On Aug 24, 2007, at 10:33 AM, Daniel Wolf wrote:
I have a general aesthetic question for people involved in bands. Is there a rationale beyond the pedagogical for wanting band scores to meet some prescribed contemporary and standardized instrumentation? Might there not be some legitimate musical reasons for omitting certain instruments or requiring others, or for allowing or disallowing optional doublings or playing cue note? If someone has articulated a case for a particular standard for band instrumentation, I'd certainly be interested in reading it.
The rationale would be maximising sales; to make the arrangement playable for as many different bands as possible through doubling everything up the wazoo. If there is a lot of repertoire for a certain instrumentation, there is more likely to be a group formed to play that repertoire.
After a twenty-year break, I am this semester starting to conduct the school's wind ensemble. I always did, and will probably continue to do, massage the arrangements somewhat, asking some instruments to tacet a doubled part, changing to one-to-a-part in some sections, and adding parts in where they are missing, need doubling, or would go better on a different instrument.
Some arrangements require little or no adjustment, some (particularly, as you mention, the ones aimed an educational market) need it a lot, as they are overwritten and overdoubled all over the place to allow for missing and understaffed instruments, and for weak players on some parts. My own bands had and will have their own problems, and I will have to allow for those problems myself, which would have been impossible for every arranger to do, since they don't know my band.
At least it is easier to tacet someone than to add in a part that is missing and uncued.
Some schools make a distinction between massed bands (concert band) and wind ensemble (one to a part, not necessarily standardised instrumentation.) In my school we don't have enough players to make that distinction, but I will probably draw on repertoire from both camps, letting the unused players take a break, or go off and rehearse their smaller piece on their own.
That's just my take on it, of course. Christopher _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
