Orchestration: Bandistration

A YC Tutorial Justin P. Tokke This page is a part of the Orchestration Masterclass. For other related articles, see Category:Orchestration masterclass

This article is a work in progress and may have some incomplete or missing content.

Introduction

A major ensemble that's important in today's world is the concert band. This large ensemble, unique in its lack of strings and doubling of parts, has been a staple of American music for over 150 years and has spread throughout the globe as a major (albeit younger) "sister-ensemble" to the orchestra. Today it varies from school bands to major legitimate professional organizations who produce very high quality music. Almost every high school in America has a band, and close to every college as well. Thus they are numerous throughout the nation. While bands are often more commonplace than orchestras, however, their repertoire is less extensive because of its rather late development. As such, "bandistration" has often been given short shrift by orchestration texts. It is the intention of this course to not do so and spend significant time focusing on the special situations and challenges of writing for band as opposed to the orchestra.

"Bandistration"

For the band, we will talk about several major topic areas:

• Doubling: the band has a unique feature of doubling almost every part.

Types of Band

Given the band's great variety in location and skill level, it is not as standardized as the orchestra. This presents a problem for the orchestrater because no two bands will be alike, especially in terms of the number of players. The orchestrator has to be aware of this fact and adjust their orchestrations accordingly.

There are basically four types of band. The concert band, the wind ensemble, the marching band, and the school band. Each has its own instrumentation and unique challenges. We will discuss each now.

Concert Band

The concert band is the most "standard" of the ensembles. It shares the most similarities with the orchestra in that it is an ensemble that performs on the stage of a concert hall and gives real concerts of music. Often this music is "symphonic" in nature, but other times it is crossover from other bands, such as "concert marches" where marches intended for the marching band are re-orchestrated for the concert band and played in a concert setting. John Philip Sousa was the great American concert march composer, however he often wrote his marches in a "marching band" scoring and then made changes ad hoc for his concert performances. Most professional band organizations are concert bands while others are wind ensembles or marching bands.

Instrumentation

There are several sizes of concert band. We will give a few examples here.

The "standard sized" instrumentation is as follows. It is a band numbering anywhere from 40-60 players and often will be the most commonly encountered. Sometimes additional instruments (such as English Horn) can be added on a case by case basis.

Piccolo

Flutes 1, 2

Oboes 1, 2

Bassoon

Clarinet in E-flat Clarinets in B-flat 1, 2, 3 Bass Clarinet

Alto Saxophones 1, 2 Tenor Saxophone Baritone Saxophone

Trumpets in B-flat 1, 2, 3 Horns in F 1, 2, 3, 4 Trombones 1, 2, 3 Euphonium Tuba

Timpani Percussion (from 1-5 parts)

The next is a "large" concert band of anywhere from 60-80 players. These include several auxiliary instruments.

Piccolo Flutes 1, 2 Oboes 1, 2 English Horn (usually doubled by Oboe 2) Bassoons 1, 2

Clarinet in E-flat Clarinets in B-flat Solo, 1, 2, 3 Alto Clarinet Bass Clarinet

Soprano Saxophone Alto Saxophones 1, 2 Tenor Saxophone Baritone Saxophone

Trumpets in B-flat 1, 2, 3, 4 Horns in F 1, 2, 3, 4 Trombones 1, 2, 3, 4 Euphoniums 1, 2 Tuba

Timpani Percussion (from 1-7 parts)

The last is a "super-large" instrumentation. These bands have from 80-120 players or more. If you get to write for one of these bands consider yourself lucky because they're hard to find in certain places.

Piccolos 1, 2 Flutes 1, 2, 3 Oboes 1, 2 English Horn Bassoons 1, 2 Contrabassoon

Clarinets in E-flat 1, 2 Clarinets in B-flat 1, 2, 3, 4 Alto Clarinet Bass Clarinet Contrabass Clarinet

Soprano Saxophone Alto Saxophones 1, 2 Tenor Saxophone Baritone Saxophone

Trumpets in B-flat 1, 2, 3 Horns in F 1, 2, 3, 4 Trombones 1, 2, 3 Euphonium Tuba

Timpani Percussion (from 1-5 parts)