Grade .5-1 Concert Band Arrangements
The Ash Grove
The Ash Grove is designed to give your best trumpet, trombone, baritone or tuba player an opportunity to play a solo with band accompaniment. It should serve as the culmination of study for the soloist at the completion of any method book 1. The piece also has all of the solo material cued in the band so if a soloist is not available you can perform this piece with band alone.
Bartok Suite
From Bartok's famous For Children collection of short pieces for piano comes this expertly designed and carefully executed suite of four movements. For the youngest ensemble, great care has been taken so that there will be no unexpected technical difficulties. Each movement appears in a comfortable key and uses authentic melodic and harmonic material for a stylistically accurate musical experience. This is thoroughly charming scoring.
Carol of the Bells
One of the most popular of all Christmas carols is presented here in the simplist arrangement for a beginning band's first Christmas concert. Larry also uses "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" as part of the arrangement and at one point combines them together for a great effect.
Cha Cha Christmas
Perfect for the holidays, this work in the style of a cha-cha has ample teaching opportunities. Using only the first six notes of the Bb-major scale, this work is as accessible as it is fun. A great addition to the holiday concert!
Christmas Bingo
Your students and audience will flip over this clever mashup of the popular carols “Up on the Housetop”; “Jingle Bells”; “In the Bleak Midwinter”; “The First Noel”; “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” and “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” all tied together with the familiar B-I-N-G-O melody. The piece comes together with minimal rehearsal time and will be an absolute hit at your holiday concert.
Christmas Mash Up
Take lots of familiar Christmas tunes, mix them all together, and you have a Christmas Mash-Up. The setting is ideal for beginning players with the most difficult rhythm being a quarter note. This piece is perfect to highlight your first year orchestra at their very first holiday concert after as little as ten weeks of study.
Christmas Stomp
Christmas Stomp is a perfect composition for a beginning band’s Christmas Concert. It features three percussion soloists that play on different sounding buckets. The piece is written in a swing style, which will make it more enjoyable to play.
Christmas Surprise
Christmas Surprise is a perfect composition for your first Christmas Concert. It only uses the first 7 notes introduced in most beginning band methods; concert Bb to G plus the low A. This arrangement uniquely combines Jingle Bells and Jolly Old Saint Nicholas with Haydn’s Surprise Symphony. It also includes a unique section where the band sings.
Christmas Triptych
Here's a terrific medley for beginning bands featuring In Dulci Jubilo, We Three Kings and It Came Upon a Midnight Clear. It's just perfect for that all-important first holiday concert for your beginners and their parents!
The First Gift of Christmas
Using “Good King Wenceslas” like a cantus firmus, Larry Clark has composed a fresh-sounding Christmas piece that glows with the warmth of love, indeed the “first gift of Christmas.” This is a joyful selection that will light up the first Christmas program of a young beginning band.
Gymnopedie No. 1
It's poetry in sound. With Satie's brilliant use of harmonic coloring, this is a tour de force and true educational experience for your youngest ensemble. Here is the opportunity to investigate non-traditional sounds in a setting where phrasing, tone quality, and dynamic shadings play so vital a role in understanding and performance. This is music education in its finest form.
Holiday Concert
Everything you need for a holiday concert with young of players. It has a fanfare, Hanukah song, woodwind feature, brass feature, percussion feature, and then We Wish You A Merry Christmas to finish it all off. A great value!
iJingle
You've heard of "i" everything, from phones to tablets to websites, so why not add the "i" to your favorite holiday carol? This arrangement is designed for the young students to play at their very first holiday concert, including popular carol Jingle Bells and Beethoven's Ode to Joy. What makes this piece unique is how it incorporates audience participation by having them shake their cell phones along to the band using any of the free sleigh bell apps that are out there. This is going to be pure fun for your students and audience and one of the most talked about arrangements of the coming holiday concert season.
Jupiter - with Solo
Jupiter the famous Gustav Holst composition is arranged for flute or clarinet or alto saxophone soloist with band accompaniment or it can be played by band alone.
Name That Christmas Carol
Name That Christmas Carol, which uses only 6 notes from concert Bb to G, is designed to be an audience participation game that will add some fun to your first Christmas concert.
Old St. Nicholas Had a Farm
Everyone will have some holiday fun with this mash-up of the classic song Old MacDonald with popular Christmas carols. Using only the first six notes of the B-flat scale and only two repeated eighth-note rhythms, students will feel comfortable playing to the sound of sleigh bells, Santa's whip, and the thunder of reindeer hoofs. A perfect fun addition to your beginning band's first holiday concert.
Pictures at an Exhibition
Using the B-flat scale plus A-flat, Larry Clark has fashioned a very easy, but full sounding arrangement of two themes from this famous work ("Promenade" and "The Great Gate of Kiev"). This setting uses only whole notes, half notes and quarter notes, but bands with chimes and Tam-tam can enhance the grandeur of the closing pages in a way that will remind listeners of Ravel's celebrated orchestral version of Pictures at an Exhibition.
Santa's Noisy Workshop
Ever imagine what it would sound like inside Santa's workshop at the North Pole? Well, speculate no longer, thanks to this clever arrangement by Larry Clark. You will hear clinking and clanking sounds interwoven with effervescent holiday carols. Best of all, this piece is playable after very limited study, so it is perfect for that very first holiday concert.
Simple Gifts of Christmas
This glorious holiday piece is sure to become a classic. The tune Simple Gifts is the main theme heard throughout the piece and is intertwined with short snippets of several beloved Christmas carols. It is simple enough for any beginning band to play, but sounds quite sophisticated. Don't miss the opportunity to provide a joyous ending to your first holiday concert!
Sousa the March King
Four of the 'big ones' are here: El Capitan, High School Cadets, The Thunderer, and of course, Stars and Stripes Forever. Audiences love marches, particulary those that everybody knows! You will appreciate Larry Clark's arrangement; he has reduced the difficulty level but left plenty of Sousa to suit just about anyone. There is no way more enjoybable to close that all-important spring concert.
Symphony No. 1 - with Solo
The Johannes Brahms Symphony No. 1 Theme is designed to give your best players an opportunity to play a solo with band accompaniment. This solo is the same one that appears on page 36, book 1 of The Yamaha Advantage® for oboe, bassoon, alto clarinet, tenor saxophone and horn. This arrangement also includes solo parts for Flute, Clarinet and Alto Saxophone. This piece can also be performed by band alone.
Waltz of the Flowers
This is a perfect choice for a secular holiday concert! Taken from the ever popular ballet "The Nutcracker," everyone will be able to identify with this enchanting melody! Reduced technical demands combined with a strong musical content also make this a good choice for other concerts. An absolutely charming addition to your program!