Lit Study - Blue Shades by FrankTicheli

Literature Study

Blue Shades (1996)
Frank Ticheli (b. 1958)

Teaching Music through Performance in Band, Vol. 2, p. 547. Here listed as a grade 6. NBA 5, WRP VI (out of VII), publisher, 5. 11 minutes. ABA form, 430 meaures.

Frank Ticheli is Professor of Composition at the University of Southern California. He earned degrees in composition from Southern Methodist University and the University of Michigan. Among his composition teachers are: William Albright, George Wilson, Leslie Bassett and William Bolcom.

Ticheli writes band music in many grades of difficulty, and I first learned of him through “Fortress” for grade 3 bands, and then the widely-played “Cajun Folk Songs.” “Blue Shades” was commissioned by a consortium of universities and high schools, and contains several jazz/blues styles throughout. The slower middle section features the clarinet in a bluesy/torch song style, occasionally sultry and then “dirty.” Some of the closing section reminds me of the hard driving super heroes movie themes like "The Incredibles."

“Blue Shades” has featured solos for clarinet, bass clarinet, and oboe. Only the clarinet, during the slow center section, has notes in an extreme range. Among the jazz techniques utilized in the piece are pitch bending, flutter tonguing, and straight vs. swing eighth notes. Ticheli uses compositional techniques of hemiola (duple feeling in triple meter), cross rhythms, and syncopation.

Harmonically, Ticheli uses no actual blues progressions, but freely incorporates blues notes of flatted 3rds, 5ths, and 7ths, and pentatonic scales. The work is pitched in G with both major and minor modes.

This is an exciting work and musically satisfying to rehearse and perform. The piece is complicated enough to require significant rehearsal, and so, doesn’t appear to be accessible for OSW at this time. So, “Blue Shades” goes on the shelf for a while.