Ray-
Who's doing your double bell??
Jim
From: Raymond Horton
Sent: Fri 24-Aug-07 14:18
To: finale@shsu.edu
Subject: Re: [Finale] Turn-of-the-century Band Music
Daniel Wolf wrote:
There is a great deal of continuity between Sousa's instrumentation
and that of contemporary bands, but there are couple of features worth
noting. All flutes doubled on piccolo. Two oboes, 2nd doubling EH.
The Bb clarinet section was large (12-27 players), with only one alto
and one bass clarinet. Earlier Sousa bands used Eb Clarinet, but he
discontinued this in favor of adding more flutes. The use of
contrabassoon (or, in one season, contrabass sarrusaphone) was limited
to a few seasons and was doubled by the second (of two) bassoonists.
The sax section varied from four to eight players. Trumpets and
cornets were strongly segregated, not doubling, usually in a two
trumpet to four cornet ratio, although in the earlier years the lower
cornet parts were taken by flugelhorns. Always four horns, and four
trombones to two (or later) one euphonium. Sousa only had
upright-bell sousaphones, and the earlier bands used a mixture of
tubas and sousaphone, while the later bands used sousaphones
exclusively. Always three percussionists. The band membership also
included a female vocalist, a violinist, and a harpist as soloists,
with the harpist also a standard member of the full ensemble, seated
front center between woodwinds and brasses.
Daniel Wolf
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This segregation of cornets and trumpet _parts_, (although the
instruments were totally mixed up half and half) was still the norm in
bands when I was a lad, but is uncommon now, I suppose. In my first
formative year playing in a good high school band (1965-66), I played
next to the first "trumpet," who was the second best player in the
section and sat on the opposite end of the section from the first
"cornet." Both were playing the wrong instruments, though. A year
later, the first "trumpet" had advanced to first "cornet", but he had
traded his cornet in for a new trumpet.
Whenever bands play works with both cornet and trumpet parts, all parts
are played, of course, but there are not distinct sections, and the only
kids with cornets are the ones who got them out of their granddad's
attics.
I don't really know what the standard instrumentation for a new band
piece is, I suppose 3 or 4 parts for "cornets/trumpets." In the one
large work I wrote for concert band (my master's thesis) back in '75 I
used three cornet and two trumpet parts - with the trumpet parts being
intended for a smaller section or one on a part. I found it very useful.
On another subject you bring up - the low WWs, that large band I played
in for a year in the 8th grade in 65-66 had the most amazing low reed
section: BBb and Eb contrabass clarinets (that's the name I'm sticking
to for the latter no matter what's done to me), four bass clarinets,
bass sax, one or two bari sax, all complimenting a section of six
tubas. We played a nice arrangement of J.S. Bach's _Fantasia_ in G that
started with a bass low G - a sound I'll never forget.
Do you have any idea if the tuba-sousaphone mixture was intentional, and
was the change to all sousaphones intentional? I wonder if they
actually sounded better than the other tubas available at the time?
I am in the process of having a _removable_ double bell added to one of
my euphoniums, but I haven't heard from the guy doing it for months (he
was so confident at the start!). I really should email him...
Raymond Horton
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_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
Finale@shsu.edu
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
