I have been looking for some time for a song that I played in high
school band.  My problem is that I am not certain how to spell it.

The song's name is Toccatarentella, or something like that.  The only
other information that I have is what the song sounds like, but it is
hard to express that via the web.

So I really have two questions: 1) Where can I find information about
this song, and 2) how should one go about searching for something that
is both difficult to spell and obscure (so google wouldn't offer
suggestions for other spellings)?

Hi there!

How frustrating to be stuck with words in your head you can’t quite
spell!  I know that feeling!

The words you are looking for are Toccata and Tarantella. Tarantella
defines a style of music and Toccata describes a type of performance.
Unfortunately this means they are not necessarily definitive as the
title of a song.

“The tarantella is a folk-dance from the Southern Italian town of
Taranto. A 6/8 metre dance of some rapidity, it has been connected, by
a process of false etymology, with the tarantula spider and either the
effects of its bite or a means of its cure. There are well known
examples in piano pieces by Chopin and by Liszt.”
http://www.hnh.com/mgloss.htm

“We know from the very popular iconography related to the tarantella,
that it was basically executed by a violin and a colascione, playing
the bass.”
http://www.cdroots.com/rd-paliotti.html

There are three Tarantellas you can listen to on this site:
http://www.sicilianculture.com/folklore/tarantella.htm

“A toccata is an instrumental piece, often designed to display the
technical proficiency of a performer and found particularly in
keyboard music from the 15th century onwards. There are notable
examples in the organ music of Johann Sebastian Bach, with some
toccatas containing a series of movements.”
http://www.hnh.com/mgloss.htm

I have searched for these two terms (in both orders) but have found no
references that show them together as the title of one musical piece.

So, given these definitions, I would suggest that the song you played
was a Tarantella and the added term Toccata indicated that the piece
was played to showcase a particularly proficient performer in your
band.

What you might want to do at this point is start searching for
Tarantella pieces and listening to them until you recognize one. You
may even be able to narrow it down by composer as you become more
familiar with them. One good place to begin would be on a Peer-to-Peer
network such as Kazaa. My quick search there brought up over 100 songs
with Tarantella in the title.
http://www.kazaa.com/en/index.php

Now that you know what you’re asking for, you could also contact a
high school band director and find out if there are any particular
Tarantellas that are more suited for high school orchestras. It may
turn out that there are a handful of “old faithfuls” that schools use.

Also, there are many sites online that proved sheet music. Maybe you
can search those and pick out the tunes on your piano (or whatever
instrument)until you find one that sounds right.

Or.. . write out the notes as you recall them and run them by a band
director. Maybe someone will recognize them.

Finally, I did send email your question to my sister who is plays
classical piano. IF she gets back to me with anything, I’ll post a
clarification here, but please don’t hold your breath. No promises,
ok?

I hope this has helped you narrow down your search. Best of luck, and
thanks for using Google Answers.

-K~

Search terms:  
“Music Dictionary”
“Toccata Tarantella” 
“Tarantella Toccata”

---

Clarification of Answer by knowledge_seeker-ga on 17 Jun 2002 08:19 PDT

Wow! 5 Stars to erhirvo-ga for a fine bit of ace-detective work! Looks
like he/she has nailed your answer on the head.

As you can see, creativity is the key to search-success.  The other
thing I forgot to mention is that you don't have to accept the
alternate spellings that Google offers. Obviously if NO results come
up in your search, you need to change tacks, but if your "misspelled"
word yields results, take a look at them.

An example from a recent search I did: I searched for
"neurocardiology." Google's spell-checker asked if I meant
"neuroradiology." No. I really meant neurocardiology and got all the
results I needed.

I'm glad we were able to find your song and I hope our suggestions for
search techniques have been helpful to you.

Oh, and by the way, I did do a search for the real song title on Kazaa
but no listings came up. (I figured I'd save you the steps!)

Enjoy your day -- K~

You guys are great!  It was indeed Washburn's version that I was
looking for.  (His name, along with the description of the song)
sounds very familiar.  The song is listed as 1996, which makes sense
since that was approximately when our band played it and I remember it
being new at the time.

Alas, I had also searched Kazaa hoping to hear it again, with no luck.
 I just checked CDDB and it isn't listed there either.  I suppose I
could contact either a high school band music distribution company or
a band director if I really wanted to listen to it.

Hi, a_googler. Obviously I can't be positive, but I believe
you're looking for "Toccata and Ritornello" from the opera Orfeo,
by Monteverdi.

My path to this was somewhat torturous. Spell checkers provided no 
help here :( but when I realized that the first part of your single 
word was "Toccata" (a classical music term that's defined here: 
http://www.pacificsites.com/~chrisk/edutech/frames/toccata.htm),
a search for all songs with the word "Toccata" at CDNow 
(http://www.cdnow.com/) led me to this piece. Once I found it was in
the opera "Orfeo", I did a google search for "Orfeo toccata" and found
this: http://www.chesternovello.com/work/7413/main.html .

As for spell checkers: they're either general or somewhat 
specialized, and I didn't find a spell checker for musical 
pieces. As much as I love the Web, I have to say that a phone 
call to a classical record store might have been the quickest 
way to find this particular answer!

Please do let me know if this answers your question.

Porkribs
(not a paid researcher, as of yet)

Might any of these be them -- it's from a list of popular band tunes
(you can scan other possibilities at the lists at the site below):

http://www.westcoastmusicservice.com/ALPHA-T.htm

Tanantella
 arr. Reed
 WW-
 1219
 
Toccata
 Fescobaldi/Slocum
 TKWO-
 804
 
Toccata & Fugue in d minor
 Bach
 EWE-
 429
 
Toccata & Fugue in d minor
 Bach/Dupont
 HASKE-
 1100
 
Toccata & Fugue in d minor
 Bach/Fujita
 TKWO-
 104
 
Toccata & Fugue in d minor
 Bach/Hindsley
 UISB-
 938
 
Toccata & Fugue in d minor
 Bach/Hindsley
 UISB-
 1121
 
Toccata and Fugue in d minor
 Bach/Fujita
 TKWO-
 1610
 
Toccata and Fugue, BVW 565
 Bach/Fujita
 BM-TKWO-
 1316
 
Toccata Fanfares
 Iannaccone
 VAWB-
 1195
 
Toccata Festiva
 van der Roost
 HASKE-
 1081
 
Toccata Festiva
 van der Roost
 HASKE-
 1096
 
Toccata for Band
 Erickson
 ERIC-
 866
 
Toccata for Band
 Erickson
 NTWS-
 1182
 
Toccata for Band
 Erickson
 NIU-
 1442
 
Toccata from "Sinfonia Festiva"
 Running
 STO-
 986
 
Toccata Marziale
 Vaughan Williams
 WWMD-
 1676
 
Toccata Marziale
 Vaughn Williams
 TKWO-
 100
 
Toccata Marziale
 Vaughn Williams
 EWE-
 154
 
Toccata Marziale
 Vaughn Williams
 LWO-
 588
 
Toccata Marziale
 Vaughn williams
 STO-
 987
 
Toccata Marziale
 Vaughn Williams
 TKWO-
 1000
 
Toccata Marziale
 Vaughn Williams
 RNCWO-
 1286
 
Toccata Marziale
 Vaughn williams
 KWE-
 1368
 
Toccata Marziale
 Vaughn Williams
 EWE-
 1416
 
Toccata Marziale
 Vaughn Williams
 UWM-
 1547
 
Toccata Marziale
 Vaughn Williams
 VBEB-
 1607
 
Toccata, Adagio and Fugue
 Bach/Paynter
 UNCG-
 1636


Dave

Hi a_googler-ga,

I believe that answer to your question is nearer than you know. 

I first started looking for songs with tarantella, as I vaguely
remember that I heard something resembling to that when in school ages
ago. As that method didn't get me any other hits than Tarantella
dance, I tried with words tocca and tarantella, as tocca comes from
Italian, as does that aforementioned dance.  That pair also provided
hits but again mostly associated with this particular dance.

Then I tried a Google search with search word toccatarantella (only
one letter changed) and guess what, I got several hits.  I believe
that song you are looking for is "Toccatarantella" by Robert Washburn.
This song was published in 1995 by Belwin, which is nowadays part of
Warner Bros.

Robert Washburn has composed several works for orchestra and concert
bands. Sigma Alpha Iota Philanthropies, Inc. homepage mentions under
heading “Music for Young Perfomers Band/Wind Ensemble” also this
composition by Robert Washburn.

You might want to check these web sites to decide, if this is really
the song you are looking for.

This site even describes what kind of song is in question.
Montana Music Educators: http://mtmusiced.org/mba.html
Excerpt: “"Toccatarantella" by Washburn; publ. Belwin (combined
toccata and tarantella; spontaneous, but precise; variety of
percussion, changing tempos)”

Oregon Band Directors Association homepage
http://www.lclark.edu/~dbecker/litlist.htm
1996-99 Concert Band Contest Literature List
Washburn Toccatarantella 96 Bel-95 (where 96 means year when
composition was added to the list, and Bel-95 means the publisher and
year of publishing)

Oregon Band Directors Association a pdf -document
http://www.oregonmusic.org/data/documents/approved_band.pdf
2000 Concert Band Contest Literature List
Classification III 3A High Schools
(page 3) Washburn Toccatarantella 96 Bel-95

COMPOSERS BUREAU - Robert Washburn
Sigma Alpha Iota Philanthropies, Inc. homepage
http://www.sai-national.org/phil/composers/rwashb2.html
Toccatarantella is mentioned under heading Works for Concert Band. 


The Capital Region Wind Ensemble homepage
Wind Band Literature
http://www.geocities.com/crweband/hist.html
Toccatarantella - Robert Washburn

If you would like to know more about the composer you can, e.g., read
this biographical presentation published by Sigma Alpha Iota
Philanthropies, Inc.

Sigma Alpha Iota Philanthropies, Inc.
http://www.sai-national.org/phil/composers/rwashbur.html


Terms used in Google Search:

Tarantella
Tocca Tarantella
Toccatarantella
Toccatarantella Washburn
Robert Washburn


Answering to your other problem is very difficult. I think that
searching for information in Internet needs both willingness to try
creative search methods and sheer perseverance. I found this
information because my native tongue is other than English so I'm
acutely aware that pronouncing of English doesn’t necessarily give you
any clue how something is written. As most of us remember better words
and names how we hear them, it might be helpful to think how that
particular search word could be written otherwise as based on
pronouncing.

Also developing skills in backward searching might lead you to the
answer. Like in this case you might start with search words high
school band literature and narrow down your search accordingly, like
to type of band you played in etc. Also, you could ask directly from
your former classmates or teacher if that is possible. Of course there
are as many methods as there are people so one method is good for me
but other search method might work better for another person.

I hope this answer helps you finding the right song.

Yours, erhirvo-ga