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Banda is a genre that sprang to life in the late nineteenth century when Mexican music collided with the polka of German immigrants. Traditional bandas are centred around the sousaphone and the tambora (a bass drum with a hi-hat on top). Beyond these, you’ll find further wind, brass and percussion instruments depending on the regional style: clarinets, saxophones, alto horns, trumpets, trombones, tarolas (snare drums) and more.

A few months before writing this piece I’d seen a YouTube video of Chicago group Banda Sincera performing before a Mexican national team football match*. The atmosphere was party, the tempo was quick, the time was compound, the licks were virtuosic, and the pulse was always getting disrupted at the ends of sections. The band would pause, the tarolero and sousaphone dude would go off on a soloistic tangent, and then the band was back in for more of the same. They even stuck a conga-based cumbia in the middle! These guys were mental and I loved it.

When I started on a piece for Saxcess I established the reasonably serious beginnings of Huff, but I kept getting pulled down this raucous Mexican garden path. I put the serious to one side, started a new score, took a few days to get this “banda chiflada” (crazy band) out of my system, and resumed composing Huff when I was done. They’re two very different pieces, but ultimately cut from the same cloth.

• Banda Sincera playing Arriba Pichátaro here: http://youtu.be/Cm1dcT710d8

• Ellis: Banda Chiflada; computer set 

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• Ellis: Banda Chiflada; computer set 

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(He’s the lead singer of Rage Against the Machine, btw.)

(This sentence was written to conform with the New Zealand Clarinet Quartet’s request for a programme note of 10 words or fewer.)

• Ellis: If Zack de la Rocha were a twelve-tone serialist composer; computer-set 

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• Ellis: If Zack de la Rocha were a twelve-tone serialist composer; computer-set 

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• Robbie Ellis: If Zack de la Rocha were a twelve-tone serialist composer; audio 

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• Microscore Madness! - the New Zealand Clarinet Quartet 

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Kiwi understatement requires the phrase “it doesn’t”, not “it does”.

(This sentence was written to conform with NZCQ’s request for a programme note of 10 words or fewer.)

• Ellis: It Doesn't Go Up; computer-set 

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• Ellis: It Doesn't Go Up; computer-set 

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• Robbie Ellis: It Doesn't Go Up; audio 

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• Microscore Madness! - the New Zealand Clarinet Quartet 

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• Margetic: Onion Flavoured Counterpoint; computer-set 

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• Margetic: Onion Flavoured Counterpoint; computer-set 

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• Karlo Margetic: Onion Flavoured Counterpoint; video 

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• Microscore Madness! - the New Zealand Clarinet Quartet 

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