Ghostly Shadows - Lesson
With
James RaeJames Rae walks through 'Ghostly Shadows', a haunting chromatic piece - including the E sharp spelling and how to navigate the DC al coda.
Copyright © 2023 Universal Edition (London) Ltd., All compositions by James Rae except where otherwise indicated.
What's in the course
20 lessons (0h 46m) · 1 free
Lesson transcript
Ghostly Shadows
A haunting piece full of chromatic scale writing.
E Sharp Explained
Now, you'll notice in the third bar of this piece we have an E sharp. If you sharpen an E, it becomes the same as an F natural.
- Some people play C and E sharp and play it as an E flat.
- E sharp is definitely F natural.
- It's written as F natural as E sharp because the next note is F sharp.
We could write it as a natural sign, but then we'd have to write a further sharp sign to restore the F sharp. So for convenience, we write it as E sharp.
I think this is the first time in the course we have seen this, but it does sometimes confuse people. Remember:
- An E sharp is the same as its finger, the same as an F natural.
DC Al Coda
This piece also has a DC al coda, which we've talked about before. This means we go back to the beginning and play through to the two coda sign. Then we take the coda, which is the ending.
Some pieces earlier in the book have DS al seno, which almost means the same as a da capo, but it means you just go back to the sign. The sign is like the dollar sign with a couple of dots on the senu.
But don't confuse that with DC, because DC means go back to the very, very beginning of the piece.
- DS means go back to the sign, which could be anywhere in the piece, and then you often go on to the coda from there as well.
So, DC al coda and DS al coda are commonly used terms in music.
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Meet your guru
Meet your guru
James Rae was born on Tyneside in 1957. He studied clarinet, bass clarinet, piano and composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama from 1975 to 1979, under professors Yona Ettlinger, Stephen Trier, Meriel Jefferson and Patric Standford respectively. Since leaving the Guildhall, he has pursued a highly successful and varied career across three areas: performing, writing and teaching.
James Rae has worked in many West End and Royal National Theatre productions, including Sir Peter Hall's award-winning Oresteia with music by Sir Harrison Birtwistle, and has received many freelance engagements with some of the country's leading orchestras and ensembles. He is the leader of the Phoenix Saxophone Quartet, who over the years have given many recitals and BBC broadcasts, and have recorded the complete works of Carey Blyton on two albums, 'The Return of Bulgy Gogo' and 'Sherlock Holmes meets Dr Who'.
As a composer, James Rae is one of Europe's most published writers of educational wind music, with over 250 publications to his credit, mainly published by Universal Edition. His music includes instrumental study books, sonatas, tutors, baroque, classical and jazz transcriptions, plus many volumes of duets, many of which feature on all the major wind examination syllabuses worldwide. He has also written four musicals for schools with Mike Cornick, and his larger commissions include The Turn of a Wheel, a major work for concert band that premiered in November 1999 for the North Tyneside Concert Band, of which he was a founder member as a boy, and the overture Moving On in 2012.
James Rae has worked extensively as a syllabus consultant and composer for both the Associated Board and Trinity College London, and has been highly involved in developing the woodwind sight-reading requirements for both exam boards. As a teacher, he has held many posts in both the state and independent sectors, and currently works at King's College School Wimbledon, where he directs the Wind Orchestra and Concert Band, and Shrewsbury House School in Surbiton, where he coaches three large bands and a chamber group. That teaching experience runs right through his saxophone series for MusicGurus, which takes you step by step from your very first notes to a confident, stylish player: First Notes, New Keys & Low Notes, Expanding Your Range, Scales & High Notes, Extended Range & Rhythm, and Polish & Style.
