"Did Someone Write on
Your Music In Ink? No Worries, Mate!"
John
Philip Sousa's Washington Post
became the most popular tune in America and Europe about the
turn of the 20th century, and was one of the compositions that cemented Sousa's title as "The March
King."
You can still buy
Sousa's original arrangement of this march. But if you do, you
probably won't be happy...
There are problems in
the original edition. We have fixed them all.
Here are some examples:
| There
are no rehearsal markings. if you want to
start at a certain spot in the piece, you have to tell your
band "start in the ninth measure of the second
strain" or "Take the pickup to the seventeenth bar
of the trio." This is awkward, time consuming, and
confusing. |
We have added measure numbers and
rehearsal markings at approximate 8-measure intervals. |
| The
original march is available only in march-size format.
While this is fine for putting into a flip folder on a
marching music lyre, it's very inconvenient for concerts,
especially if some of your musicians have less than 20-20
eyesight. |
We have formatted this tune in
large print format, so what used to fit on one
6"x9" piece of paper is expanded to take up two
full-sized sheets. Yes, it takes more paper to print it this
way, but it sure is easy to read!
If you have adult musicians in your band, you need
this edition. |
| There
are many inconsistent dynamics throughout the piece. There
are places where some instruments play f and
others play fff. There are other places where
some instruments are marked mp or mf
and other instruments have no markings at all. This may be
what Sousa intended, but it's confusing to the
players. |
We have made dynamics
consistent throughout all parts. We believe today's
symphonic bands have enough musical sophistication to know how loud to play their own instrument to get the overall
band sound to be mp or fff. We
added consistent crescendos and decrescendos for all
instruments. |
| There
are many articulation inconsistencies throughout the piece.
There are places where some instruments have accents and
others have none. There are places where some instruments
have a standard accent and others have a tepee accent, and
many other inconsistencies. |
We have made all articulations
consistent for all instruments throughout the piece. |
| The
horn parts are in Eb. |
We have put the horn parts into
the key of F. |
| There
are no alto or bass clarinet or bells parts. |
We created alto and bass clarinet
and bells parts, duplicating parts of other instruments of
similar register. |
There
is no timpani part. I mean, hey. This is a
march, right? Sousa never thought of marching with timpani,
so ... no timpani part.
(Did you ever wonder how Sousa would react if he saw a
modern Drum Corps?) |
We wrote a new timpani part from
scratch. |
All in all, we have
made thirty-eight significant edits to this piece, in
addition to formatting it in large print layout.
When you buy this
arrangement, you will get
-
All the parts for
symphonic band
-
A license to make as
many copies of each part as you need for your band!
-
A condensed score,
ideal to conduct from
-
A full score - not
really suitable for using to conduct from, but useful if you
need to check out a certain note in a specific instrument.
Just think!
-
No more lost
parts!
-
No more music out
of print!
-
No more
scrambling to find enough parts for your flute or trumpet
section!
-
No more squinting
to see those tiny notes!
-
No more
worrying if someone writes on their music, or mangles
it.
-
No more confusion
when some people have different dynamics than others.
The price of this
piece is $35.00, with score and parts in
PDF format. The parts are laid out ideally for printing two-up on
11"x17" paper. So if you have a printer or copy machine
that can handle paper that size, you'll be very pleased with your
sheet music.
Please see our
duplication policy on our Copyright
Page.
Order
Washington Post Now!
To order this piece, see our Order
Page.
Go To Snicko Music Index
