When we were playing this for the first time, everyone just screamed at the haaa part like "haaAAAAAA _AAAA_ *_AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaAaaaAAaaAAaAaAAAAaA_* " and it was pretty great
As John Mulaney would say< "You know how some songs have a dip in the middle? You'll be like 'Hey, Great Locomotive Chase is over!' No, it's not. There's more."
When people say percussion is easy... "Just hit a drum with a wood stick!" Me: BOY! You try playing constant paradiddles in 4/4 time signature in a Vivacé tempo. If you take that as faster/advanced allegro. It's as hard as it sounds. If that doesn't sound hard to you, then you either have some talent or just insane.
It's not paradiddles though... all the accents fall on the beat. if it were paradiddles, the accents would fall on the E of the beat, which would completely throw off the feel of the song. just straight 16ths with quarter note accents. the only actually challenging parts of the song are the accelerandos and ritardandos at the beginning and end of the song.
we don't have a lot of percussion where i go to school so our director had me switching between marimba, xylophone, and chimes the whole song. it was brutal but it sounded absolutely amazing
my band was playing a song and i had to play the jingle bells the marimba and the tambourine back to back and at one point i had to play the jingle bells and tambourine at the same time
yeah same,my percussion section throws me on all the mallet/keyboarded parts and i ended up haveing glockenspiel, tubular bells, and marimba lol ngl i love playing mallet but goddamn XD
This song is dedicated to a staple in Civil War history. picture this: a Confederate train, the General, stops at a town called Big Shanty. "Next stop Big Shanty! 10 minutes for breakfast!" yells the conductor. 5 minutes later, the General takes off, full speed, hijacked by Union spies! A small group of Confederate men find a trolley on the track... And the Great Locomotive Chase begins! How do I know so much about this? I used to live in Big Shanty, or as it's called now: Kennesaw, GA
I have an old book from the early 1930's about this, although parts are slightly embellished for effect, it's still a great little story, one of my favorite books to re-read every now and again.
well there is a full orchestra version with strings so maybe that's what they mean it's not as good though www.jwpepper.com/sheet-music/media-player.jsp?&type=audio&productID=2466894
@ThatInternet Dude I played this song in honors band, the specific notes we have to play have to blend into each other in a way, so we have to roll our hands and flute inwards or outwards to ‘note bend’. Basically we are transitioning from one note to another without moving our fingers...
Playing the chime part in this is so much fun. The last couple of measures it’s just chaos. Sure you only play 2 notes but you get to smack it as hard as you want.
My director used to yell at me because I never hit it hard enough. He then made me a wager to try and break the chimes. Well sure enough I won when the string holding up the high one snapped and hit the floor at concert lol
Haha, a couple percussionists in my band did that too. And that, my children, is when my teacher turned his back on the percussionists. They are all now his least favorite students.
2:36 - This is such a beautiful section. The way the booming low brass harmonizes with the rest of the band SO WELL, the melodies produced are so awesome and they fit well with the piece too. All around amazing.
@@Beehive255 Yup. Imagine trying to navigate the partials if you can't even blow in it. I've said it once and i'll say it a thousand times, French Horn Players deserve more credit.
@WildKat Doesn't hurt if you play it right. I like how everybody's assuming the snare part is painful, but it really isn't. If playing this song hurt you, you're putting in waayyy too much effort, that or you're just really tense while you play. Chillout. If you can't play the 16th notes then just diddle them.
Played this for my Junior High concert, gotta love those flute trills! 😣 I really wish we could play this again, but our High School band has only 12 members... Oh well. Still a great song!
So true, so very true I actually played this in band today. It sounds nice, but it’s fr torture for me personally. A big part of it is that I am miserable in band and dread playing the clarinet. I cannot wait to drop
I played this piece in middle school but found out about five minutes ago it was inspired by a Locomotive Chase in the Civil War after a Union Spy stole a train and headed toward Chattanooga, damaging train tracks along the way and attempting to avoid capture by Confederate soldiers. So the spy theme fits
Rest in peace Mr. Smith It was an honor to be able to meet him. This piece was my favorite to play with my school's concert band, and it will always hold a special place in my heart.
I played chimes on this song in high school. I will never forget everybody turning around and staring at me like "wtf why aren't you following the conductor?!?"
@@user-wn5pj3tq8t I'm guessing you haven't played this song. The upright chimes part said to play at a constant tempo despite the accelerando of the rest of the band.
All of the comments her basically.... 1.”oh my god the trills!!!!11!1” 2. Any * insert instrument here * omg 💦work hard💦💪🏻💪🏻band camp 😍drill downs 💪🏻 I love my section👌🏻😍😍👌🏻🔥🔥🔥 3. I am * insert age * and I still like this song
@@ga1ianoplays772 you are not wrong. The single or two parts you got is arguably the most important at that point in the music. It’s just the leading up to it that is not as…. Great, to say the least
No because I just got the solo today and I can’t play it ughh! This was part of my marching show this year but I played mellophone in marching band and ya know different mouthpieces and fingerings so now I’m having to relearn it
Playing chimes in this song is tricky, because your bpm stays exactly the same for the last section of the song, while everyone else gets progressively slower. That's what made that part so much fun
I remember playing this my freshman year on tenor sax.....as a freshman who never played music before this was extremely difficult at first but now that I look back this is a piece of cake!
My bands playing this song for their last concert of the year. So far I love it. Also I play the trombone. Gotta say this piece is hard at the trills, I blew my damn chops out multiple times
We just got this today and I'm excited for it but we also found out that Robert W. Smith just passed away recently (I think at 63) cuz of a heart surgery 😥
I play Baritone for this piece, the concert is in a few weeks. Nothing beats the absolute THRILL of playing the last bit of the song, pretty much all of my third page of music. To clarify I play trombone, and having the baritone part means I don’t have any of the glissandos. That’s the only sucky part about playing this piece.
Isn't that because saxs get the same part as the horns a lot of the time like how oboes have a very similar part to flutes and clarinets a lot of the time
Playing Timpani on this song for spring concert. And HOLY CRAP I freaking love it. The creativity used with all the percussion auxiliary to make train sounds and the like is so good! Definitely one of my fav songs we've played yet. The other sections parts also sound incredible.
I’m currently a trombone player, and I am playing this in honor band, and this by far has to be my most favorite song we are playing, we got a concert on Saturday, can’t wait to play it
This was the holy grail for trombones. Like, the whole year you're playing long, low notes. Then you get this FUCKING BANGER of a peice with glisses and the trombone solo.
My school played this last year, I was in 8th grade when we played it. Sadly, that was our last concert due to, well,,y'now. It was one of the best concerts we had though. Update: Graduated HS and freshman in college. For the senior show at my school, the last song we seniors played together was this song. We all loved it, it was the perfect last song we played.
I subconsciously picked trombone and turns out my dad played it in band too over 40 years ago and he gave me his trombone, I’m so ready to rock this piece!
Having been out of my middle school for at least 10 years, I still come back to this song. It was such a fun song to play. Chimes sounding like warning bells, flutes sounding like a train, stomping and shhhhs sounds like the train coming to life... It was all so cool at the time
