Concert Band Grade: 1

“Night” is the result of a collaborative project between the composer and the 6th grade beginning band directed by his wife in Morton, Illinois. The students in her band class each write an eight-measure melody as a composition project which is part of the beginning band curriculum. These melodies each start and end on concert B-flat and use only the notes the students have learned on their instruments. The class voted on the best melody, and the winner was “Majestic Night, Oh Winter Night” by Sarah Gunter. The students then observed how this melody was developed by the composer into a concert band piece that they would perform later that year. Compositional terms such as repetition, fragmentation, and augmentation could then be taught to the 6th graders in a new piece for young band that was written just for them.