Concert Band Scores

[MaestroX]

Has anyone got any concert band scores they could upload? I'm currently planning to compose a piece for a local concert band I play in. But I'm not very sure on the orchestration for such an ensemble. Any advice will be helpfull too!

[Thorolf]

First advice: The Symphony orchestra is neat and tidy, the concert band is messy! Why? Because the symphony orchestra is fairly well balanced in the outset, the groups are well defined and a full tutti is easy: High strings and woodwinds on top, low strings and woodwinds on bottom, and the meat of the chords is provided by the brass in the middle.

The concert band is another story: It is not balanced at all! The brass and percussion always threaten to overwhelm the woodwinds. And the function of the strings are not fully recreated. For agility and great dynamic range, one uses flutes and clarinets, for celli soli, baritones are often used, the saxes provides some kind of strings-like edge and expression, but the whole setting is a mess!

A good suggestion is to study big band scores (2 A-sax 2 T-sax 1 Bt-sax 4 Tp 4 T-ne Git Bass Pno Drums), and expand with symphonic knowledge the top end (Fl+Clar), The Bottom end (Bcl, Bsx, Bsn, Tubas) and the sonic depth (Horns and Baritones).



Regards

[MaestroX]

Thanks for the advice. I'm gonna have to keep a look out for a range of scores to study. It seems that in the orchestra each instrument has a role yet in the concert band it has a different role to play. It also seems like a subject that not many books address. I've never seen an orchestration book for concert band ensembles, unless anyone knows of one?

[Chris Burton]

I'm going to have to disagree with Thorolf on a few points. A symphonic band can hardly be called "messy" in general. There is a tendancy to be this way (which has a lot to do with the shear physical aspect of playing a wind instrument) but a symphonic band has the ability to create beautiful sounds just like a symphony. Especially in a Wind Ensemble where the number of parts is exactly what is specified by the composer. This makes for much better balance.

Now, as far as advice for orchestration, I could recommend a couple of books and a website or two. First off, The Study of Orchestration by Samuel Adler is a great book to look into. The text that we have used in class, Techniques of Orchestration by Kent Kennan, is a good one as well. There is also an older book, Orchestration by Cecil Forsyth, which goes very far indepth into all the orchestral instruments, auxiliaries included. And of course, no one can go without Principles of Orchestration by Rimsky-Korsakov.

There is a website that is part of the Philharmonia Orchestra that has a section devoted to demonsrations of instruments. There are all kinds of videos as well. http://www.philharmonia.co.uk/thesoundexchange/

An interesting view about instruments having different roles in a symphony than in a band, but true none the less. My advice would be this: don't think of yourself as limited by a band simply because it is a band. Wrap your mind around the instruments themselves rather than trying to compare a band piece to a Mahler symphony. More band pieces need to be written with the freedom of a symphony, that is what makes the good ones good.

I myself don't have any scores but I have some advice on some piece to check into if you can find them. Even if you can just get a recording...

Parade from Pacific Celebration Suite by Roger Nixon
1st and 2nd Suites for Military Band by Gustav Holzt
Blue Shades by Frank Ticheli
Awayday by Adam Gorb
Any Sousa March (not a big fan but they are good examples of scoring for band)
Concerto for Bass Tuba by Robert Jager
Black Dog by Scott McAllister
Dionysiacs by Florent Schmidt

Just a few suggestions

Best,
Chris

[Thorolf]

Originally Posted by Chris Burton

I'm going to have to disagree with Thorolf on a few points. A symphonic band can hardly be called "messy" in general. There is a tendancy to be this way (which has a lot to do with the shear physical aspect of playing a wind instrument) but a symphonic band has the ability to create beautiful sounds just like a symphony [orchestra].

hehe, lol! I agree! I have actually written more scores for symphonic band than for symphony orchestra… And I agree that there is nothing wrong with the sound of a symphonic band.

To stress the two main points leading to what I call “messy”:
• There is considerable balance problems in a typical symphonic band, as opposed to a typical symphony orchestra.
• The roles that particular instruments play changes constantly with the scoring, much more so in a symphonic band than in a symphony orchestra. E. g. saxes play the roles of brass, woodwinds and strings, all depending on the style of play, dynamics, and the rest of the surrounding scoring.

That said, the symphonic band is a wonderful toy, but considerably harder to master, than writing for symphony orchestra.

Originally Posted by Chris Burton

And of course, no one can go without Principles of Orchestration by Rimsky-Korsakov.

I’d always start with that one And indeed, Rimsky-Korsakov himself wrote a lot of original stuff for concert band, and is easily seen as the bridge from Sousa marches to symphonic music, for this particular setting.

For more modern stuff, e. g. Johan de Meij has written a lot for symphonic bands, both arrangements and original material. He scores well, and utilises the symphonic band in a very effective way.

Originally Posted by Chris Burton

My advice would be this: don't think of yourself as limited by a band simply because it is a band. Wrap your mind around the instruments themselves rather than trying to compare a band piece to a Mahler symphony. More band pieces need to be written with the freedom of a symphony, that is what makes the good ones good.

As I should have said it myself!

Regards

[MaestroX]

Great advice thanks for this. I just have a question to ask about the arrangment of the instruments. For a generic large symphonic band how many parts are their for each instrument? and similar for a smaller concert band.

[Thorolf]

Ok, from Norway, it looks approx like this:

Minimum n° of parts, Typical Concert Band, Typical Symphonic Band:

Picc (doubled only in big SBs):
0, 1, 1 (2)
Flute (almost always several on each part):
1, 2, 2-3
Oboe (seldom more than one per part):
0 (1), 1, 2
Eb Clarinet (always solo):
0, 0, 1
Clarinet (almost always several on each part):
3 (1-2), 3, 3
Alto Clarinet (doubled only in big SBs):
0, 0 (1), 1
Bass Clarinet (doubled only in big SBs):
1 (0), 1, 1
Alto Sax (one or more per part):
1, 2, 2-3
Tenor Sax (one or more per part):
1, 1-2, 2
Baritone Sax (one or more per part):
1 (0), 1, 1-2
Bassoon (seldom more than one per part):
1 (0), 1, 2

Eb Cornet (seldom doubled but in big SBs):
0, 0 (1), 1
Trumpet/Cornet, interchangeable (one or more per part):
2-3, 3, 3 or 2-4 cornet parts+2 trumpet parts
Horns in F (or Eb, or both) (seldom doubled but in big SBs):
1, 1-4, 3-4
Trombones (one or more per part):
2, 3, 4 (including bass trombone)
Baritone/Tenor horn in Bb (one or more per part):
1, 1-2, 1-2
Bass tuba (minimum solo, typical CB 1-2, typical SB 2 or more):
1, 1, 1
Percussion:
No general rules, from one to twenty, generally only doubling snare and bass drums, otherwize like symphony orchestra percussion.

Specialist instruments, Alto Flute, Cor Angalis, Contraalto Clarinet, Contrabass Clarinet, Soprano Saxophone, Bass Saxophone, Double Bassoon, Flugelhorn to be added as you would in a symphony orchestra: Don’t use it if you don’t mean it! You need both a sonic reason, and a possibility that the band you write for has both a spare player and the actual instrument!

Where you see a number in brackets, it means “also seen occationally”.

If you write for what I call the “typical Concert Band”, it can (and will) always be played for bigger Symphonic bands, also. Keep in mind that not two Bands are alike, and write with flutes, clarinets, (alto) saxes, trumpets, trombones, tuba and percussion as your core, as double reeds and bass woodwinds are often sparse or missing, the horns are too few, and Baritone interchanges well with trombone parts, if you have too few trombones.

That should be all for now.

Regards

[Gryvix]

Yesterday I had a concert with my windorchestra/concert band. I'll tell you what there was:
5 Flutes(where one could play the piccolo if it were necessary)
4 first (Bb)clarinets, 3 second clarinets, 3 third clarinets (I don't see any concertband with only 1 clarinet to be honest, don't know where that comes from?)
8 Alto saxes(this is a quite large one, and they are divided mostly on to playing horn parts too, since we lack them)
3 Tenor saxes
1 baritone sax
2 Euphoniums
3 baritones
2 BB Basses
1 EB Bass
1 Bass Trombone
2 Tenor Trombones
3 F Horns
6 Trumpets and 1 Cornet(me ) 3 1st 2 2nd and 2 third
4/5 percussionists(timpani, drums, glockenspiel xylo, marimba...; bass drum, cymbals and all other small percussion
Due to the genre(we had a singer) we had a bassguitar and a keyboard(wich sometimes played percussion as well)
Maybe a bit more of explanation on to the situation, we are a general upper-class band. (This is without drumcorps and bugles, wich is only used for on parades(for marches), the bugle part is generaly one part played by around 4. drumcorps is generally snaredrums, bass drum and tambour).
The bands in smaller towns are much smaller and are limited. so fewer players.
Use lots of "á défaux"'s, so it can be played by bands who don't have such a varied instrumentarium.
Now getting you some names on good composers for concert bands.
Bert Appermont (Noah's Ark, Saga Candida, Colors : a young composer and highly talented)
Jan Dehaan
Jacob Dehaan(Oregon)
Johan de Meij ( The Lord Of The Rings is fantastic, a one of a kind masterpiece, the one divided in parts, I've seen arrangements who try shorten them into one piece, but they are absolutely awful)
Piet Swerts( Apocalyps II, Chain, Cyrano, Shirim)
Jan Van Der Roost (A truely magnificent composer: Sinfonnietta,Helios, Minerva, Slavia, Toccata Festiva(this one is one of my all time favourites))
Guy Duijck(Berdorfer Suite)
Johan Evenepoel(Seven Quarters of a Century, Contest Suite, Ginnungagap)
Ben Haemhouts(A Bamberg Suite, The Last Song(this is a must, so beautiful!!!), Fantasia, Nordic Suite)
Philip Sparke(The name for brassbandmusic but also for other types he writes beautiful music: Music of The Spheres, A klezmer Festival, A Celtic Suite, A Tameside Ouverture, Carnival, Hannover Festival, Jubilee Ouverture, Land of The Long White Cloud, Orient Express, Hymn of the Highlands, Year of The Dragon)
Derek Bourgeois(Sinfonietta,White dragon overture, Red dragon overture, The Arta fugue
André Waignein(a very popular composer, makes easy and hard to play music: Czardas, Diagram,...)
Eric Ball(Resurgam: originally for brassband, but it is arranged)
Paul Curnow(First Light on The Chesapeake: we've played it numerous times, so tranquilising music, the public loves it)

Marches
Kenneth J Alford(Known as the English Marchking: Colonel Bogey, Air Force March, Eagle Squadron, The Tin Red Line, The Middy, Dunedin, The Army Of The Nile, Standard of St. George)
Roland Cardon(This is a Belgian Marchking, He wrote for our orchestra the march Ad Futurum, and has won numerous awards, a very good example, other marches: La marche du souvenir, Izegem 900. a fun work to play is Arlequino)
William Rimmer
Sousa(The American Marchking: (El Capitan, Liberty Bell, Semper Fidelis, Stars And Stripes Forever,.. One note I have to say, these are written originally for Brass band and then transcribed.)

ow yea, where to get them www.musicprint.nl there you can buy loads of scores and music cd's, the prices are in Euro(Silly English First they drive on the left and they go all haywire about a currency change ^^ ) so take about 1/3 of the price to get it in GBP) For recordings try typing in the name in www.singingfish.com you may find some legal fragments of them.

[Thorolf]

Cool! Here you have the typical, well balanced concert band!

You can see where the practical strengths and weaknesses are: Lack of double reeds, bass woodwinds, and horns… so typical. The slight relative excess of alto saxophones is also very typical.

I want to stress that the numbers I give are the number of the parts, not players.

Originally Posted by Gryvix

I don't see any concertband with only 1 clarinet to be honest, don't know where that comes from?

I’ve never seen it either. But I have seen several US Scores for Marching Band with one Clarinet part only. In this particualr series, there was a strange thing, where the bass drum parts were divided in 4 so called “Tonal Bass Drums”, that’s right, divisi bass drums with four bass drum sizes :o

One clarinet part (with in some arrangements divisi by 2), but always 4 divisi bass drum parts…

The moral here is that there are different cultures of Concert Bands, and you should try to strike a balance between the local and the global adjustments.

But as I recognise perfectly the typicalness of Gryvix’ particular band instrumentation, there must be some globalness to my observations…

Regards

[Gryvix]

yea it can be solved by a defaux, also flutes quite often play the oboe parts too. But US marching bands are different, they are more of show bands, but we preserve the original style, snaredums, Tambours(I guess you can call them tenor drums) and bass drums, oh and cymbals, oh and a lyre, you know an upright glockenspiel kinda thing, oh and the guy in front with the large, the Tambour-Majeur; oh and the guy who carries the flag
Strange, we always have 2 or three parts for clarinet in marches...