Parody Suite
Parody Suite is the umbrella term for my four pieces that quote and rework familiar melodies from other popular band works: Chester Leaps In, ImPercynations, MetaMarch, and Suite Dreams. While I’ve used the term “parody” in this title, I do NOT mean it to imply that I’m belittling or ridiculing any of the original pieces. In fact, I believe it would be more accurate to describe these as ‘remixes’ of the originals, as filtered through my hazy memory of playing these works when I was a student in various bands.
They can be performed together, or individually, or in any combination. If you’re performing all four, the intended order is:
This ordering preserves some key relationships I’ve purposely set up across the works, and helps it to somewhat adhere to a traditional symphonic scheme (slow 2nd mvt., march for the 3rd mvt., etc.). This order is not set in stone, however. A common programming approach with several of these in the past has been to pair them with the parodied work – Chester Leaps In and Schumann’s Chester have appeared on a number of programs together. I’m just waiting for someone to take on the challenge of programming all four along with their counterparts…
Three of these (Chester Leaps In, ImPercynations, and MetaMarch) are featured in Teaching Music through Performance in Band, Volume 5, in a definitive article by Bill Berz. Check it out!
NOTE: recordings of each of the works can be found on their respective pages, or you can listen to the entire suite on my SoundCloud page.