Musescore Bvba Blog MuseScorer of the month: Bob Driggs (Iowa Bob)

Greetings, and welcome again to the MuseScorer of The Month project! We are featuring one of the brilliant MuseScore members every month, making an interview with him or her and posting it here, including his works (own compositions or arrangements) into the blogpost. Last month you met Hans Jacobi, a professional church organist and a composerNow, I am happy to announce the MuseScorer of June - Bob Driggs (Iowa Bob), tubist and arranger from Iowa (US):Bob makes really good-sounding arrangements of well-known jazz and rock compositions for brass quintet. Here is what he says about that:"I like a variety of music, from classical to Rock to Latin to jazz. Audiences seem to like familiar music presented in a new form. My goal is to create arrangements that are fun to play and fun to listen to."Alexander T. (A.T., MuseScore staff member): Nice to meet you, Bob. First of all, could you tell us a few words about yourself, your musical background, etc.?Iowa Bob (I.B.): I was raised in a musical family and am a third-generation tubist. If fact, I play my grandfather's 1918-vintage Eb tuba in a polka band. I have a graduate degree in chemistry and was a professor and administrator at the collegiate level until I retired. I play Bb Tuba in a British-style brass band as well as in other small ensembles. My wife and I live in the country with two dogs and four cats . We have two married sons and one beautiful granddaughter.A.T.: So, when and why did you start to arrange music?I.B.: I started arranging years ago when my sons were still in high school. They introduced me to a lot of their music as they practiced riffs on their electric guitars and basses. Just for fun, I arranged a few of their songs (Rush, Metallica and other metal bands) for a Tuba-Euphonium quartet that I occasionally played in. While my sons were slightly horrified that tubas would be playing their music, they gave me some good feedback and encouraged me to continue. Since then I have been arranging primarily for brass quintet.A.T.: Oh, I get that. And now, let's talk about your arrangements: can you just pick some significant ones and tell us about them?I.B.: Okay, let's start with "Twinkle,Twinkle Little Star". Richard deRosa is a Grammy Award-winning composer and arranger and has produced many notable works over the years. One of my favorites of his work is a big band arrangement of a very familiar, simple tune. It was a fun learning experience to analyze his work for a score reduction.Then, the famous "Ode to Joy". I spent hours and hours and hours analyzing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and extracting and reassigning parts for these variations. If you like this one, it's because of Beethoven's brilliance shining through a pretty severe score reduction.The next song is "Stairway to Heaven", originally by Led Zeppelin. After listening to Musescore member Joel Gonzalez's score, I had to give this one a try. Fortunately, Joel had done the hard work, and my job was to simply shuffle things around a bit. I like this one because (like a Tuba-Euphonium quartet of Metallica) this tune should NOT work for quintet, but somehow does.The fourth piece is Santana's "Smooth". Santana was on of favorite bands as I was forming my musical preferences, and this particular song makes the transition to quintet format pretty well.And finally, "Let it Be", originally by The Beatles. I applied the New Orleans Brass Band style (e.g. Lucky Chops) to a well-known Beatles tune, and I took the many liberties with that arrangement. A repetitive bass riff is laid down and the melody is stated by a single player. Layers of harmony are added so that it feels like a collaborative effort rather than a soloist accompanied by four others. This was a fun one to do, as I had no constraints on what it should sound like in the end."Let it Be" by Iowa BobA.T.: Sounds great! And who performs all those musical things made by you?I.B.: I have been contacted by Musescore members who play in quintets asking for permission to perform. I always say "Of course!" I play in a N.O. - style (New Orleans style) brass band and a British-style brass band, and both have occasionally used one of my arrangements. A more likely scenario is that we get a request for a small ensemble (for a wedding, a social event, or a holiday) and we pull together a quintet for those occasions. Many of my scores have been performed in this way.I was contacted by a publisher to commercialize a few of my scores, but I'd much prefer to make them available for free to anybody who wants to have fun making music.A.T.: What is your main motivation? I mean, what "makes" you to do your brass quintet arrangements?I.B.: There are three reasons. First, I like many types of music, and it is a challenge for me to migrate some of those compositions to a quintet format. As I tell my wife, "My brain lights up when I am arranging." Many scores are successful, but my hard drive is littered with failed attempts. Second, getting together with friends to create live music is great fun. Having interesting music to play makes the experience for the musicians and the audience more enjoyable. The popular quintets of the world understand this, and work to make their music accessible. Third, I have developed some good friends on Musescore from around the world, and we like to encourage each other.A.T.: Awesome! Let me ask you our "traditional" question: how did you discover MuseScore?I.B.: Our quintet was asked to play in a wedding, and there were specific songs that were requested. It was a pretty short timeline, so I went online to look for MIDI files or existing scores.I was pleasantly surprised when I came across the Musescore website. The software was free and the downloaded scores were free.I had been using a competing product for about ten years, but I was intrigued and a bit intimidated by the possibility of posting one of my scores. Fortunately, I could migrate files using the XML format. As I groomed those files for Musescore, I found the software to be a very good environment for the work that I had been doing. So, my primary platform is now Musescore.After the interview, as usually, I'd like to share a composition made by the MuseScorer Of The Month I particularly liked (this time it is a brass quintet arrangement by Iowa Bob) - Moanin', originally performed by Charles Mingus big band:"Moanin'" by Iowa BobThanks for reading and watch for our next MuseScorer of the month in August!Yours, Alexander T.