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Fun and furious, fantastic and forward, Funky Fugue for Five fashions friendly rhythms into a festive foray for four or five fledgling friends to fire funky feels at fans while furthering their feel of the fugue.
Veteran percussion composer Alan Keown is no stranger to effective music education. With minimal non-pitched instrumentation and very basic rhythmic language, Keown’s piece provides a setting in which beginners create contrapuntal and engaging musical experience. It also introduces them to basic fugal concepts such as subject, canon, and development. Ideally written for five players, it can also be played by four by removing the optional timpani part.
Find a fast favorite for festivals in Funky Fugue for Five!
This piece comes as a professionally printed and bound score and includes individual parts in PDF format for printing or for tablet viewing.
“Funky Fugue for Five” is an entry-level piece for percussion ensemble requiring minimal instrumentation. Duration of a performance should be around three minutes, and it will require four or five players (the timpani part is optional). The two snare drummers must play rolls in the introduction to the piece, earning the work a diffculty rating of II rather than I. Other than the rolls, no rudiments are required (just alternating single strokes).
The tempo is 120 bpm throughout. Material is presented in mostly eight-bar phrases, with the form outlined by a rehearsal letter every section. Developmental ideas are simple and rather straightforward, with the fugal subject offset by either two beats or one measure, and the use of rhythmic augmentation. The longest phrase of the development section requires performers to play sixteenth-note figures on the rim with interjections on the snare drum in a “quasi-drumset” manner. My personal recommendation would be for teachers/directors to use all five parts if possible, as the timpani part adds some rhythmic tension to what is otherwise very simple counterpoint.
Pieces like this are often used to teach rudimentary musical principles and reading, ensemble timekeeping, and form. I’m not convinced “Funky Fugue for Five” adds anything to the genre not already represented by dozens of other beginning ensemble pieces, but it is simple enough to be played early in the first year of instruction, even in classrooms with a very limited instrument inventory.
—Phillip O’Banion
Percussive Notes
Vol. 55, No. 2, May 2017
Fun and furious, fantastic and forward, Funky Fugue for Five fashions friendly rhythms into a festive foray for four or five fledgling friends to fire funky feels at fans while furthering their feel of the fugue.
Veteran percussion composer Alan Keown is no stranger to effective music education. With minimal non-pitched instrumentation and very basic rhythmic language, Keown’s piece provides a setting in which beginners create contrapuntal and engaging musical experience. It also introduces them to basic fugal concepts such as subject, canon, and development. Ideally written for five players, it can also be played by four by removing the optional timpani part.
Find a fast favorite for festivals in Funky Fugue for Five!
This piece comes as a professionally printed and bound score and includes individual parts in PDF format for printing or for tablet viewing.
“Funky Fugue for Five” is an entry-level piece for percussion ensemble requiring minimal instrumentation. Duration of a performance should be around three minutes, and it will require four or five players (the timpani part is optional). The two snare drummers must play rolls in the introduction to the piece, earning the work a diffculty rating of II rather than I. Other than the rolls, no rudiments are required (just alternating single strokes).
The tempo is 120 bpm throughout. Material is presented in mostly eight-bar phrases, with the form outlined by a rehearsal letter every section. Developmental ideas are simple and rather straightforward, with the fugal subject offset by either two beats or one measure, and the use of rhythmic augmentation. The longest phrase of the development section requires performers to play sixteenth-note figures on the rim with interjections on the snare drum in a “quasi-drumset” manner. My personal recommendation would be for teachers/directors to use all five parts if possible, as the timpani part adds some rhythmic tension to what is otherwise very simple counterpoint.
Pieces like this are often used to teach rudimentary musical principles and reading, ensemble timekeeping, and form. I’m not convinced “Funky Fugue for Five” adds anything to the genre not already represented by dozens of other beginning ensemble pieces, but it is simple enough to be played early in the first year of instruction, even in classrooms with a very limited instrument inventory.
—Phillip O’Banion
Percussive Notes
Vol. 55, No. 2, May 2017
