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Don't know if this is quite the right place for this, but it is about an orchestra so I thought this was my best bet.

My school has a house system, there are 6 houses and there are a variety of compettions between them. One of these is House Music. As a house captain its my job to co-ordinate my house in this competition. We need to have a choir, an ensemble and a soloist. Obviously, I'm here to ask for help with the ensemble.

Our ensemble can only include the people who are in my house, which leads to a rather unbalanaced and strange orchestra. I have:
Clarinets-4
Flutes-2
Trumpets-2
Trombone-1(me)
Tenor horn-1
Violins-3
Violas-2
Pianists-2
Drummers-2
Guitarists-2
At my disposal music wise, I have a huge amount of jazz and swing band music and not much else. Every year we do something thats swing or jazz, and this year we've been ordered to try and do something different. Seeing as I'm the only musical house captain, I've got no one to help me out. Plus we've won the last 5 years in a row, if we don't win this year I will be murdered.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a piece of music that could involve all of these instruments and isn't too hard? Any at all?

Wow, that is unbalanced.

I can't think of any repertoire off the top of my head, but I did note that your House is very treble biased (meaning there is a lot of soprano, high instruments, and few bass instruments).

Because of this, I would raid the music library for pieces that have simple bass lines that the bone could drone away. The guitar and piano will back up the chords behind you. Leave the middle voices and melody to the rest of the band.


OR!

Find a Grade 3 or 4 (depending on how advanced your House is as a whole) string quartet. It's going to take some work, but transpose the string parts accordingly:

1st Vln: 1-clarinet (if someone has a soprano clar, woohoo!), 1-flute, 2-violin, 1-trumpet

2nd Vln: 1-clarinet, 1-fl, 1-trumpet, 1-violin

Vla: 1-clarinet, 2-violas

Cello: 1-tenor horn, 1-trombone, 1-clarinet (if they have a bass clarinet, WOOHOO!)


As I said, it's going to take a lot of work to transpose these parts for the corresponding instruments.

To involve the pianists, one can play the 1st and 2nd part, and the other plays the Viola and Cello part.

Have someone analyze the chords, and the guitars can strum along, or they can pluck out the bass notes, or the cello part.

Your percussionists can double on mallets for whatever part seems the weakest.



Yes, it's a lot of man hours put into this if you decide to run this route, but don't forget that you have other members in your House you can assign responsibilities to help you out. It's a group effort.

It's also going to sound pretty interesting.

If I were you (which I'm obviously not), I'd sit down and give my House a good scolding, saying that the leader is meant to lead a team, not do all the mule work. If they want to win, they better be able to pull their weight.


Now if you're looking for quartet music, heh. If your house has a budget, then you can find some cheap, especially if you order it through your director. However, by this point, I don't think you'll get the music in time, then be able to sit down, transpose, distribute, practice, rehearse, then perform.

So, instead, I offer you one of the most popular and well recognized pieces of all string ensemble history (I honestly have played it so much I'm sick of it).

I present to thee... Pachabel's Canon in D!

Page 1
Page 2


All four parts are on these two pages, demonstrating the true nature of a Canon. The first line, with the half notes, is the cello line, easy for the piano and viola to start out as single notes. Second time through to the end, piano can block the chords, arppegiate it into something pretty, and guitars can come in with light chords. Hell, make one of the guitars pick up a bass.

You seem to be a smart person, so I'm not going to explain how the other violin parts go. (to be honest, I get a headache trying to figure out how to put that in words anyways)

I would say In The Mood, but it doesn't have a flute part. Sing, Sing, Sing is a good one.