Composers Alex Shapiro and Michael Markowski love to compose for and engage with student musicians.

That doesn't just mean taking into account the parameters of a particular skill level (and then nudging the young players just a little farther than they thought they were capable of!). It means that they think about what kind of piece will be compelling to students, and will inspire them to keep playing— and maybe even try their own hand at composing!

Best of all, sometimes a compelling piece of music can be designed as an object lesson, useful for teaching a particular musical skill, or for connecting students' experiences in the band room with the rest of their growth as human beings.

Click on any of the brief excerpts and examples below to see some of the ways immersactive pieces benefit students!

LIGHTS OUT was designed interactively from the very beginning, when I Zoomed into the band rooms of nearly all of the 19 schools that commissioned the piece, and asked the students for their ideas about what would make a performance exciting to play and to watch. I incorporated some of their input about visuals and movement into the piece, and every one their ideas can be found in the front matter of the published score, thus giving the students a sense of agency and pride.

The score includes an additional staff line for visuals, and another one to note physical movement. These include some suggestions from me, but every band director is invited to write in the score and create their own version, thus making every performance of the piece different.

A third of the band is seated in the audience when the music begins— in the dark. After some shenanigans with the audience, like briefly kicking the seat backs to rumble and shake along with the bass drum and audio track, they make their way to the stage while playing an ostinato with the audio track and the musicians on stage. Throughout, dance moves and lighting effects make it an immersactive experience— and with an investment of $15 bucks of LEDs, it can be done on the slimmest of budgets.

THE CAVE YOU FEAR introduces certain sonic theatrics into its sound world. Students are not only asked to play minor chords and half-step dissonances, but they are invited to screech multiphonics, scrape wailing superball mallets on timpani heads, and flutter-tongue "like some kind of monster." All of these "musical sound effects" help to build an eerie, spooky, and alien atmosphere. Be sure to amplify the Lion's Roar drum over your auditorium speakers for maximum monstrous effect! It'll be sure to have your audience wondering: what was THAT???

The theatrics for THE CAVE YOU FEAR are only prescribed in the score as the aforementioned musical sound effects. However, some bands have collaborated with their theater tech departments to enhance this world visually as well. With some simple lighting design, a few stalactite-like rope lights, and endless imagination, several groups have transformed their everyday auditoriums into the deepest caverns of the Earth.

ROCK MUSIC is a piece about geology, with a potentially larger message about how climate change is affecting our planet. The band members are instructed to go outside and find two rocks that they will play during the piece— thus immediately giving them an affinity for the ground on which they walk as they look carefully at it for their materials, rather than staring at their phone screen!

When the piece was commissioned, I asked the 108 band students of 7th and 8th graders to record their rock sounds for me. Their teacher Chris Gleason then sent me the mp3s, and I used a great many of them in the audio track that goes with the piece, thus giving those students a very special, permanent collaborative experience. Chris expanded the interaction and brought a college geology professor into the band rehearsal one day, and the students learned all about the rocks in their part of Wisconsin!

The piece also invites students to gather photos and video of images that tell the story they wish to tell, and when paired with the minimalist music, becomes an emotional, cinematic journey.

Here's an example of the end of TIGHT SQUEEZE, the score for which indicates places for the trumpet section, and soon after, the entire ensemble, to stand up and start dancing! The band placed cheap LED lights on the hall seats, so that the audience could become part of the party!

When students enter a band rehearsal room, and audience members trickle into a concert hall, they are not necessarily thinking about anything in particular. But after playing and seeing a piece of music that's attached to a message, they leave with a heightened awareness that they'll share with other people they talk to.

The wind band students performing MOMENT in Montana were invited to contribute images and videos of striking moments, whether positive or negative, that related to their lives. This excerpt, for which they perfectly time their video choice to an emotional spot in the music, shows a beautiful wilderness not far from the University of Montana campus going up in flames. It was a heartbreaking, and very personal moment for everyone on stage and in the audience. It's an example of how music paired with multimedia can raise the awareness of and engage not only the ensemble members, but the many people in the audience: a wonderful form of activism.

PAPER CUT has the band members playing regular printer paper as a percussion instrument, right along with their own instruments. The paper-playing is carefully choreographed throughout the piece, and ensembles often use colored paper, or black light, to intensify the visual effect. Visuals are really fun for the students, who especially love the big reaction they get from their families and friends after the performance!

Composers Alex Shapiro and Michael Markowski love to engage with student musicians and encourage their creativity in myriad ways. Whether inviting their opinions about an existing piece or seeking their ideas about multimedia performance options, immersing students in the process and valuing their input is a beautiful, immersactive approach to rehearsals!

Watch two positive, immersactive conductor/composer exchanges during Michael Markowski's visit to Gregory Whitmore's band rehearsal. In both videos, the students are engaged and their opinions about the music they're playing are front and center.

In the first video they're discussing Michael's piece CITY TREES, and in the second, BROOKLYN AIR.

THE TONIC OF WILDNESS is inspired by the Hudson River School of painters. Opportunities abound for concert slide-shows or collaborations with art departments... or for simple assignments like asking students to find their own favorite painting by a HRS painter.

Expression and creativity in music should not be separate from any other form of creative expression. Getting students to sing and clap with the music, and even to move with it, are techniques that are sometimes used in the band room. Let's add drawing to these exercises! Many students are visual, and more are synthesthic than we realize. Put colored pencils and some cheap paper on their music stands, and experiment!

Click the icon at right to see how Alex began with a sketch and turned it into the first three pages of a piece.

DRAWING MARS is about Percival Lowell, a famous astronomer who back in the late 1800s/early 1900s would look through his telescope at the planet Mars and draw what he saw in his notebook. What he ended up drawing inspired early science-fiction and even led to the country believing there was indeed "life on Mars." So why not ask our students to do the same? Pick a moment from the piece, and draw that scene to life. Alternatively, this is a great opportunity to cross-collaborate with other departments on campus. Some bands have worked alongside art students and projected their work during concerts of this piece.

Have a look at a great way composers can offer band students an easy to adjust practice track, with bonus options!

THANK YOU!

We hope that you find these resources useful,
and that they encourage you to continue broadening
your creative approaches with your students!