I'm an entering student at Berklee College of Music. In about a month I have my placement exam for my ensemble rating and I need to play a prepared piece. I've been working on "Two Mexican Dances", but I don't have a marimba at home so I rarely get the time I need to practice it. I have private lessons once a week and I'm afraid given the small amount of practice time I have, I won't be able to play it in time.
I've only played marimba for about 2 years, however I've played "Stubernic", "Yellow After the Rain" and a few classical pieces. Does anyone have any suggestions on a piece that is slightly easier than "Mexican Dances", yet equally as reputable? I'd really appreciate it.
Go to http://www.pearldrum.com/03_nuupdts/edu/articles/marmbrepitwa2003.pdf . Its a PDF file. This is a list compiled by someone at Pearl entitled "Marimba Repertoire 2003". Though people have difference in opinion of what difficulty level pieces are, this will still lead you in the right direction. According to the chart, Yellow After the Rain is level 1 and Two Mexican Dances is level four. So you have a good range of stuff in between those two pieces to choose from.
Another GREAT list is an article by Robert Van Sice on the Vic Firth site, which includes alot from the other list, but its much shorter and sweeter: http://www.vicfirth.com/education/articles/VanSice.html .
~Behzad
You might check out "Raindance" by Alice Gomez. It is in between "Yellow After the Rain" and "Mexican Dances" in difficulty. I think you could learn a lot of the piece away from the marimba, especially if you have a piano or electronic keyboard to practice shaping some of the phrases and listening to them.
This piece will give you ample opportunity to show your musicianship and phrasing, musical shaping skills and it has a really nice overall musical line that you can shape.
When you are auditioning for ensemble placement, the jury is probably looking for how well you play the piece you have prepared, not so much exactly what that piece is. Usually when I'm on this kind of jury, I expect note accuracy, the performance to follow all the dynamics and musical instructions on the printed page, PLUS an excellent shaping of the small and large phrases that the performer has to bring to the performance. You can do all these things nicely with this piece.
I think your instinct to go to a less demanding piece because of your limited practice time is a good idea.
Good luck with your audition!
-------- Rebecca Kite
