Nutcracker Swing: Arranging The overture provides an excellent opportunity to discuss orchestration and arranging. An arranger decides which instruments play when, what harmonies will be used, and in jazz – where improvisation and solos occur. In the same way that a painter uses paints, colors, and perspectives to express an idea, an arranger uses musical tools – harmonies, grooves, and textures to enliven a composition. Activity To further familiarize your students with the concept of arranging, take a closer look at the themes of each overture. Listening first to Tchaikovsky’s orchestration and then to Ellington and Strayhorn’s adaptation, ask your students identify the main theme of the overture. Have your students sing the theme and clap out its rhythm. How does each arranger’s choice of instrumentation, dynamics, rhythm, and harmony affect the mood of the piece? Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn not only rearranged Tchaikovsky’s music, they reorganize the titles as well. He wrote new titles for each movement and put them in a new order. Can your students guess why? How do the new titles reflect a jazz perspective? After listening to the entire recording, have your students try to match a selection of Ellington and Strayhorn’s titles with some of the titles from Tchaikovsky’s suite. Tchaikovsky/Ellington Miniature Overture/Overture March/Toot Toot Tootie Toot Coffee (Arabian Dance)/Peanut Brittle Brigade Tea (Chinese Dance)/Sugar Rum Cherry Trepak (Russian Dance)/The Volga Vouty Dance of the Reed Pipes/ Chinoiserie Waltz of the Flowers/Dance of the Floreadores Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy/Arabesque Cookie Click here for an arranging activity	Philharmonic On-The-Air Live from Lincoln Center Telecast Nutcracker Swing: Arranging