Droid Funk - for String Orchestra and Drum Set
This fun and groovy piece is meant to help your young string players spread their funky wings and do some improvising. The piece functions in a D Dorian mode, and fits well with a D minor pentatonic scale. Some great fun can be had improvising in this style by learning to play the stylistic long-short paired eighth note rhythms that are prevalent throughout the piece. Allow your students to experiment with very long and truly short eighth note pairs. For some extra guidance, example solos have been added to the piece to give you and your students either a functional solo to play during a concert, or a roadmap to help guide soloing. The solos need not be limited to the part they are written in (your first violinist may not be ready for the first violin solo, but may love the viola one) and they are not set in stone, so encourage your students to add or subtract from the written solo as they begin to experiment with improvising. To add the icing to the cake, the drum part should be easily readable by a student studying jazz drums at the same level as your string players.
This fun and groovy piece is meant to help your young string players spread their funky wings and do some improvising. The piece functions in a D Dorian mode, and fits well with a D minor pentatonic scale. Some great fun can be had improvising in this style by learning to play the stylistic long-short paired eighth note rhythms that are prevalent throughout the piece. Allow your students to experiment with very long and truly short eighth note pairs. For some extra guidance, example solos have been added to the piece to give you and your students either a functional solo to play during a concert, or a roadmap to help guide soloing. The solos need not be limited to the part they are written in (your first violinist may not be ready for the first violin solo, but may love the viola one) and they are not set in stone, so encourage your students to add or subtract from the written solo as they begin to experiment with improvising. To add the icing to the cake, the drum part should be easily readable by a student studying jazz drums at the same level as your string players.
This fun and groovy piece is meant to help your young string players spread their funky wings and do some improvising. The piece functions in a D Dorian mode, and fits well with a D minor pentatonic scale. Some great fun can be had improvising in this style by learning to play the stylistic long-short paired eighth note rhythms that are prevalent throughout the piece. Allow your students to experiment with very long and truly short eighth note pairs. For some extra guidance, example solos have been added to the piece to give you and your students either a functional solo to play during a concert, or a roadmap to help guide soloing. The solos need not be limited to the part they are written in (your first violinist may not be ready for the first violin solo, but may love the viola one) and they are not set in stone, so encourage your students to add or subtract from the written solo as they begin to experiment with improvising. To add the icing to the cake, the drum part should be easily readable by a student studying jazz drums at the same level as your string players.