[Hawkeye_a]

Copland is possibly the composer i primarily associate with "America". The instruments and sounds sound distinctively American, the same way Tchaikovsky sounds distinctively Russian.

If you enjoy classical music like Tchaikovsky, Holst, etc.... check out this album. I highly recommend "Allegro" and "Fast". For some inexplicable reason they seem to conjure up imagery of sailing in my mind.

Enjoy!

[besson3c]

Very cool Hawkeye, thanks for this recommendation! I would add Gershwin to your list of very firmly footed American composers. For some reason I always lump the two together. Bernstein also, although perhaps less so...

[ghporter]

Fanfare for the Common Man is perhaps one of the most uplifting musical pieces I've ever heard. Copeland was amazing.

[besson3c]

Am I the only one that confuses Fanfare for the Common Man with 2001?

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Am I the only one that confuses Fanfare for the Common Man with 2001?

Maybe so... The percussion introduction, and the single cornet initial horn segment are so very different from Also Sprach Zarathrustra that I just don't know how you can confuse them.

I forgot earlier to mention Emerson, Lake and Palmer's take on Fanfare. Very different but very enjoyable.

[besson3c]

Impressive that you know the name of the 2001 music, I had to look that up

Both actually use Bb trumpets rather than cornets, but that still doesn't explain why I confuse the two... If I had to guess I'd say that it's the spacious intervals and brass, lots of fourths and fifths.

If I can ask a slightly unrelated question, how did you guys end up discovering that you like this music? What do you think is needed to get this younger generation interested in this music? My wife and I have done a lot of trumpet teaching (mostly my wife), and we've come across tons of students that just love the music to Star Wars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Fantasia, etc. while thinking that they don't really care for classical music. While classical musicians would prefer for listeners to go back and listen to the original music that the John Williams music was derived from, it's hard to explain that the John Williams music would be nothing without his musical sources. At Quincy Jones' Q&A he also pointed out that many hip hop guys don't fully appreciate the music that came before the stuff they are doing either.

Is this sort of musical appreciate a pointless academic exercise, or is there a way to sort of lead kids from one to the other? For me, it's not that I want my students to *like* all of this music, but merely knowing that it exists, how it sounds, and appreciating something about it would definitely be better than nothing, and hopefully lead to more curiosity and self-exploration of music in general. The curiosity and interest in self-exporation is very important to me and what I want to impress upon the kids I work with.

[ghporter]

When I was growing up, there was a lot of very good classical music used as theme music for a variety of TV shows. Fanfare was used by CBS for a sports program, for example. I can't remember when or where I first heard Copeland, but I heard a lot of his work.

Later, in college, I took a class to fulfill my art requirement: "Appreciation of Music." It was taught by a musician who had played pick-ups with big bands in the 40's. Not only did I learn an appreciation for classical and baroque music, but having a big-band horn player teach you about jazz and big band music is awesome!

[Spheric Harlot]

Nitpick:

Copeland was the drummer in The Police. He's done a lot of soundtrack work since then.

Copland is the composer in question here (and the source of the mythical MacOS-that-never-came-to-be codename).

[ghporter]

Yeah, I did misspell his name there, didn't I...