Concert band

A concert band, variously also called a wind ensemble, symphonic band, wind symphony, wind orchestra, wind band, symphonic winds, symphony band, or symphonic wind ensemble, is a performing ensemble consisting of members of the woodwind, brass, and percussion families of instruments, and occasionally including the double bass or bass guitar. On rare occasions, additional non-traditional instruments may be added to such ensembles such as piano, harp, synthesizer, or electric guitar.

A full concert band—Indiana Wind Symphony in concert, 2014
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A concert band's repertoire includes original wind compositions, transcriptions/arrangements of orchestral compositions, light music, and popular tunes. Though the instrumentation is similar, a concert band is distinguished from the marching band in that its primary function is as a concert ensemble. The standard repertoire for the concert band does, however, contain concert marches.

Origins

During the 19th century, large ensembles of wind and percussion instruments in the British and American traditions existed mainly in the form of the military band for ceremonial and festive occasions, and the works performed consisted mostly of marches. The only time wind bands were used in a concert setting comparable to that of a symphony orchestra was when transcriptions of orchestral or operatic pieces were arranged and performed, as there were comparatively few original concert works for a large wind ensemble.

Development of the wind ensemble

Prior to the 1950s, wind ensembles varied in the combinations of instruments included. The modern "standard" instrumentation of the wind ensemble was more or less established by Frederick Fennell at Eastman School of Music as the Eastman Wind Ensemble in 1952 after the model of the orchestra: a pool of players from which a composer can select in order to create different sonorities.[1] The wind ensemble could be said to be modeled on the wind section of a "Wagner orchestra," an important difference being the addition of saxophones and baritone/euphonium. (The American Wind Symphony Orchestra, which uses neither of these, adheres more strictly to the "expanded orchestral wind section" model.) While many people consider the wind ensemble to be one player on a part, this is only practical in true chamber music. Full band pieces usually require doubling or tripling of the clarinet parts, and six trumpeters is typical in a wind ensemble. According to Fennell, the wind ensemble was not revolutionary, but developed naturally out of the music that led him to the concept.

Bands today

Military bands
Main articles: Military band and Corps of drums

A military band is a group of personnel that performs musical duties for military functions, usually for the armed forces. A typical military band consists mostly of wind and percussion instruments. The conductor of a band commonly bears the title of Bandmaster or Director of Music. Ottoman military bands are thought to be the oldest variety of military marching band in the world, dating from the 13th century.[2]

Military bands were originally used to control troops on the battlefield, using instruments such as drums, bugles, and fifes among others. As communication systems during war became more advanced, the use of instruments on the battlefield as signalling devices fell out of use. From then on, military bands would fulfill a ceremonial role, entertaining troops and playing for the community. As its role shifted so too did its instrumentation. A wider range of instruments was employed to play transcriptions of orchestral works, the bulk of the early wind band repertoire.[3] These military bands evolved into the modern drum and bugle corps and helped to spread the idea of a concert band. A modern military will often have multiple types of bands (e.g. the United States Marine Corps has both a drum and bugle corps and wind ensemble).

A military band—The United States Army Band

Professional bands

Professional concert bands not associated with the military appear across the globe, particularly in developed countries. However, most do not offer full-time positions. The competition to make it into one of these concert bands is incredibly high and the ratio of performers to entrants is narrowly small. Examples of professional non-military concert bands include:

Community bands
Main article: Community band

A community band is a concert band or brass band ensemble composed of volunteer (non-paid) amateur musicians in a particular geographic area. It may be sponsored by the local (municipal) government or self-supporting. These groups rehearse regularly and perform at least once a year. Some bands are also marching bands, participating in parades and other outdoor events. Although they are volunteer musical organizations, community bands may employ an Artistic Director (conductor) or various operational staff.

The rise of the community band can partially be attributed to industrialization. As the instruments became easier to manufacture, their availability greatly increased.[4] This meant that many amateurs could now form a town band, their arrangements typically consisting of patriotic tunes, marches, and popular music. The American Civil War marked a turning point in the American community band where many military musicians, either stemming from amateur or professional backgrounds, sought to create their own community band after the war's conclusion.[5] The large number of bands created during this era led to a "Golden Age of Bands", spearheaded by conductors such as John Philip Sousa and Patrick Gilmore.[6][7] The new forms of twentieth-century entertainment, namely the radio and phonograph, led to decline in community bands. This led to instrument manufacturers, who previously had marketed to the community bands, to focus on schools.[8] The expansion of school music programs would eventually help restore interest in the community band as graduates sought to play in a band together again.

Notable community bands include:

U.S.A.

United Kingdom

Canada

Australia

Norway

Portugal

Finland

School bands
Main article: School band

A school band is a group of student musicians who rehearse and perform instrumental music together. A school band is usually under the direction of one or more conductors (band directors). A school band consists of woodwind instruments, brass instruments and percussion instruments, although upper level bands may also have string basses or bass guitar.[9]

In many traditional U.S. high schools, there are multiple band levels, distinguished by skill level or other factors. In such schools, an audition may be required to advance to further band levels, while the common level would be open to anyone. For example, in many U.S. high schools, "Concert Band" refers to the introductory level band, "Symphonic Band" is the title for the intermediate level band, and "Wind Ensemble" is the title for the advanced level band.[10]

Instrumentation

Instrumentation for the wind band is not completely standardized; composers will frequently add or omit parts. Instruments and parts in parentheses are less common but still often used; due to the fact that some bands are missing these instruments, important lines for these instruments are often cued into other parts.

Instrumentation differs depending on the type of ensemble. Middle school and high school bands frequently have more limited instrumentation and fewer parts (for example, no double reeds, or only two horn parts instead of four). This is both to limit the difficulty for inexperienced players and because schools frequently do not have access to the less common instruments.

The standard concert band will have several players on each part depending on available personnel and the preference of the conductor. A concert band can theoretically have as many as 200 members from a set of only 35 parts. The wind ensemble, on the other hand, will have very little doubling, if any; commonly, clarinets or flutes may be doubled, especially to handle any divisi passages, and others will have one player per part, as dictated by the requirements of a specific composition. Also, it is common to see two tubas playing the same part in a wind ensemble. Some people have observed that this distinction is antiquated and the terms "concert band," "wind ensemble," "wind symphony" and the like are now more or less interchangeable.

Complicated percussion parts are common in concert band pieces, often requiring many percussionists. Many believe this is a major difference between the orchestra (which usually lacks a large battery of percussion) and the concert band. While in older transcriptions and concert works, the timpani were treated as its own section as in the orchestra, today, in bands, the timpani are considered part of the percussion section. Consequently, the timpani player often will double on other percussion instruments.

Contemporary compositions often call on players to use unusual instruments or effects. For example, several pieces call on the use of a siren while others will ask players to play recorders, whirly tubes, or to sing, hum, snap, clap or even crinkle sheets of paper. The wind band's diverse instrumentation and large number of players makes it a very flexible ensemble, capable of producing a variety of sonic effects.

Instrumentation has developed throughout time to become more efficient for the conditions that marching bands need to play in. For example, the clarinet was a better version of the oboe and became more widely used in the 18th century. Less heavy and bulky instruments were replaced by trombones and cornets. In the 19th century, band instruments became highly developed as they started to add keys and valves that made certain ranges and notes on instruments easier to navigate and perform, which was a huge game changer for all musicians.[11]

  1. If called for, sometimes doubled by flute 2 or 3.
  2. If called for, sometimes doubled by oboe 2.
  3. If called for, sometimes doubled by bassoon 2.
  4. The contrabass clarinet part is usually provided in both B♭ and E♭ (contra-alto).
  5. In most cases, if a soprano saxophone is called for, it will replace the first alto saxophone part.
  6. In very rare cases, only a single alto saxophone will be called for (e.g., Holst Band Suites). However, this practice has generally been discontinued with two alto saxophones almost always called for.
  7. Trumpet and cornet parts have often been considered interchangeable and are sometimes separated into 3 or 4 cornet parts and two trumpet parts; however, this practice is no longer used and is usually only seen in older (e.g. pre-1950) works and transcriptions. Trumpets are almost always in B♭ though Trumpets in E♭ and C were used commonly in the heyday of professional concert bands.
  8. In older works, there was often a middle brass part that could be played on either alto (tenor) horn in E♭, French horn in F, or mellophone in F or E♭. There were usually copies of the parts in both F and E♭, for players to read off of based on the key of their instrument. Some modern publishers still include E♭ horn parts, which are the same as the F horn parts, except transposed to E♭. Alto (tenor) horns are especially common in Britain.
  9. Trombone parts will usually be divided into three parts with the first two parts (trombones 1, 2) played by tenor trombones and the third played by a bass trombone. However, in rare cases where a fourth part is required, either trombone 3 is a tenor and trombone 4 is a bass, or trombones 3 and 4 are both Bass. Scores will typically notate which one is preferred.
  10. If called for, sometimes doubled by trombone 1.
  11. The baritone/euphonium part is usually provided in both bass clef (concert pitch) and treble clef (in B♭, sounding a major 9th below written).
  12. Baritones and euphoniums are often used interchangeably, though some works have distinct parts for the two instruments. Most of the time when a composer writes for "baritone", they are actually thinking of the larger-bore euphonium.
  13. Many tuba parts are written in octaves. In that case the higher notes are to be played by the double bass, sounding an octave lower and therefore at the same pitch as the lower part. Sometimes two separate tuba parts will exist, for example for E♭ and lower-pitched B♭ basses.
  14. Percussion ensembles in concert bands can range from 2 to over 14 players. The type of percussion instruments used varies with the piece of music being played. Many percussion instruments from different cultures are used in a lot of contemporary concert band literature, especially in high school and college bands.
  15. Timpani will always be included in percussion parts. It will have its own staff.
  16. String bass parts are typically included in more advanced band pieces and larger ensemble instrumentation. The String Bass part is sometimes replaced with an electric bass guitar part in certain contemporary band pieces. Some high school and most college and professional bands will have a string bass/electric bass player in the ensemble.
A high school concert band—BHS Band in performance, 2013

Repertoire

Development of a repertoire

Until early in the 20th century, there was little music written specifically for the wind band, which led to an extensive repertoire of pieces transcribed from orchestral works, or arranged from other sources. However, as the wind band moved out of the sole domain of the military marching ensemble and into the concert hall, it has gained favor with composers, and now many works are being written specifically for the concert band and the wind ensemble. While today there are composers who write exclusively for band, it is worth noting that many composers famous for their work in other genres have given their talents to composition for wind bands as well. This is especially true in Japan, where an enormous market can be found for wind band compositions, which is largely due to commissions by the All-Japan Band Association and leading professional ensembles such as the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra and Osaka Municipal Symphonic Band, as well as the Kappa Kappa Psi and Tau Beta Sigma Commissioning Program, the longest-running commissioning series for wind band in the United States.

Early to middle 20th century

Some of the most important names in establishing literature written specifically for concert band in the early and middle 20th century were:

Late 20th century to the present

Over the last fifty years, many composers have written major new works for wind ensemble. Some of these composers have risen to the forefront as being particularly important in the concert band's development. Others have risen to prominence independently and came to compose music for concert band. These include:

Important concert band literature
See article at List of concert band literature and Symphonies for concert band

Competitions

Throughout much of their history, wind bands have been promoted through regional and national music competitions and festivals. Other large competitions include the World Music Competition, held in the Netherlands; and the Southeast Asia Concert Band Festival, held in Hong Kong.

Wind-band research

During the early 21st century, research on wind band-related topics greatly increased due to the expanded publication activities of organizations that promote band research: Germany-based IGEB (founded 1974),[12] the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE, founded 1983),[13] and US-based organizations Historic Brass Society (founded 1988),[14] National Band Association (NBA, founded 1960),[15] and College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA, founded 1941).[16] Publications from these organizations expanded on the corpus of research that had been developing since 1964 through the Journal of Band Research,[17] affiliated with the American Bandmasters Association. Internationally notable wind-band researchers include Vincent Dubois on French bands,[18] Paul Niemisto on Finnish bands,[19] Frederick Harris on wind-band conductors,[20] Jill M. Sullivan on US women's bands,[21] Frank Battisti on US bands,[22] David Hebert on Japanese and Polynesian bands,[23] Patrick M. Jones on US military bands,[24] and David Whitwell on European bands and repertoire,[25] to name a few.

Band associations

Some notable band associations include:

See also

References
  1. Frederick Fennell, 90, Innovative Band Conductor, Dies
  2. Turkish Cultural Foundation. "Military (mehter)". Retrieved 2013-08-09.
  3. "History of Bands in World War 1 Part 1". Taps Bugler: Jari Villanueva. 2019-08-01. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  4. Rohwer, Debbie (2016). "Research on Community Bands: Past, Present, and Future". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  5. Hartz, Jason (2003). "The American Community Band: History and Development".
  6. "State College, PA - Band concert to feature the 'Golden Age of Bands' -". www.statecollege.com. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  7. "A History of the Wind Band: The Nineteenth-Century American Wind Band". ww2.lipscomb.edu. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  8. Guion, David (2019-09-02). "School bands in the United States". Musicology for Everyone. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  9. Newton, Bret (2016). Band Orchestration. ISBN 978-1-5376-1984-2. OCLC 1035017338.
  10. http://www.riderband.org/concert--symphonic-bands-and-wind-ensemble.html
  11. Schmidt-Jones, Catherine (2007). A Parent's Guide to Band. Catherine Schmidt-Jones.
  12. Initiatives expanded in recent decades include a research award, digital books, biography series, and monograph series. IGEB: International Society for Research and Promotion of Wind Music
  13. WASBE Journal became peer-reviewed from 2006. WASBE Journal
  14. Historic Brass Society Journal
  15. NBA Journal
  16. CBDNA Journal established in 2010. CBDNA Journal
  17. Journal of Band Research
  18. Vincent Dubois: Sociology of Wind Bands
  19. Paul Niemisto, Emeritus Professor, St. Olaf College
  20. Conducting with Feeling, book based on qualitative research from Harris's doctoral dissertation
  21. Jill M. Sullivan Author Page
  22. Frank Battisti Author Page
  23. David G. Hebert, Springer reviews
  24. Patrick M. Jones, Chancellor, Penn State
  25. David Whitwell Author Page
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