Marching was only an occasional, necessary evil for these guys.
Generally it was two to three concerts a day, in different locations.
We are talking about the biggest name in popular music of his day. In
those decades - the peak year being 1910, there were hundreds of
professional bands touring the country. Sousa was only the most
well-known, followed closely by Arthur Pryor, his former Assistant
Conductor and trombone soloist. When one of these bands came in, it
was like the Elvis coming to town.
RBH
Christopher Smith wrote:
On Aug 24, 2007, at 11:00 AM, Daniel Wolf wrote:
There is a great deal of continuity between Sousa's instrumentation
and that of contemporary bands,
[snip]
The band membership also included a female vocalist, a violinist, and
a harpist as soloists,
Heh, heh! My association of Sousa with marching bands made me spit my
tea when the image of a marching harpist popped up in your discourse!
I was already musing on marching bassoons, and how much I hate
marching with a tuba, or the infinitely worse sousaphone, which is at
least twice as heavy.
Great discussion, guys!
Christopher
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