RPO Brass Quintet Primary Ensemble Preparatory Materials

CHRISTOPHER SEAMAN, MUSIC DIRECTOR

Dear Teachers: This packet contains information and class activities that are designed to help you prepare your students for the RPO primary ensemble that visits your school. We hope that they will be use-ful to both music teachers and classroom teachers. Feel free to adapt or change the activities to suit the needs and abilities of your students. Please review the concert manners on page 9. This will help your students enjoy the ensemble performance more on their special day.

Table of Contents Meet your Musicians 1 English Language Arts: Standard 1 Listening and Reading What is your Musical History? 1 Social Studies: Standard 2 World History Instrument Information 3 English Language Arts: Standard 1 Listening and Reading Where in the world does music come from? 4 Social Studies: Standard 3 Geography Music in your Community 4 English Language Arts: Standard 1 Speaking and Writing Musical Detectives 5 Mathematics, Science, and Technology: Scientific Inquiry Standard 1 Vocabulary and Word Search 5 English Language Arts: Standard 1 Listening and Reading Tell a Story without Words! 6 English Language Arts: Standard 2 Listening and Reading, Speaking and Writing What would you like to know about your visiting musicians? 7 English Language Arts: Standard 4 Listening and Speaking Write a thank you letter 8 English Language Arts: Standard 3 Reading and Writing Concert Manners 9 English Language Arts: Standard 4 Listening and Speaking

The Primary Ensembles are funded by the Glover/Crask Charitable Remainder Trust; the City of Rochester, Wil-liam A. Johnson, Jr., Mayor; Best Buy Children’s Foundation and Time Warner Cable. The RPO’s Education and Outreach programs are made possible, in part, by New York State Senator Jim Alesi; BlueCross BlueShield of the Rochester Area; The Cornell/Weinstein Family Foundation; Corning Incorporated Foundation; Fleet Bank; New York State Assembly, secured by Assemblyman Joseph D. Morelle; Monroe County, Jack Doyle, County Executive; New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency; New York State Senator Michael F. Nozzolio; M & T Bank; and the Josephine Bay Paul and C. Michael Paul Foundation.

Doug Prosser was born in Topeka, Kansas but grew up in Denver, Colorado. He started playing the trumpet in the fourth grade at age 9 and decided to become a professional musician later on at age 16. At age 18 he moved to Rochester to go the Eastman School of Mu-sic and learn how to play in an orchestra. His first job as an orches-tral musician was in 1987 when he became the Principal Trumpet of the Barcelona Symphony in Barcelona, Spain. Living in Spain was a great experience. He learned how to speak Spanish and got married to a lady from Barcelona. In 1995 he came to live in Rochester again and ever since he has been the Principal Trumpet of the Roch-ester Philharmonic Orchestra. He and his wife have three children and when he's not working he enjoys playing baseball, soccer, chess, and going on bike rides.

Wesley Nance grew up in Lakewood, California, where he started the trumpet in fifth grade at the age of 11. After graduating from high school, he moved to Rochester, NY to begin college studies at the Eastman School of Music. During his first year at Eastman, he took an audition for the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) and won the fourth seat in the trumpet section. Since then, he has graduated from Eastman with a bachelor and master's degree, and is now playing second trumpet with the RPO. He also plays in the RPO Brass Quintet, another brass group called Plus One, and fre-quently performs around the Rochester area in group or solo set-tings. Mr. Nance is also part time staff at Bethel Christian Fellow-ship, where he writes music for the orchestral instruments that play in church every Sunday. Besides music, his hobbies include playing

disc golf and tennis, building speakers, and home theater. Mr. Nance's wife Shannon plays vio-lin with the RPO, and they have four children, ages 7 to newborn. The oldest two children al-ready play the violin.

What is your Musical History? After reading the biographies of the RPO Brass Quintet, it is easy to see that they have partici-pated in many musical activities. Now write your own musical history! Discuss any musical activities you have participated in, such as a attending a concert, singing at home, with family, by yourself, or in school, or playing an instrument. • What have you found interesting about music? • What types of musical activities would you like to do in the future? • How might these activities be similar or different to the activities done by people who

lived in cultures hundreds of years ago?

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David Angus was born and raised in San Diego, California. He started playing the horn in the 4th grade after brief efforts with the accordion and the piano. He likes the sound of the horn and has en-joyed his 29 years as a member of the Rochester Philharmonic Or-chestra. His favorite color is sky blue, possibly because we don't see that color too often in Rochester. In his spare time he likes to do woodworking and furniture refinishing.

Principal Trombonist Mark Kellogg has been a member of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra since 1989. He has also been a faculty member of the Eastman School of Music since 1991 where he hold the position of Associate Professor of Trombone, Eupho-nium, and Chamber Music. Before joining the RPO, Mark played with the National Repertory Orchestra, Syracuse Symphony Orches-tra and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Originally from Hannibal, New York, Mark started playing trombone in the third grade, inspired by a wonderful public school music teacher and some of his parents’ old Tommy Dorsey/Glenn Miller recordings! An avid sports fan, Mark’s fantasy occupation is to be a baseball an-nouncer, even though he loves his playing and teaching jobs here in Rochester! Mark is married to RPO flutist Joanna Bassett and they have one son, Robbie, who is a budding musician and youth usher for the RPO.

Randy Montgomery grew up in Greenville, Illinois. His fa-ther and mother were both musicians so at the age of 7 he started taking trumpet lessons from his father. In the 8th grade Randy switched to the tuba and started playing electric bass as well. Being a musician has taken Randy to many different places, including all 48 of the continental United States. One of his favorite performances was playing at the Super Bowl in New Orleans with the Boston Pops Orchestra. When he’s not playing the tuba he enjoy going to movies, playing tennis and watching college basketball.

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Instruments of the Brass Family Classification: Aerophones

Trumpet The trumpet is the highest sounding of all the brass instruments. Trumpet players produce the brilliant tone quality by buzzing their lips into the mouthpiece. If you stretched out all the tub-ing on a trumpet it would be about six and a half feet long! There are three valves that the player uses to control the pitch. Trumpets were commonly used to signal soldiers in battles long ago. With such a stately and official sound, trumpets are frequently used in music written for important celebrations. Today they can be heard in orchestras, jazz bands, marching bands, brass quintets, and many other types of ensembles.

French Horn Although initially developed in Germany, we call this brass instrument the French horn because the model used today was completed in France. With over twelve feet of tubing wound in a circle, this instrument has a wonderful mellow sound. Players buzz their lips into their funnel-shaped mouthpiece and press the valves with their left hand to produce different notes. They also put their right hand inside of the bell of the instrument in order to adjust the notes. The French horn was first used by the French nobility to signal to each other during hunts. Today French horns can be heard in orchestras and other musical ensembles all over the world.

Trombone The trombone has been around for over 600 years! The trombone is a unique instrument because it uses a slide that moves in and out to change the pitch, instead of valves like the other three brass instruments. Like all other brass players, trombonists buzz their lips into the mouthpiece in order to make sound. The tubing of a trombone would measure nine feet if stretched out! Because trombones have a slide, composers often write glissandos in music for them. A glissando is a series of notes played very closely together. (They can sound just like a siren!)

Tuba Made out of about sixteen feet of tubing, the tuba is the largest of all the brass instruments. Tuba players hold this instrument upright in their laps and uses lots of air to buzz their lips into the mouthpiece to produce sounds. There are usually four or five valves that the player uses to con-trol the pitch of the notes. The first tuba was made in Germany by a composer named Richard Wagner. Today tubas can be heard in many different types of ensembles, such as orchestras, bands, brass quintets, jazz bands, and even solo performances.

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Music in your Community: Activities for thinking and writing about music in our lives. 1. Brainstorming: • Make a list of all the places you might hear music (shopping mall, in

a car, on television, concerts, etc.). • Do you hear the same music at all of these places? Discuss the differ-

ent types of music you might hear at each location.

2. Critical Listening: • Play excerpts of a wide range of musical styles. • Where could you hear this music in your life? • What could it be used for? (for dancing, relaxing, singing along, etc.) 3. Creative Writing: Using the previous exercises as a class warm-up, have students write a few paragraphs on their own. • Describe a place or an event where you don’t usually hear music. • Have students write a few paragraphs of their own that explain why they think it would be a

good idea to have music played there, and what type of music they would like to hear. 4. Follow-up: • Students may read papers to the rest of the class. • Students may write a story that includes the ideas from their papers.

Where in the world does music come from? Music comes from all over the world! There are strong musical traditions in every culture and community that have served many purposes over time. Music

can be used to celebrate happy occasions (like a wedding or birthday), sad occasions (like a funeral), patriotic occasions (like the Fourth of July) and religious occasions (like Christmas or Hanukkah). You will hear music from the United States, Germany, Italy, and Austria when the RPO Brass Quintet performs for you.

Pin point the country! Take a map and see if you can find the following countries on it: Germany, Italy, Austria, and the United States. Locate their capitals and name the continent where they can be found.

• Musical Detectives Objective: • To develop a greater understanding concerning the relationship between length of an in-

strument and the pitch produced. Materials Needed: • Glass bottles, water. Prior Knowledge: • Students are familiar with concept that different sized instruments produce different pitches. • Students understand the purpose of an experiment is to find an answer to a “why” question. (Why do

certain instruments produce mostly high notes, and others mostly low notes?) Procedures: • Fill several bottles with different amounts of water. • Blow across the tops of the bottles to produce different notes. • Do the bottles with more water make higher or lower sounds than those with less water? Ask students to

guess why this is. (Answer: shorter instruments make higher pitches. By adding more water to the bot-tle, it is essentially becoming “shorter” with less air space.)

Follow-up: • See if the class (or small groups) can develop a musical composition using the bottles.

Vocabulary: Learn new musical words Air: Musicians blow air from their lungs through their instruments to produce sounds. Brass: The type of metal that trumpets, French horns, trombones, and tubas are made of. Communication: An exchange of information between two or more individuals. Concentration: To focus on an activity, such as performing or listening to music. Expressive: Performing music in a way that communicates emotions and feelings. Slide: The part of a trombone that changes the pitches by sliding in and out. Valves: The part of trumpets, French horns, and tubas that changes the notes played.

Word Search: Find the words listed above in this puzzle. Words can be found horizontally, vertically, and diagonally, both forward and backward. C N O A H E K R M E M I D C V X O V R M G I F X N B J K O J O F M F A A O P T L N Y D N W P Q L M A G R S S H O R R C W K J D H U E Z M O S Y M P E I L V N E S N S E V L A V M N I J Q F S D D I S P E C R U T W B G I X C Z D C O I V B B R S H V E Z X Q T G A J U U W A S E H D T Z O F V J T V N T T C F A I U W Q O T J G I S R I V J I L L Z T S R F K W O B O X F Y S P D B A P N F G J N N H V W O W U Y P J X A H N A G Y T M M S O Y V U V U C X P U N

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Tell a Story without Words! When musicians play their instruments, they communicate many thoughts and emotions to each other and the audience without using words! When a small ensemble of musicians plays to-gether, it is just like a normal conversation between two people.

Activity 1: Silent Communication Preparatory Question: What are other communication devices which don’t involve spoken words? (answer: facial expressions, hand gestures, body language, etc.) Procedure: 1. Divide class into groups of three or four students each. 2. Give each group an emotion (possibilities include: happy, sad, angry, tired, excited, scared,

victorious, in love) and have them decide how to silently express it with facial expressions, etc.

3. Have groups present their emotion to the rest of the class. Ask the class to guess their emo-tion based on the nonverbal communication.

Activity 2: Communication through Sound When musicians perform, they communicate by using both their bodies and their instruments. They can use facial expressions or hand gestures to communicate with one another while per-forming a piece of music. They also use different sounds on their instruments to communicate the musical emotions and ideas with the audience. Preparatory Questions: • Name three ways you can make sound with your voices, bodies, or other materials in the

classroom (possible answers: humming, clapping, stomping, snapping fingers, pencils tapped, papers rustled, etc.)

• What ways could you use these sounds to communicate a thought or emotion more effec-tively? (refer to Activity 1)

Procedures:

1. In the same groups from Activity 1, pass out a photograph or magazine picture that dis-plays strong emotions.

2. Have each group determine the emotions that are expressed in their picture. 3. Decide how those emotions can be expressed using appropriate sounds. 4. Organize these sounds into a musical piece to perform for the rest of the class. 5. Lead class in a discussion of each group’s presentation. • What was this group was trying to communicate? (then show picture) • What different sounds did they use, and how were they successful in communicating

their picture? • What was your favorite part of their musical piece?

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What would you like to know about your visiting musicians?

When the RPO musicians come to your school you will have a chance to ask them questions about what they do and why they became musicians. Re-member that a question begins with one of the following words:

WHO WHAT WHY WHEN WHERE HOW Here are some sample questions to get you thinking about what to ask the musicians. Who was your first music teacher? Who encouraged you to keep playing? What did you first like about your instrument? What was difficult about learning your instrument? Why do you enjoy playing in an orchestra? Why did you choose to become a professional musician? When did you start music lessons? When did you know that you would make music your career? Where were you born? Where did you go to college? How long did it take for you to become a good musician? How much do you practice each week?

Some questions also begin with the words “Do” and “Have.” You may want to ask one of these question pairs.

Do you ever get nervous before you perform? How do you handle it? Have you ever made a mistake during a performance? What happened?

Ask one of these questions, or think of a different question on your own.

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Write a letter to thank our sponsors!

There are a number of people who make these ensemble performances pos-sible to the Rochester City School District. We ask that your students take a little time to express their gratitude to one of them in a letter. They can follow this format or come up with something on their own. The letters can be addressed to one of the following: 1. Glover/Crask Charitable Remainder Trust 2. The Honorable William A. Johnson, Jr., Mayor of the City of Rochester 3. Best Buy Children's Foundation, Ms. Susan Hoff, President 4. Time Warner Cable, Mr. Brian Wirth Dear (insert sponsor’s name here), On (date) I saw the RPO Percussion Trio perform at my school. They were (insert adjective). I learned . My favorite part was when the musicians . Thank you very much for making these visits possible. Sincerely, (name) Please send all letters through RCSD interoffice mail to:

Paulette Davis Artist-in-Residence Program

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Ms. Davis will give them to RPO staff who will then make sure that the proper recipients get them. Thank you!

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Concert Manners When the RPO musicians come to your school this is a special opportunity to learn about the instruments and musicians of the orchestra. We hope you will en-joy meeting the musicians and listening to their music. The following concert manners will help everyone listen and enjoy the perform-ance more. • Concert manners begin the moment you walk into the performance room.

Take your seats quietly and keep your hands to yourself. • At this time, the musicians may be warming up their instruments. Watch and

listen carefully to see if they do something you don’t expect. • Talk only when you are asked to respond to a question. If someone is talking

and distracting your class, try to ignore them or quietly get the attention of your teacher.

• Clap enthusiastically after each piece. This shows the musicians that you en-

joyed their music. • Save questions and comments for when the musicians visit your classrooms in-

dividually.

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What did you learn? Have a class discussion about what your students learned in the ensemble performance. What did you like about the performance and workshop? Was there anything that you didn’t like? Was there anything that surprised you about the instruments or music that you heard?