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Breaking Winds Bassoon Quartet: A model for contemporary musicianship and additional directions for school ensembles

During my presentation at the NAfME Composition Academy this past Music Education Week I mentioned the Breaking Winds Bassoon Quartet, but forgot to include a link to their Kickstarter Project Page in my handout.

There was quite a bit of discussion related to arrangement throughout several of the composition academy presentations. Dr. Rob Deemer and Dr. David Stringham in particular provided some excellent strategies for including arrangement processes in music programs and our own music making as educators. The BWBQ highlights possibilities for moving arranging and performing popular music outside of a classroom context and in the context of recorded music.

In addition to their creative arrangements of popular music in the context of a Bassoon Quartet I paticularly appreciate how the BWBQ acknowledge copyright law and address it explicitly in their Kickstarter Project page. They write:

For all the popular tunes, we will be recording someone else’s copyrighted music.  Copyright is a really wonderful thing for musicians because it means that others cannot legally reproduce or sell their work without providing some type of compensation.  When we ask for donations, a large chunk of them will go toward other artists’ copyright fees and permission to record.  If we go beyond our goal, we can record more popular songs and make a more comprehensive album.

Through the Kickstarter campaign the BWBQ determined a way to fund their arrangement and performing project, a model for others who wish to arrange, perform, and record existing popular music outside of a fair use situation. The fact that their project was already funded by June 19 with that they still have 27 days left for funding demonstrates Kickstarter as a viable platform to support such efforts. The quartet itself also provides a model of 21st century musicianship. The quartert members not only perform well but create and share witty, funny, and enjoyable videos; arrange music for their own ensemble; in some cases create original music for their ensemble, provide educational programming for schools; and leverage technology and social media such as a website, blog, Facebook page; Twitter account; and YouTube Channel.

In their combination of performing, arranging, composing, and technological savvy the musicians in the BWBQ demonstrate hyphenated musicianship. Music educators might consider helping their students develop similar skills, knowledge, and dispositions of how they might engage as musicians in contemporary society.

Music educators also ought to  consider showing some of the videos to their students – just be prepared for a large influx of students wishing to play the bassoon or to work on similar projects!

Congrats to the BWBQ!

View some of their prior videos below:

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