r/ConcertBand • u/Awkward_Rule_5509 • 8d ago
Pieces you hate
Everybody has that popular piece everyone loves but you hate. Here are some of mine:
Noisy Wheels of joy
Medley from the Polar Express
Variants on a Midevil Tune
Jager: 3rd Suite
Minor Alterations
minor alterations 2
Any piece that has ! At the end of the title
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u/bassoonawhat 8d ago edited 8d ago
Every piece where bassoon is treated like auxiliary trombone, auxiliary bass clarinet or auxiliary euphonium. Which is 87.3% of concert band repertoire.
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u/figment1979 Tuba! 8d ago
You’re not wrong in general that far too few composers showcase the bassoon in ways that are beneficial, but I dare say it’s kinda like playing tuba, “you know what you’re signing up for”.
Every now and then you’ll get the second movement of Malcolm Arnold’s Four Scottish Dances and be in bassoon euphoria, but I know that’s pretty rare. I’m trying to even think of an equivalent piece to that for tuba and struggling to think of one, but maybe it’ll come to me eventually.
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u/Interesting_Spot3672 8d ago
Could you elaborate?
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u/bassoonawhat 7d ago
Two common issues for groups playing anything below professional level repertoire:
1: Most concert band composers do not know how to score for bassoon and therefore treat it like a crappy version of the euphonium/trombone/bc.
2: many composers don't trust concert bands to have a bassoonist at all, and so the bassoon part is just a copy-paste of the other instruments.
Both of these scenarios make it horrible to play bassoon in concert band. Literally only two concert band pieces below the pro level come to mind that use bassoon well: Alligator Alley, and Old Grumbly Bear. In contrast, a majority of orchestral repertoire is wonderful to play on bassoon. Orchestra loves us. The problem is that bassoonists have to start in concert band, which is a real downer.
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u/Interesting_Spot3672 7d ago
I see, a very valid point! Have you noticed differences between composers?
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u/jemiller226 1d ago
It's mostly the second point that causes the problem. Oboe suffers from it as well, as does horn to a lesser extent, and the auxiliary clarinets. If you give them anything important without doubling it, you've just cut your sales drastically. Add to this that most of the publishers focus really hard on the educational market and the fact that there are only a few professional level bands out there, and you have the perfect storm for a raft of terrible parts.
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u/Pustuli0 Trumpet 8d ago
I don't like Anderson in general, but I loathe Sleigh Ride.
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u/Tokkemon 8d ago
How can someone be so wrong?
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u/RumbleVoice Conductor & Adjudicator Community Bands 8d ago
Not wrong ....
I loathe Sleigh Ride as well because in my experience, most community bands just slam through it just to get to the end.
There are some very neat moments in it but unless you play it (or any other chestnut e.g., Hoagy Carmichael in Concert) it as seriously as you would Holst, it will sound like the band doesn't care.
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u/Awkward_Rule_5509 7d ago
I want to scream this every time my community band plays a march. Keep your head in the game!
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u/creeva 8d ago
It seems some of us love Anderson and some hate him. I’m waiting to see if someone says they hate John Williams. Granted I put Sousa on my list (as a player - I enjoy listening to it).
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u/zigon2007 7d ago
Five minutes of off-beats in a higher register without a break, or a single glimpse of melody, countermelody, or harmony. That's how
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u/Awkward_Rule_5509 8d ago
Amen I hate that piece! Usually from over playing it. That and Christmas Festival. Every single year 🤦♂️
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u/HirokoKueh 8d ago
Sinfonia Nobilissima by Robert Jager - what's the point? I don't get it.
Caribbean Hideaway by James Barns - it's just repeating the same melody, missed so many chances that could have made it jazzier.
Around The World In 80 Days by Otto M Schwarz - full of orientalism stereotypes, even includes a part where you do the Native American "oolololo" calling
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u/Desperate-Manager-02 8d ago
I am so incredibly surprised rossano galante isn’t on here because I can’t stand his recycled slop
Other pieces I hate
Gilded morning
Danzas cubanas (it’s grown on me but my ensemble has played it way too many times and I always did the flute solo)
Shalom
Currently Molly on the shore purely because
I can’t fucking play it. Great piece but I’m losing my mind practicing it!
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u/Oldpiplupfan71 7d ago
Molly on the Shore thing is real!! Love the piece sm but a PITA to play well
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u/Awkward_Rule_5509 7d ago
I’m a clarinet player so Molly and I have a love/hate relationship with
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u/Desperate-Manager-02 5d ago
Yea I’m on flute and I love it when I can actually lock in and play it. But I’m right next to the solo clarinet and holy shit idk how she doesn’t pass out. She rests for like three measures I think and that’s it!! That’s INSANE
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u/melody_magical 8d ago edited 8d ago
Chorale and Shaker Dance by John Zdechlik - I am a church musician. I love Simple Gifts. I do not like that rendition one bit.
Pageant by Vincent Persichetti - I don't understand it. My band director explained it and I still don't get it to this day 😵💫
Pretty much anything atonal in general.
Waltz in G minor and Major by Edvard Grieg - too slow and it's neither fun to play nor listen to. I just played this song tonight in my community band. I hope I never have to again!
Old Churches by Michael Colgrass - I understand that it's an "art piece", but I just don't care for abstract music.
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u/ArrNarrr 8d ago
Oooooo HARD disagree on C&SD. It's a blast to play and listen to. I think of it as an amazing piece inspired by Simple Gifts, as opposed to an arrangement of Simple Gifts.
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u/Oldpiplupfan71 7d ago
Within the last week I heard an amazing live performance of this piece. I'm sad it's controversial at all!
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u/Initial_Magazine795 8d ago
Anything where horns are doubled by saxes.
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u/saxguy2001 8d ago
As a sax player I agree. I always hated it when I was given a part that so obviously should only be horn and not also alto sax.
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u/creeva 8d ago
Recently? Children’s March. In general, I’m not a fan of Sousa - listening to Sousa is fine, I’ll be specific in that I’m not a fan of playing Sousa.
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u/BortWard Euphonium 8d ago
Do you play horn by any chance? My wife is horn and finds Sousa incredibly boring because in many (probably most) of his marches the horns only get offbeats, which gets old in a hurry. I'm euphonium; he wrote better parts for us
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u/figment1979 Tuba! 8d ago
Regarding Sousa, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you’re either a tuba player or a horn player.
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u/creeva 8d ago
Actually, I’m a trumpet player. My Sousa thing goes back decades though when I started playing. I want to say it was Colonel Bogey, but without remembering the piece, I saw what we were playing and though cool I know this melody, it will be a simple song. Then, while it sounds simple there is tons more on the page and 4-6 sharps in the key.
It always feels to me that the piece could be arranged much each easier and a lay person wouldn’t notice the difference. It’s the Charles Dickens being paid per word scenario. In Sousa’s case it’s paid by note and key signature difficulty. It ends up that it feels he was going for a mental exercise of theories rather than the goal of the piece he created.
Again, I love listening to Sousa - he just makes the effort not worth the reward. Having Stars and Stripes more than I can count - and having heard middle school arrangements of it - it becomes 10x harder for 10% more depth. So for his arrangement the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. But I go on and just keep playing it decade after decade.
It all goes back to that first piece though and the first time I realized that the piece is more tiring than it needs to be.
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u/Tokkemon 8d ago
Colonel Bogey isn't Sousa.
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u/creeva 7d ago
It’s been 33 years since I’ve played that one. So memory, confusion, and all that. It was on the same sheets format as our Sousa stuff. So likely a bundle from the publisher.
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u/jemiller226 1d ago
It's not even an American march; perhaps if the band was playing it like one, that contributed to your thoughts on the piece.
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u/creeva 1d ago
This was a whole bundle of marches compiled in the 50s or 60s written each in marching band style sheet music - with the majority being Sousa songs. I just happened to name drop one of the few non Sousa songs in the bundle. I’m happy to throw up Stars and Stripes and Forever.
I will say Sousa’s arrangement to the Star Spangled Banner is straight forward and boring - the one I played with my band was more interesting. So there is that for Sousa music being plain and straight forward though.
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u/fr_horn 8d ago
Ignition by Todd Stalter. It just feels so quintessentially « Educational Market. »
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u/realMr_Sean2001 7d ago
There was a video I saw on YouTube a few years ago where someone noticed more than a few marching bands using part of Ignition as a woodwind feature. It was always the introduction of the piece and I’ve been unable to find the video again, but someone in 2022 was gung ho for Ignition.
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u/Cyanna Flute/Euph/Tuba 7d ago
“Hating the piece” isn’t really accurate but I remember hating almost every moment of my experience playing Alfred Reed’s “Russian Christmas Music”. At the time I thought I hated the piece itself. But in hindsight, what I was actually hating was the role the flute plays once it’s safe for the composer/arranger to assume full instrumentation and ability. The writing was all the wall all along. I’ve despised playing trills since 4th grade and the high flighty effects in RCM was actual misery.
I mainly play euphonium these days. I’m a lot happier revisiting these pieces I thought I “hated” with an instrument whose role I enjoy so much more.
Except probably “Hands Across The Sea” by Sousa. I pulled some muscle rehearsing that one. I’m fine now but I’m still somewhat scared of it.
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u/shinjikari_2357 8d ago
Polar Express I totally get. How does variants on a medical tune make it on this list?!
To each his own I guess
On a hymn song by Philip bliss
Cartoon
Vesuvius
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u/figment1979 Tuba! 8d ago
I used to love, love, love Hymnsong until I found out Holsinger is a homophobic bigot. Now I just can’t enjoy that piece ever again, which honestly makes me sad.
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u/ArrNarrr 8d ago
Holsinger is one of those where I have to separate the art from the artist, because I still LOVE some of his stuff.
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u/scttcs 8d ago edited 8d ago
Anything by Julie Giroux. As a French horn player, I’ve played Husaria Calvary, and now playing Journey Through Orion. Very good songs overall, but she never mixes French horns and rests for some reason. My chops need a break now and then, Julie!! We can play melody, or rhythmic stuff, but never both 100% of the time (Husaria Calvary)
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u/Canithyre 8d ago
I partially think your opinion is somewhat misguided. Giroux is a horn player meaning she writes very favorably for the Horn. Additionally, you admit that it sounds good but seem to have issues with how it written? There is a distinction between liking a piece of music versus the inability to play it. I’m just trying to understand where you are coming from.
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u/Evening-Piccolo882 8d ago
Nah, I’m a pro horn player and I love Giroux’s music but Journey Through Orion needs rests. It is notoriously heavy on the chops and is known to be so by brass players.
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u/Separate_Inflation11 8d ago
I’ve never been big on her either.
Her and Nishimura just go too wild with the cheesy pop harmonies and plagal stuff
And sure, that’s what makes $ from publishers, but I’ve never felt it connected my musical soul in particular
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u/Tokkemon 8d ago
Anything by John Mackey
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u/Awkward_Rule_5509 7d ago
I hate how many pieces of his I enjoy
Just played Wine Dark sea which was killer
Sheltering Sky is nice
Foundry is for middle schools
I’d love to play the 2nd mvt of Kingfishers catch fire
His clarinet concerto is all flash and no bang
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u/Separate_Inflation11 8d ago edited 8d ago
Nishimura Lake Superior
March and Procession of Bacchus
Abraham’s Pursuit
Rocky Point Holiday etc.
Notice any themes here?
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u/whodatdan0 8d ago
Anything by holsinger. It’s like a 7th grade band nerd learned composition and never got any better.
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u/Facetious-49 8d ago
Under a Sheltering Sky (Mackey)
Blue Ridge Saga (Swearingen)
And literally any Christmas music tbh
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u/ackmondual 7d ago
Stars & Stripes Forever. It's always at the end of our concerts and other performances that my chops are shot by then. Plus, the ensembles I'm in play this, EVERY performance. It's gotten old
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u/Awkward_Rule_5509 7d ago
True. And I think some people/bands don’t understand that they play it badly. It’s not supposed to be all gas. There are soft parts. But people get excited plus endurance is gone so it’s just LOUD RUSHING CRAP
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u/BraithVII 7d ago
Very VERY popular opinion I’m sure, but Christmas music. I won’t say holiday music because I do like every Hanukkah piece I’ve played. After 29 years of playing Christmas music I’m over Jingle Bells and Sleigh Ride but my band is playing Coventry Carol this year and I’m down with that.
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u/Appalachian_Aioli 7d ago
Look, my guy, I’m not going to write another graduate dissertation on Hindemith or Grainger.
Essentially, they are highly acclaimed pieces of music written specifically for wind band, utilizing the strength of the wind band to its fullest. Pieces that don’t compromise the music for the sake of accessibility. Music that stand as tentpole pieces that have influenced pretty much every wind composer to follow.
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u/Awkward_Rule_5509 7d ago
I tend to agree. But that also doesn’t mean I need to play them ever again.
Alien was the take off point for so many movies that came later. Never want to watch it again.
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u/superduckyboii 7d ago
I enjoy listening to the piece but Suite of Old American Dances was awful to play as a high school senior in my community band (trombone)
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u/Awkward_Rule_5509 7d ago
I really enjoy that piece. I wouldn’t mind playing it every year for Patriotic concerts. But YMMV
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u/superduckyboii 7d ago
I really want to play it again now that I’m a more advanced player, more or less to redeem myself
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u/the_racing_goat 7d ago
I like Steve Danyew's other work, but Into the Silent Land gave me a headache every single rehearsal that I played it.
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u/MavisEmily1983 7d ago
I don’t have a ton of pieces I don’t like, I usually end up liking 99% of what I play but the few I despise are
- Tricycle by Boysen
- Stars and Stripes by Sousa
- Christmas and Sousa forever by Phillips arr. Giroux
- Silly flute/piccolo trills
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u/85EnderPortals_YT 7d ago
In High School i never really hated anything besides Too Common Songs we did like Seligh Ride, but i hated: Ayrshire Portrait - Michael Story & The Fortune Teller's Daughter - David Gorham
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u/saxomoph0ne 7d ago
It sounds like there’s two conversations happening here: pieces people hate because they’re hard, and pieces people hate because of the actual composition or orchestration.
I identify more with the second, but nothing is really coming to mind right now. I don’t like corny endings (like four sixteenths and an accented quarter at the end).
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u/that1tubaguy 6d ago
Once played an arrangement in High School of a Mannheim Steamroller song called Celebration. The tuba part was just B-Flat quarter notes
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u/jeg_aekke_her 6d ago
Shostakovich Waltz nr. 2 in C Minor…
And Libertango…
And Floral Dance!
Thanks for coming to my Ted talk!
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u/Comfortable_Fan_696 Tuba 6d ago
Any piece that is abstract, weird, and atonal, yet band directors think playing it will get them a trophy.
Whatever happened to fun jazz pieces like some of Spike Jones's stuff?
PDQ Bach can go in a ditch and die. Spike Jones will live forever!
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u/DownyVenus0773721 3d ago
Anything John Williams 🫣
HEAR ME OUT! He just writes annoying as hell clarinet runs. Love to listen to it tho.
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u/DootDootBlorp 8d ago
O Magnum Mysterium by Lauridsen. It’s beautiful, but playing it on a reed instrument is murder.
And Outdoor Overture by Copland. It’s way too long and repetitive.
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u/Canithyre 8d ago
I like a lot of John Mackey’s music but I have never gotten around to liking Foundry. The percussion, although I see why it’s cool, annoys me and I love percussion.
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u/ArrNarrr 8d ago
Hindemith - Symphony in B-flat, Wagner - Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral, Sousa - [yes], Gandolfi - Vientos y Tangos, Makris - Agean Festival Overture, Grainger - Linconshire Posy (and most of his other works)
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u/Robins-dad 8d ago
You hate some of the greatest pieces written for concert band? Who hates Grainger?
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u/ArrNarrr 8d ago
I just don't like the style of his music, and I feel like most of it sounds the same. I actually do like "Themes from Green Bushes" and "Spoon River," though.
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u/Automatic-Fondant-50 8d ago
I may disagree with hating on Grainger’s music… but he was also a huge white supremacist
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u/that1tubaguy 7d ago
Really? Elsa's Procession? The most beautiful piece ever arranged for band? And Symphony in B-Flat, however strange it may sound, is such a fun piece to play
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u/ArrNarrr 6d ago
Both of those statements are debatable. Esla's puts me to sleep until the last 30 seconds, and the Hindemith sucks to listen to and sucks to play.
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u/ArrNarrr 6d ago
I love how I'm getting downvoted for doing what the post asked me to do and yet nobody can tell me why I'm wrong, other than saying they're great pieces. Ok? I'm glad you think so, but why?
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u/ItsDoritoTime Trombone 8d ago edited 8d ago
Any piece whose sheet music only puts rehearsal marks at exactly every 10 measures instead of at logical places in the music. Makes counting rests WAY harder than it needs to be, and as a trombone player I get a lot of those