SCORE STUDY EPISODE #37: VARIATIONS ON A KOREAN FOLK SONG (John Barnes Chance)

I DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO THIS COMPOSITION OR THIS RECORDING, THEY ARE THE PROPERTIES OF THE COMPOSER, PUBLISHER AND PERFORMER. THIS VIDEO IS SOLELY FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES AND HAS BEEN MONETIZED FOR THE COPYRIGHT OWNERS.
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Variations on a Korean Folk Song (Arirang)
composed by John Barnes Chance (1965)
reduction and analysis by Anthony O'Toole
performed by the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra

[@Purple1222119Music]

Always love when an analysis comes out of pieces I've happened to play in band! This one was always especially memorable for me.

[@AnthonyOTooleMusic]

what do you play?

[@Purple1222119Music]

I played clarinet in a bunch of ensembles!

[@Morkedz]

This was definitely a jump from the grade 3 repretoir in middle school

[@mscuthbert]

Nicely put! I never noticed until your analysis that when the theme comes back in inversion, the prior major-triad harmonizations become minor, which fits with 12-tone-theory's form of inversion where major triads invert to minor (and vice-versa). Wonderful. Thanks for making this. Wish I had this video when I was in high school (long ago).

[@mattweiman5144]

Played this one my junior year of high school in 2019! It was one of my last concerts, unknowingly, for obvious reasons given the year.

[@blackfireacid315]

Oh my God you did it I barely seeing this I don't even know how I been wanting this so long since I did this song in 11th grade 2020, my god thank you so much. I may cry lol

[@davidwright7868]

God I though I'd be able to live my life without seeing BbbM7#11 until today

[@alesssos]

That Bb7/Fb in 234 is SO GOOD

[@AnthonyOTooleMusic]

there are some really juicy chords in this that really get me going

[@athlonen]

Wow.. I'm dating myself here, but I played this piece twice in high school.. 10th grade in 1990, and 12th grade, in 1992; both times for high school competition on bassoon. This was ALWAYS my favorite piece to play, and still is to this day. Forget marching band or pep band or anything; if I am asked about playing in a concert band, it is this piece that comes to mind. I always loved having the melody in the second movement, how raucous the 4th movement is, and how we (low woodwinds/brass) got a variation of the melody in the final movement. But I have to say that in the now 30 years that I've known and played this piece, I *NEVER* realized that the 3rd movement (Oboe solo) was an inversion of the melody. I always played underneath it, knew the oboe had the melody, but didn't know it was an inversion of that melody. Mind blown here! Great analysis!

[@JoeDFWAviation]

I was today years old when I learned the horns don’t play at 17, just saxes 😂 4:08

[@myles_idk]

love me some JBC

[@AnthonyOTooleMusic]

and he loves you

[@James-wf8nu]

Do they have much of a wind band scene (or classical in general I guess) in South Korea? I know there's a lot of Japanese bands but unsure about the former I'm always surprised at how complex/well-written some of the music for band is, this one in particular has lots of textures which don't really duplicate and aren't dwelled on for too long. I appreciate how dense some of the harmonies are in the chorales. Also the measured application of polyrhythms and rhythmic variation are nice My favourite bit is how he places the crash cymbals on the last bear of bar 73 and lets them ring over the pause. The chord at 191 too. Also it might be a little sacreligious but it might be interesting to hear this piece played with Korean percussion instruments as opposed to western. The crash dome is obviously evocative of the Korean finger hand cymbals but I would be interested to hear some of the local gongs/drums used

[@Composer_Piggy]

I just got done with a performance in Carnegie Hall with the Honors Performance Series High School Mixed Choir. One of the songs that we sang was Hyo-Won Woo’s arrangement of Arirang. Our collaborative pianist (Jayoung Hong, Director of Piano Studies at NNU) was from South Korea and shared with us the importance of Arirang and classical music as a whole in Korean culture. Classical music is so important there that community bands and choirs and orchestras are actually considered government jobs and the rehearsals and musicians are federally funded. To see this video pop up less than a week after this performance was shockingly timed, as this has always been one of my favorite band pieces and I just got to learn some of the history behind it. I hope this comment helped! Edit: I’m also interested in hearing this piece with traditional Korean percussion. Woo’s arrangement of Arirang included use of the buk and ggoenggwari which I thought provided a nice, unique sound to my western ears

[@gisellep177]

WOW

[@dawlphun3500]

I thought the video clip that accompanied your description of Mr. Chance’s tragic death was tasteless and beneath your usually informed analyses of compositions. I hope you know what needs to be done to rectify this lapse of judgment.

[@dayongraves8538]

crazy im playing this this semester 🤣k

[@AnthonyOTooleMusic]

whats your instrument?

[@dayongraves8538]

@@AnthonyOTooleMusic Euphonium!!

[@tehehetochan1500]

あーりらん、あーりらん！

[@williamsanborn9195]

“It is a very enjoyable piece for both performer and listener.” Um yes hi. I played 2nd clarinet on this piece my junior year for the LGPE concert and bass clarinet during a class one day my senior year. I can attest it’s a great piece to listen to. Don’t get me wrong. But for the performers?! I can tell you at least one person from EACH section, myself included, complained about how difficult it was. The stupid thing is that it’s not even classified as Grade VI. It’s a Grade V.

[@AnthonyOTooleMusic]

I mean, you do have to know the Concert Db and Gb scales to play this piece

[@steverman2312]

@@AnthonyOTooleMusic you might as well know all twelve, seeing the weird-ass harmony in this *COUGH* "BbbM7#11" *COUGH*

[@burgertube]

Although this is a very good analysis (and I love the piece itself), there are much better recordings of the piece available. At a minimum, the ending is much too fast (I clock it at about 168, instead of the 144 shown).

[@AnthonyOTooleMusic]

You have a point, there’s some stuff that’s wrong in this too but errors can be found in all recordings. The tempo at the end is a taste thing and I am fine with 144 bpm (that’s fast enough) but there was something about this one that always comes to mind when I’ve always heard this piece.

[@buzzerguy]

Really, really disappointed at visuals making a joke out of a composer’s death.