Song for All Seasons

This three-minute piece for young percussion ensemble students contains a lot of the “building blocks” one would expect from first- or second-year performance music: returning unison ensemble rhythms, straightforward duple-based structure, active musical lines that shift from player to player, and recurring melodic themes. From a pedagogical standpoint, all the mallet parts can be played with two mallets, rhythms never get more complex than eighth notes, and all the parts easily align with other players in the group. Additionally, the form of the music resembles that of pop and rock ’n’ roll music, where sections (like a verse and chorus) toggle back and forth in a logical pattern, which makes it easy for a performer to understand.

The composer states that the music is loosely based on Orche?sographie by the French Renaissance cleric Thoinot Arbeau, which is a study of late 16th-century French Renaissance social dance. In spite of this, the tempo of quarter equaling 85 and the addition of a steady drumset groove behind the mallet parts gives this piece the air of a 1980s rock power ballad, which is pretty effective from an audience standpoint.

With its straightforward presentation and easily learned phrases, this is a perfect piece for young percussionists who need more experience behind a keyboard, and want to have fun performing on a concert.

—Joshua D. Smith
Percussive Notes
Vol. 61, No. 6, 2023