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RE: NABBA Instant Band (fwd)

Hi, Graham!

I generally agree with you, here, but I think that if trumpet players played 
with the same delicacy as cornettists, the result would be good.  Perhaps not 
the same as with cornets, but good.  I find that I now play trumpet with far 
more ... well... delicacy now that I have been immersed in the Illinois Brass 
Band for a few years.

You are right, though, that trumpets usually sound like a demented mess.  Even 
the IBB sounded like a bunch of trumpets (on cornets, mind you!) in our first 
appearance at NABBA, '93.  Fortunately, we do catch on...slowly... but 
eventually ;-).


Guy Clark
guyclark@xxxxxxx

principal cornet, Illinois Brass Band
principal trumpet, Northbrook Symphony Orchestra
etc...

----------
From: Graham Young
Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 1994 12:21 PM
To: Jack Alexander
Subject: Re: NABBA Instant Band

On 05-Feb-97, Jack Alexander wrote:
>Graham Young told us:

>>Because of the difficulty in starting a band in North America
>>Nabba has sections that include one where a new band can play
>>even if they are using trumpets and french horns.

>Hopefully this is the thin edge of the wedge, the thick edge (in 50 years
>or so) being brass band misic written speifically for trumpets and
>(especially) french horn.

>I can't see why what is arguable the finest middle brass instrument should
>be excluded from brass bands.  In the good ol' days, maybe it was because
>(a) it was hard to find good french hornists and (b) you could always find
>some other three-valve player to fill in in an emergency, but nowadays
>there are lots of young french horn players coming up through school
>concert  bands and orchestras.

>Jack Alexander


The problem is that these bands sound terrible ( as brutal as a skin head in a
convent IMHO).
 The trumpet in a brass band
turns the naturally beautiful warm sound into a strident mess like some
kind of demented bugle band. It is simply bad. There is a "professional band"
here that uses an Eb trumpet in place of the soprano cornet.
The sound is at odds with the cornets in this band . Instead of a properly
balanced 
brillance on the top of the sound it sticks out like like an oboe in a string
quartet.
The brass band is as defined an ensemble as a string quartet is. 
Similarly the french horn in a brass band is a bad joke. For those who may not
have noticed the
bell points in the wrong direction for a start. When you hear a band with
french horns the middle drops 
out completely. There is no blend with the flugel horn or baritone/euphonium.
The brass band is a "consort" of instruments in a sort of Rennaisance mold
similar to a consort of viols
or recorders. All the instruments from BBb to sop are conical bore instruments
for the 
most part designed by a single person, Adolph Sax. This ,with the exception of
the trombones,
gives the uniformity of blend not possible between french horns and trumpets.

The ensemble you refer to is a brass choir for which there is much repetoire.
If you substitute a bassoon for the cello in a string quartet you no longer
have 
a string quartet. The brass band is as legitimate a defined ensemble as a
chamber orchestra
(according to James Watson it's closest analogy) or a string quartet.

This is not meant as a flame but merely my own opinion.  

-- 
Trumpets and Soprano Cornet
Symphony Hamilton, McMaster Chamber Orchestra
Weston Silver Band, Celebration Brass
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Graham Young
(905)575-8440


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