by Joaquin Turina, and it's in like four or five movements. The second one is called I believe sunrise, but I can't remember the rest of the name. I played it way back freshman year at CSU Stanislaus back in 199? The moment when the sunrise arrives with the trumpets and horns, just breathtaking
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Post by Hostrauser » Wed Feb 16, 2005 9:00 am

Err... Joaquin Turina wrote a piece called "Circulo" (originally for piano trio) which has movements titled "Sunrise," "Midday" and "Twilight." Is that it?

American Ferde Grofé also wrote a famous work entitled "Grand Canyon Suite." That work has five movements ("Sunrise," "Painted Desert," "On the Trail," "Sunset" and "Cloudburst").

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Post by PGOK » Wed Feb 16, 2005 11:33 am

armysax wrote:Oh Yeah, there was another one I forgot. Maybe you can help me out with the title on this one Phantom, It's a piece by Joaquin Turina, and it's in like four or five movements. The second one is called I believe sunrise, but I can't remember the rest of the name. I played it way back freshman year at CSU Stanislaus back in 199? The moment when the sunrise arrives with the trumpets and horns, just breathtaking
You are probably thinking of "Five Minatures".
1. Dawn
2. The Sleeping Village
3. Promenade
4. The Approaching Soldiers
5. Fiesta
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Post by Brich » Wed Feb 16, 2005 3:19 pm

Two great memories for me: 1965 All Southern Calif HS Band; first rehearsal under H Robert Reynolds in the old band room at CSULB. We sight read Elsa's Procession. Reynolds just let us play through to capture the beauty and flow and after releasing the final organ-like chord, there was silence and I think we all had goose-bumps. Reynolds was all about the music!

The second memory was with the LBS Symphonic Band in early 1969 rehearsing with Dr. Revelli. Festive Overture (Shostakovich) came alive under the sheer intensity of concentration that he engendered.

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Post by armysax » Wed Feb 16, 2005 7:02 pm

Thanks, PGOK, it was five miniatures. Dawn is the movement with the goosebump-inducing brass line.
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Post by eternalbando » Sat Feb 19, 2005 12:45 pm

lowbrass89 wrote:in Firs Suite in Eb the ending of the March
Which part of the end? We're playing that this year...it's a great piece, in my opinion...
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Re: Aww moments

Post by Bandmaster » Mon Feb 21, 2005 10:30 am

jcys wrote:Another was when Cal Poly SLO did Russian Christmas Music on tour, back in the 70's..it was, like most of Bill Johnsons bands, incredibly emotional playing..and when they got to the end where the horns go up to the high note, big time AWWW moment.
Gee... I was in that Cal Poly SLO Band during the 1970's that played Russian Christmas Music. Bill Johnson always taught us that when a band plays with a lot of emotion the audience will be willing to overlook technical errors. Since we were not a music major band, we WERE going to have technical errors. So we tried our best to make up for it with our emotion. We had many AWWW moments in the 4+ years I was there. But the AWWW moments we had playing at Cal Poly never came close to how I felt when CSULB's BBMM played Send in the Clowns that night at the Big "A". That one was something REALLY special.

I did have one really nice AWWW moment with LBJCB back in 1979. It was the day after we hosted the All-Western Band Review and we were in the formation area warming up for the East L.A. Christmas Parade. I was working the band and I decided to do a full run thru of our competitive march. We were playing Marvin Branson's arrangement of Barnum's and Bailey's. The day before, I was lining up all the best bands in the state at the All-Western, and now suddenly LBJCB was sounding like Arcadia on a REALLY good day. I was in shock, they sound so incredible! I turned around and all the rest of the staff had left to do other tasks just before we started the run thru and there was no one else there to hear it. I was so bummed... :( The band was ready to go like I had never seen them before. Just after we stepped off, we were only a block or so into the parade, when some stupid kids on top of a building next the the parade thought it would be funny to throw eggs at us. A couple of our kids got nailed and it broke their concentration and just took all the winds out of our sails emotionally. The band performed OK for the rest of the parade, but nothing like they were before. It was a magical moment lost forever.... :cry:
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Post by lowbrass89 » Wed Feb 23, 2005 10:02 am

edbandchick wrote:
lowbrass89 wrote:in Firs Suite in Eb the ending of the March
Which part of the end? We're playing that this year...it's a great piece, in my opinion...
the ending of the march were the low brass have the melody in the 3rd movement. Yeah it was a really good year last year playing that song our trumpet soloist did a great job with the solos in the 3rd movement

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