SKU: A0.589974

Shall We Gather at The River is an American nineteenth century hymn often sung in a gospel style. This version is arranged as a duet for two Trumpets.

Shall We Gather at The River was composed in 1865 by a Baptist minister from New York, Robert Lowry. As well as becoming a gospel standard, the melody of Shall We Gather at The River has found its way into compositions by Charles Ives and Aaron Copeland and has often been used in classic Western movies.

Shall We Gather at The River is simply arranged in keys and range best suited to the instruments. The hymn is played three times in a slow swing style, with a key change on the final verse and chorus. Click the link above to listen to a full Youtube performance of the Clarinet version of this duet.

Shall We Gather at The River is suitable for players at an intermediate level and above, though the key change may require extra work for less experienced players. With a performance time of around three minutes, this version of Shall We Gather at The River is perfect for worship and concert performances, both formal and informal.

There are many more top quality arrangements and compositions by David McKeown for you to browse at http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/publishers/david-mckeown/6203

SKU: A0.1088949

Give your students something modern to work on. Joy, Joy, Everyone Is Flying trumpet duet uses a modern compositional technique. Joy, Joy Everyone Is Flying trumpet duet is actually part of my recent modern composition series. The idea was to see if I could write one of those compositions for trumpet duet with Trumpet Tyro limitations. Being composed from a nontraditional technique, Joy, Joy, Everyone Is Flying does not sound like the typical “do re mi� beginner band music. As an educational piece, it serves as a wonderful opportunity to expose the students to exotic sounds. The piece begins like a traditional imitative piece, but you soon hear a non-traditional modality. That modality is emphasized in the B section with grace notes that give it an eastern hint. Joy, Joy, Everyone Is Flying is a short duet, lasting under a minute. This is because it is written for students who were beginners only months ago. Other Duet Books I have published similar duets to this one in my two other duet books for this level. The first and most popular is Celebrations which has trumpet duets for all skill levels. The second, which has some of the Celebrations duets, is called Twenty Trumpet Tyro Duets. In the trumpet community we use duets as educational tools. They are a wonderful way to expose students to counterpoint, different harmonies and different rhythmic ideas. By including more of the modern duets in the easier duet books, the younger students have an opportunity to experience non-traditional music in what is essentially a chamber music environment. The Experimental Music Series I’ve published a number of these experimental works for trumpet and brass instrumentations. The newer ones were in response to the popularity of the fishing suites. I had gone years without writing any of these compositions and wanted to apply the techniques to trumpet trio. The fishing suites are a suite of suites, each suite being dedicated to a different composition technique. Of those three suites, Catch Suite is the one that uses the same technique as Joy, Joy, Everyone Is Flying. Other compositions utilizing this compositional technique include The Lotus Eater and Voice of the Prophets. SKILL LEVEL The skill level for Joy, Joy, Everyone Is Flying is Trumpet Tyro. Trumpet Tyro is the second of seven levels in our system. This is music for trumpet students with a range up to fourth space E. The music in this level is limited to three flats or sharps. We almost bumped this piece up into the Trumpet Player level because of all the accidentals, but eventually decided to keep it in the Trumpet Tyro level. Technically, the accidentals all fall within acceptable keys for this level, so we kept it at the lower level. That said, because it is non-traditional, it will take a little longer to learn. The melodic sounds will not come as readily as the traditional “do re mi� stuff. Practice Recommendations Listening to the recording is a very important part of learning something with new sounds. You want to be able to hear those sounds. Here’s an interesting bit of trivia for you… When I am using one of these original compositional techniques, I know when I’ve made a mistake because I can hear that it sounds different. I believe this is the sign of a technique that works. If there’s a mistake, the composer should be able to hear that there’s something wrong. Well, performing music that utilizes these sorts of non-traditional techniques goes far better when the performers can also hear the music that way.