March of the Trolls
What do marching trolls look like? This piece can spark the imaginations of young players into action, so that they can picture it for themselves.
It is important to introduce minor tonality to beginning musicians at an early stage of their development. This piece presents a melody in natural minor, with a middle section in major.
Scott Rogers
Scott Rogers is an composer/arranger, educator and producer with over 100 published works. He studied composition with Arthur Campbell at St. Olaf College and Warren Benson at the Eastman School of Music. Although he writes at all levels of difficulty, Rogers is especially devoted to writing music for young musicians having their very first ensemble experiences.
Kick Off!is a series for the very youngest musicians in a band or cultural school.Kick Off gives all musicians the melody part. Each part also has a harmony part (B) or a bass part (C). This allows for flexible use with different instrumentations, and gives everyone the opportunity to play the melody. The melody can be repeated several times with differing accompaniment and soloists. This makes each repetition of the material unique and meaningful for the musicians. When musicians have direct experience playing several parts, concepts like intonation and balance are easier to approach.
There is a challenge with saxophone and horn parts. The key and ranges that work well for the other instruments create the need for separate parts for sax and horn. Therefore, B and C parts are not written for these instruments, but parts tailored for these instruments. Use of the sax/horn parts will also make the ensemble sound fuller.
In addition, Kick Off has a simple piano part that can be used when the musicians want to play solo.