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Concert Bands- thank you for the info :)

Hi Nigel - everyone :)

1stly Happy New Year  to you all and your Bands :)

Thank you for your reply Nigel-very much appreciated!.

I have been in brass banding near on 30 years now, and the 1st thing I had
to learn to do  was to stop thinking " orchestrally" especially in marches
such as "Death or Glory" for example. When I first started into brass
banding, the 1st thing I found odd was that all the instruments all played
at the same time instead of dividing up or resting some parts. This was more
noticeable in a lot of " old" music, where as nowadays brass band music
seems to follow somewhat along the orchestra lines and only having
instruments play when needed, not 'cos they are there

I was taught in composing and arranging, that if I didn't want an instrument
to play(for awhile at least) don't write for it, and thus this is the policy
I have adopted in my arranging/composing.

If / when I write for a concert/miltiary type band, I intend to use the
clarinets as " strings" and thus would get the bulk of the work. I doubt
strongly if I would write a 3rd and 4th clarinet part tho. The rest of the
instrumentation would stand as if in a brass band where the saxophones would
act as a type of horn part-I'm not sure how to write the bass parts though.

It is doubtful whether I would proceed down the path of writing for a
concert band though as there are so many arrangers and composers for that
format as it is now.

I write "orchestrally" for a small orchestra such as school orchestras and
the like. I try to keep the music simple as these orchestra's usually don't
have the personel or the expertise of a more "professional" orchestra, be it
amatuer or fully fledged professional orchestra. For instance I realise that
school orchsestra's only have a few violinists maybe 2 viola's 2 cello's
rarely a double bass, oboe and if lucky a bassoon. Instruments such as cor
anglias and a picolo would be unheard of. I write the oboe part an octave
lower than the flute mainly because a second flautist would play that part
until at sometime the school or amatuer group does or may actually get an
oboeist. The clarinet(s) I usually double with the violins to give more "
weight" to the violins. occasionally a second clarinet either plays or
doubles on the viola part, making the necessary adjustments to the pitch and
scoring. Usually there is the trumpet and trombone so thats not a problem,
and often 2 cello's of which I get the second cello to play the D.Bass part
although its an octave higher than it should be. I also write in a bassoon
part which usually doubles the D Bass if the orchestra is lucky enough to
have a bassoonist, which 90% of them don't.

Having been a brass bandsman for over 30 years I find writing for brass band
relatively easy and I'm not shy about writing some complicated music for
brass bands, some of which 'C' and 'D' grades would find very difficult.

However writing for concert/militaty bands would be a big learning curve for
me, not having been a member or played in a concert band setting

Thanks for reading this

*hug*  to Nigel

Richard  -ex Marion City (Brass) Band

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