Arrangement: The Liberty Bell (Monty Python's Flying Circ...
And now for something completely different!
Since I like doing all-percussion arrangements of certain things, I decided to try Sousa's great march "The Liberty Bell." "The Liberty Bell", at the time a new composition as yet untitled, was written for Sousa's unfinished operetta "The Devil's Deputy" before financing for the show fell through. Shortly afterwards, while attending the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Sousa and his band manager George Hinton watched the spectacle "America", in which a backdrop depicting the Liberty Bell was lowered. Hinton suggested "The Liberty Bell" for the title of Sousa's unnamed march. Coincidentally, Sousa received a letter from his wife saying their son had marched in a parade in honor of the Liberty Bell. Sousa agreed, and he sold "The Liberty Bell" sheet music to the John Church Company for publication; the new march was an immediate success,
That's the good news. The bad news is this: the march is now often associated with the British TV comedy program Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969–74), which used the version performed by the Band of the Grenadier Guards as a signature tune. I promise you Sousa would throw a tantrum over that, and state that this was not why he created the march. Still, they did it on purpose; it was to create a sense of irony. I've never watched the show myself and never want to, but anybody who has seen it would understand the irony. For a time, my local PBS station aired reruns of the program in a late-night slot on Saturday nights, but I had already gone to bed.
I, however, want everybody to just think of why Sousa wrote the march in the first place: the Liberty Bell itself.
This arrangement is for:
3 glockenspiels
3 sets of crotales
3 xylophones
Tubular bells (representing the Liberty Bell, of course)
4 vibraphones
6 marimbas (2 grand staff, 2 treble clef, 2 bass clef)
Concert bass drum
Battery percussion
This arrangement © me and me alone
Original music is public domain
Monty Python's Flying Circus © BBC, the Monty Python troupe, and everybody else who owns the rights
The Liberty Bell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpKLqQRRJBM
Since I like doing all-percussion arrangements of certain things, I decided to try Sousa's great march "The Liberty Bell." "The Liberty Bell", at the time a new composition as yet untitled, was written for Sousa's unfinished operetta "The Devil's Deputy" before financing for the show fell through. Shortly afterwards, while attending the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Sousa and his band manager George Hinton watched the spectacle "America", in which a backdrop depicting the Liberty Bell was lowered. Hinton suggested "The Liberty Bell" for the title of Sousa's unnamed march. Coincidentally, Sousa received a letter from his wife saying their son had marched in a parade in honor of the Liberty Bell. Sousa agreed, and he sold "The Liberty Bell" sheet music to the John Church Company for publication; the new march was an immediate success,
That's the good news. The bad news is this: the march is now often associated with the British TV comedy program Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969–74), which used the version performed by the Band of the Grenadier Guards as a signature tune. I promise you Sousa would throw a tantrum over that, and state that this was not why he created the march. Still, they did it on purpose; it was to create a sense of irony. I've never watched the show myself and never want to, but anybody who has seen it would understand the irony. For a time, my local PBS station aired reruns of the program in a late-night slot on Saturday nights, but I had already gone to bed.
I, however, want everybody to just think of why Sousa wrote the march in the first place: the Liberty Bell itself.
This arrangement is for:
3 glockenspiels
3 sets of crotales
3 xylophones
Tubular bells (representing the Liberty Bell, of course)
4 vibraphones
6 marimbas (2 grand staff, 2 treble clef, 2 bass clef)
Concert bass drum
Battery percussion
This arrangement © me and me alone
Original music is public domain
Monty Python's Flying Circus © BBC, the Monty Python troupe, and everybody else who owns the rights
The Liberty Bell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpKLqQRRJBM
Category Music / Classical
Species Unspecified / Any
Gender Any
Size 120 x 63px
Listed in Folders
I was going for a music box type of sound, but the word "nickelodeon" would also work. (I had to do a Google search to figure out what the word meant because everybody hears "Nickelodeon" and thinks of the television channel.)
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