My name is Michael and I am a music education student at Penn State University. My focus is on percussion and my primary instrument is marimba. I am studying various ensembles but my goal is to teach a high school band.
I have done an extensive score study of the Richard Strauss piece, "Königsmarsch." The high school ensemble that I am currently observing is not preparing this work, but it is a piece that would be at their level. The group is a non-audition concert band for 11th and 12th graders. Because this is not the schools "select" ensemble, it has a mixture of beginner students, advanced students, and advanced students playing secondary instruments. The ensemble is also quite large, with over 120 members. The goals I would have for these students are to improve balance and intonation. These are the issues that are most noticeable in their performance of the piece. The intonation problems can probably be attributed to the many beginner students in the ensemble and the balance issues to the shear amount of students in the ensemble.