Samuel R. Hazo: As Winds Dance

  
"I can still hear my college sight-singing professor, Dr. Louis Mankachy, telling us, in his thick Hungarian accent, "Repetition is the mother of knowledge."  For every bit of truth this statement holds, it is equally true that repetition is the natural enemy of the eleven to thirteen year-old.  Their motto more resembles: I did it great once; therefore, greatness must flow from me.  So, in trying to compose a piece that painlessly introduced my 5th & 6th grade students to syncopation, I knew that repetition had to be present, but disguised so as not to look like something instructive.  Moreover, my students would need to perceive (on their own) that the musical needs of the piece dictated how many times a syncopated pattern would recur.  After much work, I bel