Aaron Copland and the Sound of Wide Open Spaces

What You'll Learn

• Discover how Aaron Copland invented the 'American sound' — music that captures wide open spaces, frontier spirit, and the feeling of possibility that defines America
• Learn what a fanfare is — a bold musical announcement made with brass instruments, like trumpets shouting something important to the whole world
• Understand how composers use wide intervals (big jumps between notes) to paint pictures of vast landscapes — notes squeezed together sound crowded, notes spread far apart sound like endless sky
• Explore how Copland wove American folk songs and hymns into orchestral music, including the Shaker melody 'Simple Gifts' in Appalachian Spring
• Learn that the most powerful music often celebrates ordinary people — the 'common man' isn't a king or a hero, but someone like you, doing their best every day