Guys, I came up with a great idea for this project! I’m going to add a section of orchestral excerpts with interpretations and images with and without interpretations. There’s a section below about this, so read that but I am very excited about it.
What am I doing?
I am creating a compilation of 10 original etudes for a beginning to intermediate snare drummer. The goal of this book is to assist band directors and private instructors teach their intro level students. The reason I want to pursue this is that when I was in the early 
stages of my career I relied solely on YouTube videos, Drum Forums, and a lot of method books. When I got my first full-time teaching job at a high school in south Tucson, I noticed 2 things that were not working right and affected their education. Their band director, who is truly a great musician and teacher, probably one of the best in the world, did not know how to play percussion. When I first came up with this idea it was with that program in mind. The one thing I wanted to do was help programs like that who have incredible directors, and all they need is the right tool.
Update
So my goal for this week was to get all of my written interpretations and things of that nature caught up, and I did! It took a lot of work, determination, and loss of sleep. It was a lot of fun though because I was able to look back and appreciate the amount of work I have already put into this. Surely it’s going to take a lot more work to finish this but I am definitely on the home stretch of getting raw material done.
My Idea
I was talking to a friend this week about photography, visual art, and the legality of using them as apart of merchandise and such. This friend of mine told me about the public domain for visual arts and told me it is legal to use the public domain stuff as a business model. So I did a lot of research into making money off the public domain sheet music to see what it was about. I found that I can use sheet music from the public domain as a part of my current project without obtaining permission.
So, I began to research what the most common snare drum repertoire was for orchestra auditions, then I trimmed away the really difficult excerpts, and came up with three. The three excerpts are going to be:
- Lieutenant Kijé (Mvt. 1)
- Sergei Prokofiev
- Concerto for Orchestra (Giuoco Delle Coppie)
- Béla Bartók
- Rapsodie Espagnole (Feria)
- Maurice Ravel
I feel like these three are very important and common when it comes to orchestral auditions, and college auditions. So what I began to do was create 2 pieces of music per excerpt. Heres what each excerpt gets:
- How the excerpt would be written at an audition
- Interpretive notes that are also discussed in the written notes
They would look a little like this.
I am very excited about this addition because I think it will make this compilation demanded more by students and educators.
Other News?
Well, not really anything big, but I have my high schools scores from this past weekend!
Sahuarita won their competition with an 81.something which is cool because now we go
into state finals in the first seed.
Sabino Got a 71.00 and took home silver this weekend which is awesome as well because we hold the 4th seed going into state finals.
So a great weekend all around! they both compete this weekend and I am really looking forward to it!
How can you help?
I am still accepting applicants to join me in this project. The steps are extremely easy. Just go to my projects page and scroll to the bottom. Follow the steps and you are all set! Have any questions? Fill out my contact form and I will get back to you as soon as possible.
Tyler J. Haley 