Classical Music Mashup (Woolard) (Download)

a clever fusion of musical masterworks

Brian Blume

Level: Med-Advanced

Duration: 6:30

Personnel: 6 players

State Lists: Missouri | Florida | Indiana

Release Date: 2019

Product ID : TSPCE19-007DL

Price: $40.00

Item #: TSPCE19-007DL

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Description

Grant Woolard’s Classical Music Mashup was originally arranged for six hands on piano. Here Tapspace artist Brian Blume cleverly adapts Woolard’s ingenious arrangement for a mallet sextet comprised of a glockenspiel & xylophone (1 player), 2 vibraphones, and 3 marimbas. By using the full range of mallet percussion keyboards, Blume gives his arrangement a wide spectrum of colors and allows for a full sounding ensemble.

In total, 57 works by 31 different composers are represented. Woolard’s creativity has resulted in milions of views on YouTube. In addition to being wildly entertaining, this work serves as an excellent source of study, helping to familiarize students with approximately 300 years of Western music’s most memorable melodies. Click here to download a list of source links to freely use while studying the recording of Blume’s arrangement.

Use of this product is governed by the license terms outlined here.

Instrumentation

• Glockenspiel

• Xylophone

• 2 vibraphones

• 3 marimbas—(1) low A, (2) low C*

*Low A substitutions are provided for the Marimba 2 part so that this piece can be performed with 2 low A marimbas and 1 low C marimba.

Reviews

Brian Blume’s keyboard percussion arrangement of the music from the viral YouTube video Classical Music Mashup is tailor-made to meet the youngest generation of audience where they live: the piece is fast-paced, humorous, and requires multiple “views” to fully appreciate the complexity of the product. Like the original video, which is an arrangement for three pianos by Grant Woolard, this arrangement packs over 50 more-or-less-recognizable themes from the entirety of classical music history into a seven-minute frenzy that swerves from idea to idea faster than you can say “hashtag.” In some cases, the themes are obscured by the amount of competing activity taking place, or by the fact that they aren’t always presented in the outer voices of the arrangement, which makes for a surprisingly compelling listening experience. The work is essentially a litany of aural “Easter eggs,” and makes no artistic claims to the contrary, but it is entertaining and will allow self-satisfied audience members to knowingly nod to one another on several occasions.

Aside from a few brief moments, no 4-mallet technique is required (although holding four mallets might allow for some easier playing options in a few instances). The biggest challenge lies in the constantly shifting styles and tempi, and in proactively achieving the needed ensemble balance for any given theme to be heard when its moment comes. Educators looking for ways to introduce their students to the classical music masterworks of yesteryear will find plenty to talk about, and ideally listen to, when rehearsing this piece. Blume even has the foresight to include a complete list of pieces and their composers, in order of occurrence, to be reproduced in future program notes, and the equipment demand is such that most high schools should have no trouble putting this piece together (especially considering the ossia option for the second 4.3-octave marimba).

While I wouldn’t necessarily place this piece as the highest representative of experimental art music in the 21st century (it’s exactly the sort of thing I would have expected to see on stage had Spike Jones gone into music education instead of broadcast music), I would absolutely recommend it as an entertaining high school-level project for a spring “pops” concert that will thrill audiences and (hopefully) pique the curiosity of the performers to seek out more information about some of the themes that come across their pages.

—Brian Graiser
Percussive Notes
Vol. 58, No. 1, February 2020