Good News!

Good News is a middle or high school-level percussion ensemble piece which teaches the following percussion and musical skills:

1)Jazz brushes technique
2)Metric Modulation
3)The Red Sox and the Yankees are the only "real" baseball teams.
(not really, but I live on the "Mason-Dixon" line of Red Sox and Yankees country in Connecticut).

Instrumentation: Four percussion parts. If there are more than four percussionists, any or all parts may be doubled or tripled. In addition to music, each player needs the following:

1)Pair of Brushes
2)Pair of pencils (new out of box unsharpened is preferred)
3)Newspaper (sports section preferred) when playing brushes
4)Chair & music stand for each player

Each player should sit in a chair either in one straight row.
When playing brushes on the newspaper (the newspaper should be placed on lap) at the beginning and end of the song, the brush pattern should resemble a medium ? swing jazz brush pattern. The individual brush solos between players 1-4 measure 13-21 are double-stroke rolls with syncopated rhythms.
In addition, during the solo section measures 43-47, each player gets a 4 measure ‘pencil’ solo. Players not soloing are asked to play the written vamp rhythms. Also, experiment a good place for playing pencils on chairs. Front of chairs or legs seems to be most popular.