The Yellow Board

The Yellow Board
[ The Yellow Board ]

Chorale and Shaker Dance

Posted by assistant band on 12/17/2025, 12:33 pm

Has anyone played this for UIL and had a positive experience? I'm not familiar with the piece other than having listened to it and knowing its a standard. I've not yet had a chance to look at the score. I really enjoy listening to it and think it could fit my band. I teach a 6A high school NV band with strong upper woodwinds, average saxes/low reeds, average high brass, strong low brass and percussion.

Several colleagues I've talked to suggested that I don't play it for UIL.

Any thoughts welcome.

Re: Chorale and Shaker Dance

Posted by errata on 12/23/2025, 2:53 pm, in reply to "Chorale and Shaker Dance"

Find all the mistakes in the score. I cannot find my list. Sorry. It's a good piece.

Re: Chorale and Shaker Dance

Posted by Original Old Guy on 12/20/2025, 9:26 pm, in reply to "Chorale and Shaker Dance"

I played it many years ago. My students did not like it at first, but the longer we worked on it, three more they liked it. The next year they wanted to play something “cool like Chorale and Shaker Dance.” That being said, the band I played it with would be a 5A varsity in today’s classification. The piece is quite long. Also, you need to have really good French horns and upper woodwinds. Some very technical parts for the upper woodwind section. Several good soloists and a slid snare drummer needed also. The trumpet part is not all that difficult. Some interesting and pretty harmonies when they are in tune. Important stopped horn parts are not easy to play. All in all, I think it is a great piece that is exciting and underplayed, but you have to have the band for it.

Re: Chorale and Shaker Dance

Posted by DesertJazz on 12/20/2025, 9:05 am, in reply to "Chorale and Shaker Dance"

We played this with The Corpus Christi Wind Symphony for this past concert. I've played it once before I think with an honor band when I was in high school... (been a few years ago now!) Our conductor was out and I had to fill in for conducting it at the last minute when the planned sub was out. It was my first time working through it with the score. My gut feeling is that there are a lot more pieces at that level that are probably a better bet for you to go with. It is an amazing piece of music, but I think you need to really be able/willing to dive into a level of detail that takes a varsity level of thinking. Maybe you do have that kind of group in that large of a school, but I would be leery. It's not a 'modern' piece, so there are some old-school writing traps you'll have to contend with.

If you're really serious about it, consider reaching out to Bill Cason down here in region 14 who's the region secretary. He plays in our group and afterward spoke with me about the piece with a ton of passion. (He should have been the one up there conducting it!) He had figured out a lot of places where you could teach something to multiple sections that are just repeated fragments and such.

I would recommend if you're going to do it you really dive into score study. I was amazed how much was in there, and a lot of cool little hidden tidbits here and there.

But seriously, if you have this many people saying - avoid it, play it for a spring concert and find something that's a little safer for UIL.

Re: Chorale and Shaker Dance

Posted by *sigh* on 12/18/2025, 9:44 pm, in reply to "Chorale and Shaker Dance"

I'm going to take a completely different approach than.. well.. everyone here.

1.) The strange lydian modality and non-traditional chords in this piece didn't resonate with any of us either on first read, sorry to say. Part of our job and frankly, our duty as music educators is to help students explore great music and discover WHY it's great music. No kid likes Hindemith or Schuman either at first.

2.) We have to stop this. The more we continue to NOT program serious music because it might trigger some judge, the more this repertoire is going to vanish. It's already diminishing at a frightening rate in favor of "full, loud, everyone plays most of the time and has a 'fun' part" rather than objectively well-crafted music. YOU CANNOT PREDICT YOUR JUDGES. If your kids can handle it, you can play it in time, in tune, in tone and interpret it correctly, go for it and d**n the torpedoes.

Re: Chorale and Shaker Dance

Posted by Counterpoint on 12/23/2025, 11:31 am, in reply to "Re: Chorale and Shaker Dance"

No one's saying don't teach it or don't play it.

They're saying "don't take the risk at UIL unless you're sure."

Re: Chorale and Shaker Dance

Posted by Played in 2025 on 12/18/2025, 12:45 pm, in reply to "Chorale and Shaker Dance"

Hello,

I played this piece for contest in 2025 and the piece is pretty tough. It will depend what you program with it, for sure. The chords in Chorale and Shaker Dance especially were harder to tune for my NV band kids than I thought they would be.

You can find ways to see how frequently pieces are played for UIL. This one seems to be played pretty rarely, despite it being really popular about 20 years ago.

I admire your interest in playing the piece because it is a great piece of music. My main concern for recommending it would be the judge's rubric now does not reward any extra points for difficulty of piece based on type of ensemble playing it. They will want to hear this piece played like a recording... if your group can do it, go for it. If I had a second shot at programming it now that I know what I know, I would not program it for contest with a 2nd group.

Re: Chorale and Shaker Dance

Posted by Doc Too on 12/18/2025, 11:39 am, in reply to "Chorale and Shaker Dance"

This is a great piece which offers you opportunities for teaching technique, balance, blend, lyricism, rhythmic complexity, etc. etc. etc. I love the work.

If you are confident in your students' abilities to acquire the necessary technique, the remaining question is your own ability to teach and convey the musicality that such a sophisticated work offers.

I hope you choose to take on this challenge, but it is formidable indeed.

Re: Chorale and Shaker Dance

Posted by Respectfully on 12/18/2025, 9:51 am, in reply to "Chorale and Shaker Dance"

Disclaimer: It's a great piece of music.

C&SD is one of that generation of pieces that is incredibly thickly and densely scored and that usually doesn't "resonate" well with younger musicians anymore. It's absolutely worth performing but given the UIL judge community for C&SR trends .. older .. they likely have performed and prepared the piece multiple times and knows exactly where the tricks and traps are.

I would recommend against performing it unless you pass it out and it reads nearly perfectly in class. There is a TON to do to make that piece performance ready - tuning individual notes on instruments to fit nontraditional chords, etc. You'll have to spend an inordinate amount of time during the "Chorale" portion fixing it, and then the development section to the shaker dance has its very tricky and isolated parts. You need strong players top to bottom in every section to do it well.

Brilliant piece of music - it's a TON of work to make it UIL quality.

Re: Chorale and Shaker Dance

Posted by StBD on 12/18/2025, 8:40 am, in reply to "Chorale and Shaker Dance"

Of course, every band, teacher, program is different...but I would agree with them. I don't often hear NV bands play it, and the few times I have, it was not great. I think you also need some good horns for that as well.
It is a fun piece, but save it for spring concert, and remember: pick around your players, not necessarily what you enjoy hearing. Especially since you have not seen the score yet.

Re: Chorale and Shaker Dance

Posted by Bald Eagle on 12/18/2025, 1:29 am, in reply to "Chorale and Shaker Dance"

Many years ago I passed it out to my 6A (5A back then) NV. We were in the middle of the first reading when my HD walked into the band hall. She made me stop and told the students to pass the parts in. As they were doing so she said, "If you want to play that for the spring concert, that's fine...but you should NOT play it at UIL...EVER." She was a respected judge so I listened and went in a different direction.

A few years later in my first HD job I decided to pass it out. After a about a week of reading it, I told a few of friends we were looking at it. They all told me I was nuts and I should pick something else. After another week of rehearsals we turned it in and I never considered it again.

The original score is in concert pitch, so if you do decide to go for it you definitely will want to purchase the 50th anniversary fully transcribed score.

My final thought...do you really want to spend the majority of your UIL prep time on one piece that is almost 10 minutes long? To me it wasn't going to be worth the effort, and I didn't want to make the other pieces super easy in the hopes we could pull it off. However, you know your band better than any of us so good luck if you do try it!

Re: Chorale and Shaker Dance

Posted by Great points and 1 difference on 12/19/2025, 9:53 am, in reply to "Re: Chorale and Shaker Dance"

You bring up completely valid points and I want to address the third one for any younger directors who use the board.

We spend nearly a semester working on one 8 minute (upwards to about 10 minutes if there’s a pre show) marching band show.

I wouldn’t argue that spending the majority of your time on one piece is necessarily a bad thing, considering how complex this one is and theoretically it is really 2 movements.

I do think it’s important to consider programming something that challenges your kids, something that’s right where their level is at, and something easy. If programming this piece means that you go challenging, super easy, super easy, then I do agree with the original response. I just feel that the length in itself won’t necessarily mean you have to do that if you’re at a strong program.

« Back to index

[ The Yellow Board ]