Who Plays Lead? Ed Dumas   Many years ago, just near the beginning of my post-secondary music education studies, our concert band one day was sitting and waiting for an outdoor performance to begin. We were already thirty minutes late, and our lead trumpet player was nowhere to be found. We could all see our conductor and the fact that his blood pressure was rising fast. We figured he was going to explode at any time, and everyone just wanted to stay out of the splatter zone. Then, our lead trumpet player finally walked in with his Bach Stradivarius in one arm, and his girlfriend hanging off the other. He seemed to wander in slowly as if bewildered why everyone was already set up. He just didn’t seem to grasp that he messed up the start time, but we knew that soon he would figure it out. Everyone in the group flashed eyes at our conductor and back, trying not to catch his attention while doing this. He was not a big man at about five foot six, but he was just a towering musician and everyone knew it. Finally, after watching our lead trumpet player slowly figure out that he completely messed up, our conductor had more than he could stand. He walked over to just in front of the offending trumpet player’s music stand and leaned in. “No,” he said, “You don’t understand. From now on you play third. You,” he said pointing at me, “You play lead.” My first reaction inside my head was “What did I do to deserve this?! I was here on time!” Instead, all I could muster was “Okay.” We traded books right there on the spot, and I sight-read the lead part with no preparation for it and no practice on it whatsoever. I survived, but it was not a pleasant experience, to say the least. I am fairly sure the audience would have agreed, too. Looking back at that event from over forty years ago, I have to say that I learned some very important lessons from it. These were things that have coloured everything that I have done with bands ever since. I have long ago gotten over any animosity toward our lead trumpet player from back then, but I have also tried to help students along the way become better prepared to be section leaders and lead players. Here are a few of the lessons that I learned that day, and have never forgotten. Have More Than One Player on the Lead Part If you have only one player playing the first part of any section, you are leaving the section, the band, and you as the teacher/conductor in a risky position. At any time something could happen to leave the entire group stranded because one person could not make it to the performance. Now, this might not be for something as foolish as messing up the performance time. It could be for something far more mundane like a car that breaks down, or someone catching a virus. But try to be prepared for a disaster should it happen, and you stand a better chance of surviving without exploding. Most often when students are feeling ill, I have found they have been far more dedicated to the task and completing the performance than they should have been. Usually, band students are more likely to be so committed to the group that they want to push through no matter what, even though they really should be at home as they have no strength or stamina to last through the performance. I remember finding one player huddled in a corner of the band room shaking with pain and in tears as she suffers in agony from a raging fever and virus. She was so worried that her being away would mess up the group’s performance that she was just willing herself to push it through no matter the consequences to her health. Just like any teacher today would do today, I naturally stepped in to call her mother to come to get her and take her home so she could rest and get better. More often than not, those are the kinds of situations you will encounter when you have only one player covering a critical part. The solution here lies with the teacher in advance, not the student on the day of. Now, to be fair, you will not get two players for every section leader part that is in a concert band. Sometimes the best you can do is only one on a given part. But if your plan is to not have people alone on a part, more often than not you will be able to withstand the odd surprise event during a performance. You won’t win them all, but you will do better than the scenario of someone sight-reading a lead part in a concert. Consider Character Another lesson that I have taken away from my “Sight-Reading the Lead Part in Performance” event was that you should consider character when you are choosing lead players. The message that I heard that day was that hard work and reliability count - A LOT! I was certainly not the most talented in that section, but I worked hard, and I always showed up where I was supposed to be. In the future, I tried to reward this more than mere unreliable talent with my students. Most of the time the ones that worked hard and showed up were also the ones that became the most talented, but hopefully, they understood their reward was for their effort over time more than their talent of that day. Playing Lead is Not About Competition I noticed early in my teaching career that when the graduating students left our senior band, the following year some students always felt like they were unable to take over and become the new lead player. They were just as talented as the grads were when they took over as the leader, and yet the next age down seemed like they could not do it. They needed a lot of convincing from me that they were capable and would eventually find out they could soon handle the new work as the lead player. This convinced me that I needed to change my approach to the “Who Plays Lead?” question. That is when I started to encourage everyone in the section to take turns playing the lead. The question is, “How do you learn to be a lead player if you have never played lead?” My answer is, “If everyone has played lead in the past, then anyone can be the lead player today.” The answer above came to me by watching adult community band musicians, particularly trumpet players where I was playing. There is almost a cliché in secondary schools that there is some kind of huge competition between trumpet players as to who gets to play the lead part. Almost inevitably some trumpet players will take the approach that “Since I am the best player, I get to play all the first trumpet parts.” The unspoken part of that statement goes something like, “Since you are the worst player, you only get third trumpet parts!” That just makes me want to cringe. A typical professional group will choose how many trumpet players will be in their group’s roster, and then hire the musicians accordingly. As an example, if they want three trumpet players, one will be positioned on first, one on second, and one on third for ALL of their music. Most often those players will have a contract to play the part assigned to them, and that is just how it goes. The best will be positioned on the lead first, and so on down. The trouble for our students, though, is that they are not professional! If you assume that our students are supposed to have equal opportunity in their learning, then you need to examine the learning possibilities with the various positionings of players. Not ever playing lead means that the opportunity to learn has been reduced for that player. Whether the affected student desires this outcome or not, it is just a fact that the player who is not allowed to play lead is also given less opportunity to learn and develop. In contrast to that scenario, many adult non-professional groups have learned to cooperate better than that. Most trumpet sections in adult groups that I have sat in have learned to share the lead parts around, very often to the chagrin of the conductor who wants it all nailed down tight. But adult non-professionals have figured out that it is not a competition for them, and that cooperating makes a more developed section. As a result, when one player inevitably misses an event, the rest are quite ready to step in and cover without missing a beat. There are always a few adult amateur musicians who never seem to get past the high schoolish “I am better than you so I should play all the lead parts.” These competitive people seem to make the section far less pleasant for everyone else. I have tended to move away from those kinds of players and find groups that are better at being welcoming and sharing. The lesson here for the community-minded folks is to encourage their various sections to share the parts around to be more welcoming to new players and less competitive. It is in the band’s best interest to do so! Separate the Lead Part from the Section Leader The section leader does not have to be the lead player or even the best player. I have learned to ask the section to choose its leader, rather than me appointing someone. Specifically, I would tell them that they should NOT consider talent here, but rather the ability to be organized and communicate. They should also make sure they choose someone they are all willing to follow as section leader in the non-musical things. I would also suggest maybe an open vote is not necessarily the best way to choose a section leader either. The students can learn to cooperate and share the section leader role as well. The section should come to some sort of agreement as to how they would like to accomplish this task. Maybe one person in the first half of the year and someone else in the second half if they want to share it. Once chosen, the section leader can then assign the parts in a way that gives everyone in the section at least some experience playing the lead (first) part. Students that are feeling a little uncomfortable with the first parts can be given the lead on some of the easier tunes in the folder, and can also be given the first parts in conjunction with another stronger player. Here is where the strong communication skills and organizational skills of the section leader come in handy by taking a load off of the teacher in organizing how this could work. This is an excellent learning opportunity for the section leaders as well! Put a Strong Player on All Parts Here is a secret that I have often told my students. Most bands want to take the best players and put them on lead parts with the next strongest players on second, and so on down the section. But the bands that sound best have strong players on the bottom parts too! I have played my fair share of lead parts, and am no longer thrilled by always playing the melody. I have found for many years that playing the third trumpet challenges me in ways that the lead trumpet does not, especially for things like terrible cross-fingerings in the low notes coupled with the third valve trigger for better tuning! I have also found that when I do play the third trumpet, this part can be heard “out front” rather than just buried like most third trumpet parts. The section then comes together better, and the band sounds fuller. Imagine what could happen if all the sections of the band followed those ideas and spread out the strong players onto all the parts. The important idea here is that all players in a section need to get used to playing all the parts within that section. They need to know that playing the third clarinet part is different than playing the first clarinet part. The third clarinet players need to understand that always playing only low notes is not sufficient and that they must learn to play over the break. There is nothing like sitting and watching some notes go by on first clarinet to make you understand that you cannot avoid playing over the break! At the same time, the students who most often play first clarinet need to understand that playing third clarinet means that they must learn to blend and they must learn to project in a way that supports the upper clarinet parts without “passing” them. Students that always play third and no first will tend to hide, while students that always play first and no third will tend to dominate. Both need to be brought into a more section kind of sound, and there is no better way than by playing ALL the parts at some point. Doing this is true learning, and that is what we are supposed to be about since our students are NOT professionals! Where Should the Lead Players Sit? This has been a subject of great debate for years, and I doubt I will solve that debate for anyone here. Some groups want all the lead players in each section to sit to the inside of the band with all of the lower parts sitting to the outside of the band. That way, the lead sound comes straight through the centre of the band to the conductor. Some conductors want the reverse with all of the lead players on the outside of the band so that they project to the audience better. The lower blending parts then tend to blend better inside the band. I have preferred to focus on the section IF I consider seating AT ALL. Considering the trumpet section as an example, I have often found that the best arrangement for the section is to have the firsts in the middle, with the seconds to one side and the thirds to the other. That way, all the players have a better chance of hearing the lead players. This arrangement helps to keep the section together better but is a compromise when it comes to the band sound. But then, when you consider that all the players will have some experience on all of the parts, the seating will then naturally become all messed up across the various tunes in the folder. My response to that is, “Fine!” Since we are not dealing with pros in our secondary schools, we should not be overly concerned with applying pro standards of performance. The opportunities for everyone to learn how to play lead and harmony roles are more important to me than how the group sounds in performance. If you are still overly concerned with seating in performance, you can have that problem worked out for the few individual tunes that you take into the concert. For those, you may want to assign specific seating in the section, but for others in the classroom, let the students mess it up so that they can learn how to play all the parts. In other words, in a classroom setting, is it that important that the first clarinet player be in the front row of clarinets, or could the first clarinet player in class do that job from the third row of clarinets to learn on this piece how to play lead? I will take learning over performance any day. Have Lots of Music Selections in the Folder I strongly encourage music teachers to have lots of music selections in their band folders. In the previous article Sight-Reading 101, I talked about the need to sight-read lots of music for the benefit of your students. At the same time, have lots of music that you can quickly return to so that you are not always doing just the same two or three tunes. Having a bigger folder means you have more opportunity to give experience to all your players on all the parts within the section. If you have 18 clarinet players, like in my Ultimate Concert Band, then you will need a fairly large selection of tunes to give them all at least a little bit of time playing different parts in the section. Not everything that is in your folder needs to go into the performance. You can easily have 8 to 10 selections in the folder, but when it comes to concert time choose your best two or three. Not everything needs to be performed. But when you have 5 minutes to kill and they are just “done” with the piece that you have been working on for the last 30+ minutes, you have something that you can just play through for fun. Just don’t tell them they are learning from this too! As a side note, consider also that most students these days practice only their band music. If all they are learning is only what is available to them on two or three concert band charts, that is significantly limiting. If they have a dozen selections, they have more to practice. Maybe not all, but some will take you up on that and practice a bit more. What About the Sheet Music? Finally, consider the problem of the sheet music, and how it is rather mixed up in students’ folders. They should have some firsts, some seconds, and some thirds. This kind of randomness can drive some band teachers a little Obsessive/Compulsive. I get it! I have noticed this trend again in the adult community bands. These bands very often create folders that are labelled something like “First,” “Second,” and “Third.” Then the music is placed into each folder according to the label. But when the folders are then handed out, the musicians take control of a single folder and then consider it as “Mine.” The trumpet section is again usually the first to figure out that we can just exchange the music around and no one will know. Maybe it is because the trumpets are always farther away from the conductor, so can get away with a bit more. So now my folder will contain some firsts, seconds, and thirds even though the outside will be labelled as “Third.” My question here is, “Does it really matter that they are not following the label?” Why label it anyway with the part number if you are encouraging the students to share the roles around? How about just labelling it with an instrument name and a number, such as “34.” It is the thirty-fourth folder in the band and happens to be for a trumpet player. Let the players work out which parts go inside. When I hand out new music, I would usually just hand all of the trumpet parts to the section leader. It is the section leader's job, then, to decide who plays first, second, and third on this particular chart. The students will happily work it out if they know the ground rules in advance. For secondary school students, I have usually asked them to purchase a vinyl folder that stayed with them throughout their years in the program. The folder would have on the outside their name and the school’s name. Then if they switch parts around, or even switch to a completely different instrument, the folder still has value. AND, you won’t start twitching from OCD! So, Who Plays Lead? So, to answer the question “Who Plays Lead?,” the best answer for students is “Everyone.” Also a good answer is “No one.” No one person sits on lead all the time to the detriment of everyone else. Everyone gets an opportunity to experience the learning that comes with playing lead. Also, no one sits on a third part hiding under the band to their own detriment. Everyone gets to experience and remember what it means to play a supporting role as well as the lead role, which also happens to have a huge benefit in developing some musical humility.     Ed Dumas is a retired band director who taught his entire career in the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows School District. Ed is now living with his lifelong partner Laurie, and their little dog Sprocket in Parksville, BC.  Ed & Laurie also work as Mid-Island reps for Tapestry Music while enjoying making music in retirement. You can find Ed’s other writings for the MusicED Blog at: https://www.tapestrymusic.com/news.aspx   If you are not receiving these articles regularly and would like to, please send an email to [email protected] to join our email contact list!    

The Ultimate Concert Band Instrumentation Ed Dumas  Over the many years that I have attended the BC Music Educators Association Convention, I have heard many times about the need to balance the instrumentation as you are developing a concert band program. At the same time, these great presenters have also talked of the need to have an idea in mind of what excellent concert band instrumentation looks like. Without this vision, it is hard to work towards successful instrumentation if you are not sure what you want in instrumentation. In this article, I will present my personal Ultimate Concert Band instrumentation and the reasons behind it. I will also present some ideas on how you can encourage the balanced growth of your program that helps to lead toward your ultimate concert band. Please understand that the choices made here represent my vision, and are only presented to encourage you to develop your own ideas of an “Ultimate” concert band. Also please understand that this vision is not and was not intended to be used to discourage students from participating. It is only intended as a personal dream to help illuminate preferences of instrument choices, which may help balance a band program starting in the first year of playing. Teachers are encouraged to develop their dream band to guide their work with students. Size of Band My ultimate concert band is fairly large at about 62+ players. While this is a substantial number, understand that this is not out of a desire for a more powerful sound. That of course will naturally come with so many players, but the downside with such a large group is that it may also be not as precise and clean sounding as a smaller group. Dynamics will also tend to soar into the “constantly loud” range, so this would need to be worked on as well. Yet, the real advantage of a group this size is the variety of instrumentation that is available from such a large group and the more complete harmonies that this group can perform. There is also plenty of numbers dedicated to some larger sections, especially in the woodwinds, which provides ample room for balance within the section. So, let's have a look at my dream band. Woodwinds In the woodwind section, let's begin with the flutes, where I would have only 5 players. These would be two first flutes, two second flutes, and one piccolo. The reason that this section is quite small is that flute is a very powerful instrument. Fifteen flute players playing the instrument properly could easily dominate a large concert band and completely throw the balance of the entire group out of whack. Potentially it could take a dozen tuba players to be heard under 15 strong flute players, so my preference would be for fewer at only five, or maybe three if they are very strong players. Piccolo is so powerful that one player can completely dominate the entire concert band all alone, and this has been demonstrated to me many times with adults. Having more than one piccolo player at a time makes little to no sense, so when more than one person wants to play the part, this will need to be shared, but certainly not doubled. Have I ever turned away a flute player? No, of course not. I have even had sections of 15 or more, but it is not something that I have consistently aimed for. More often than not, though, I have had smaller flute sections which have aimed toward my ideal by encouraging larger numbers in other areas. In contrast to a smaller flute section, I have encouraged a much larger clarinet section. My ultimate would be a clarinet section of 18 players, which seems excessive until you hear the sound. The clarinet sound is much more blending than the flute, so larger numbers are warranted. Now of those 18 players, I would have three firsts, six seconds, and nine third players. This distribution in the clarinet section would allow the middle and bottom clarinet parts to come out into a glorious warmth that would be wonderful to hear. One of the three lead players could be moved onto Eb clarinet if the part is required for a particular score. Two of the third players could also be moved onto Eb Alto Clarinet if the score requires it. In addition to the 18 clarinet players, I would also want two players on the bass clarinet to provide that same warmth to the bottom clarinet sound. If the instrument is available, and if the music calls for it, having a player on Contrabass Clarinet is also a wonderful addition. If added infrequently, one of the 18 could provide this part. For double reeds, I would prefer to have two oboe players and two bassoon players. Having four in the double reeds section gives some strength to those delicate sounds in a larger band. It also provides some numbers of players for the scores that require English Horn. For example, Where Never Lark Nor Eagle Flew written by James Curnow calls for a double reed trio of oboe, English horn and bassoon, and this trio performs a soli which is completely exposed with virtually no other sounds underneath. It is a most gorgeous sound if the instrumentation is available. In contrast to the very large clarinet section, I would prefer to have a smaller sax section of only 5 players. These would be two altos, two tenors and 1 baritone sax. Sax is a very powerful instrument that if not played carefully can completely dominate an entire large band. Most concert band scores have two alto sax parts and only one each of tenor and baritone sax. Having the extra player, though, again provides some flexibility for those times when something different is asked for. Most of the time during my career my sax sections have been larger than five, but not by substantial numbers. Keeping the target in my head has helped encourage other alternatives with students when faced with the real possibility of “out of control saxes.” As an example, many sax players also have played clarinet somewhere along the way, and when faced with a section of 15 players, some would consider playing clarinet in concert band instead of sax. This is especially true if they were offered a spot in the jazz band on sax so that they could still have some exposure to the instrument. Many students choose to not play in the jazz band when it is offered outside of the timetable, and this reality can be used to balance off large sax sections to create a better blending sound. Offering the jazz band sax spot to a clarinet player on sax helps to keep everyone happy including the band director. Brass As for trumpet, I have seen lately many trumpet sections of an extremely meagre one or two players which is completely inadequate. Despite the trumpet being one of the most powerful wind instruments, my ultimate section would have 8 players, as quite often in the traditional repertoire five parts need to be covered. These include first, second, and third cornet, and first & second trumpet. I would have two players each on the cornet parts, and one player each on the two trumpet parts. For the more modern works that include only three trumpet parts, I would have two firsts, three seconds and three thirds. So for the trumpet section, the issue is not one of creating power, but rather of having enough players to cover all of the harmonies adequately. Note that when there are fewer parts called for, place larger numbers of trumpet players on the bottom parts to balance out the section sound. As for the French horn, the standard four players are still preferred. In the more traditional wind band works, often four harmony parts are required. In some of the more modern creations, fewer parts are often written such as two or even one horn part. For these, doubling is acceptable as it would help project a valuable sound above the band. For the trombone, I would prefer six players for similar reasons. In traditional works where three parts are usually provided, this would allow two players per part. Or the six could be divided into one first, two seconds and three thirds if the bottom trombone part needs some reinforcement. For more modern works that provide fewer trombone parts, having six players would provide an opportunity for more doubling and projection. This is especially true for young trombone players that need more time to develop their skills. Having more players would also provide some flexibility in those charts that ask for more variety of instrumentation, such as bass trombones. For euphonium, my dream band would have two players. This is a powerful instrument that easily “floats” above the band, so realistically one player is adequate. Having the second player, though, provides some flexibility again in the event of more unusual instrumentation requests, or the need to reinforce other parts such as the trombone or tuba. On tuba, I would have a minimum of two solid players, but would happily always accept another if offered. Considering that the band should tune to the tuba’s foundational pitch and should never play louder than the tuba section, having more tuba players provides a larger dynamic range for the entire band. Remember, though, that my reason for the larger concert band was the need to hear all of the instrument possibilities, and not necessarily to create a louder sound. Still, having more tuba players would certainly be welcome. I would also add to the tuba section two upright acoustic string bass players. Note that these bass players would be non-amplified. Once again, if offered another string bass player, I would happily accept to also gain the strength of the lower sounds. Note also that these are upright acoustic string bass players and not electric bass players. I am not a fan of the electric bass in concert bands for many reasons. This includes the simple fact that the electric bass is electric and creates a sound which is not very compatible with the rest of the acoustic sounds in the group. The electric bass is also limited in the sounds it can create because it has frets. These frets mean that the bass player cannot adjust the pitch up or down slightly as is often required by acoustic players. This lack of adjustment ability means that the electric bass is limited to only being able to play within the Mean-Tone Tuning system, and cannot play True Tuning. In higher-level bands, this can be very limiting to everyone else in the band. Finally, electric bass does not use a bow, which means it cannot sustain a pitch in the same way that acoustic basses can. Without a bow, the electric bass is also extremely limited in its ability to play dynamics as acoustic basses can. For me, the acoustic bass is the preferred instrument for concert bands, not the electric bass. The trade-off for serious bass players was that learning to play acoustic upright bass in a concert band opened a door for them to play the electric AND acoustic bass in a jazz band. For swing charts in jazz bands, the acoustic is preferred without the bow, but for rock and Latin music, the electric bass is usually preferred. Over the years, I have never had a problem convincing students to learn the upright acoustic bass instead of the electric. In fact, in my last year before retirement, the real problem was not having enough basses for the SIX people that wanted to play it in the senior band when I only had three instruments. We ended up resolving it successfully, but this is a far better problem than six electric bass players in a senior concert band! Percussion In the percussion section, my preference is for six players broken down into snare drum, bass drum, tympani, two mallets, and auxiliary percussion. For works that require more parts, especially auxiliary percussion, players can be temporarily borrowed from other larger sections such as woodwinds. I have found over the years that many wind players enjoy playing an auxiliary percussion part infrequently when it is required. Note that in a school setting, I don’t think it is wise to have a single person dedicated to only one percussion instrument, such as a bass drum, for all arrangements. Since school students are not professionals and cannot dedicate themselves the same way, it is better for student progress that they all have a good understanding of all the critical areas of the percussion section. Therefore, all percussionists should be competent in snare drums and mallets as the central two components of percussion. From there, all percussionists can then branch out into bass drum, tympani, and auxiliary percussion as required. Later after secondary education, any students who choose to study music further can dedicate themselves to a more defined percussion role in post-secondary studies if they choose to do so. Developing Your Ultimate Concert Band Let’s be clear right from the start. I have never achieved my ultimate concert band. We are, after all, dealing with amateur school students in a music program that is extremely limited in terms of both time and money. The point of this exercise is not to be expected to live up to this quite artificial standard, to say the least. The point of the exercise is to help illustrate where you want to go with your program to guide instrumentation decisions by both you and your students. For example, if you have two beginning-level band classes, and each class has a dozen or so students that are interested in playing flute, you might want to talk to them about your ultimate concert band so that they understand that 24 flutes in the grade 9 band is not a desirable thing! At the same time, you might want to talk to the students about encouraging clarinet where larger numbers are preferred. Here is how I would approach it. I would suggest to the flute players that the flute is a very challenging instrument and that it requires students that are okay with “sticking out” above the band. These flute players will also need to have a fair amount of drive to keep going at the beginning when the flute is its toughest. Many flute players quit in the beginning months just for a lack of stick-to-it-ive-ness. Maybe clarinet is better for them instead of quitting. In the beginning-level band class, I would encourage clarinet a LOT. A bigger clarinet section is a gorgeous sound, and you can win over many players by telling them that you love the clarinet section. I truly do love the sound of clarinet in the bottom octave! At the same time, I have also limited alto sax in first-year groups just because the numbers can drift WAY too high which can completely destroy an upper-level band in a few years. When I taught in Maple Ridge, our job was to service the secondary school band program plus the surrounding elementary band classes which fed into the secondary band. This meant that I would have usually 3 or 4 elementary beginning classes to teach along with the secondary program, and sometimes as many as 5! If each one of those elementary classes created 5 sax players, we could easily create a band with 20 to 25 sax players in one band grade in future years, which would destroy any hope of balancing the band sound. The answer that most students were happy to live with was that for the first year, all the students who wanted sax would start on clarinet. Then after a year or so, the best two who wanted to transfer to sax would be allowed to do so. I would also explain that “not this year” does not mean “never.” This was especially so when discussion of the jazz band in secondary school would come up because many students would play clarinet or flute in concert band and sax in the jazz band. It seemed to me that many students liked and wanted the idea of learning to play a second instrument. Interestingly, though, when I look back on my best jazz band years, I can see that the best sax sections had most of the players doing a second instrument in concert band class and were not the players who only did sax throughout their time in the program. Moving on to the brass, I always found it best to encourage a fair number of trumpet players in beginning classes. These players could then branch out into French horn in later years if there were too many trumpets. Some might also be interested to move into low brass if there were too many trumpets, and this shift is relatively easy to accomplish. In the same way, I would also encourage trombones in the beginning years, and even euphonium if the instruments were available. I usually did not start students on tuba just because of the size issue of starting younger and smaller students on an instrument that was too large and heavy. With a larger number of trombone and euphonium players, though, convincing students later to move to tuba was usually not a problem. The electric bass was never an option in my concert band classes, but students who wanted it were shown a plan to work towards upright acoustic bass when they were a little bigger after a year or two. This plan would have them start on trombone or euphonium to learn reading bass clef so that the start on acoustic bass was less of a shock. These students were also shown how electric bass is used in jazz bands and were usually fine with the idea of waiting for later but doing it better by being better prepared for it. One more thought about electric bass in concert bands. I have usually found that bands that use electric bass have a shortage of tuba players and acoustic string bass players. Many teachers use the shortage of tuba and upright bass as a reason to have electric bass. From my experience, I think the reverse is more true. That is, programs that use electric bass end up discouraging tuba and acoustic bass, because who needs tuba when you can just crank up the amp a little more? Whatever instrumentation hole that might be found in my concert bands, I have usually allowed the space to remain and not cover it over with a different compromising instrument. Then, I would present the vision that I am looking for, and surely some students would get inspired to take up the opportunity. For example, if we were short on tuba players, I would find a fun piece of music that features the instrument and play the recording. Sure enough, some students would now want to take it on. Finally, in percussion, my only prerequisite was that percussionists needed to be able to read music notation before beginning in percussion. This was because, in my early years, I was seeing a substantial loss of percussionists who found the task too difficult to master notation while also mastering the skill required to play the percussion instruments. This reality was compounded by the problem of a long note, such as a whole note, on a snare drum sounding the same as a quarter note, or any other note length for that matter. They were all just “tick,” and for some students, this meant they could not grasp duration in percussion, and by extension could not master counting in percussion. Piano students who wanted to play in the percussion section would have no problem. For others who were not piano students, giving them a year on a wind instrument first would solve the problem of duration in percussion, and I would end up with more accomplished percussionists. Most often those students were happy to make that bargain, and I was happy to have good percussionists so would keep a spot open for them for later. Your Ultimate Vision Now I have described in great detail my vision for an ultimate concert band because this has steered the development of my band programs, even if we never officially created this band exactly as listed. I do remember, though, one year when my senior concert band had 15 clarinet players who were reasonably well accomplished on the instrument. This was close enough to the vision of 18 that it was glorious how it so warmed up the entire band's sound. The important aspect for the reader is to develop your vision of your ultimate concert band sound. You may disagree with my choices, and of course, that is just fine. But do you have a good reason for encouraging different numbers in the various sections? If you can explain to students what your vision is, they are more likely to agree with changes that you might suggest. This is especially so when you are providing a “long vision” to them such as doing clarinet for one year before going into percussion, and then sticking to your word when they are ready to switch. If your long vision is consistent, the students will understand and go along with it. For young teachers just beginning, start gathering recordings of great bands which you can present to your students to illustrate your vision. There are many great examples around, such as the Tokyo Kosei, The Eastman Wind Ensemble, North Texas University Winds, and so on. Many of the US military bands, which are some of the best in the world, have mailing lists for anyone who would like to receive free CDs of their latest recordings, and they don’t seem to have a problem with mailing them outside of the US borders. And of course, YouTube today provides an excellent resource where the students can SEE as well as hear the various bands. This means you can immediately get into discussions of the differing instrumentation, and how these differences change the kind of sound presented to the audience. Finally, attend plenty of local performances with and without students to help define your vision of a great concert band. Play in local adult community groups, and attend the Tapestry Music reading clinic in the summer. All of the exposure to concert band repertoire will just continue to help you develop your dream, and therefore your school program as well.       Ed Dumas is a retired band director who taught his entire career in the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows School District. Ed is now retired and living with his lifelong partner Laurie, and their little dog Sprocket in Parksville, BC. Ed & Laurie also work as Mid-Island reps for Tapestry Music while enjoying music in retirement. You can find Ed’s other writings for the MusicED Blog at: https://www.tapestrymusic.com/news.aspx   If you are not receiving these articles regularly and would like to, please send an email to [email protected] to join our email contact list!  

Teaching Intonation in Concert Band – Part 2 Ed Dumas In Teaching Intonation in Concert Band – Part 1, I offered some suggestions on how to convince your band students that adjusting their intonation of pitches was important while they are playing their instrument. At the end of that article, I offered a free set of short recordings of Happy Birthday done in various tuning systems that will help you to convince your students that concern for intonation is important. If you did not yet receive a copy of the Happy Birthday Tuning Systems from me, it is not too late to ask! Have a read here of the Part 1 article for a review of how to encourage students to value better intonation and how to ask for your copy of the Happy Birthday recordings. In part 2, I would like to offer a few suggestions and exercises on how you can begin to teach your students better intonation. Once you begin this process, I am sure you will find or create plenty of other great strategies for your students, but some that I offer here might help you begin this process if you have not already done so. Pitch Tendencies of Wind Instruments All students should begin by becoming familiar with the pitch tendencies of their instrument, and how to compensate for these problems. In the article The Six Percent Rule, I explained how it is nearly impossible to build a wind instrument that stays in tune for all pitches in all registers due to problems of physics. Students, then, should know roughly which notes they will need to adjust for when playing their instrument to not “Leave it to chance.” For example, most band teachers are quite familiar with the difficulties of trumpet on their low D and low C#. These two notes are so significantly incorrect that it is noticeable to anyone listening, even with minimal musical training. Standard practice is that trumpet players are repeatedly told to use their third slide trigger to compensate for these design problems. Some student trumpet players will choose to not use the trigger despite knowing about the problem, but few deny the existence of the problem. The solution for these trumpet players, then, is one of motivation. All other wind players should know that similar problems exist on their instruments as well. An excellent source of information for pitch tendencies for all wind instruments is the concert band technique book Superior Bands in 16 Weeks by Quincy Hilliard and Deborah Sheldon, published by FJH Music. The section titled Pitch Tendencies of Wind Instruments goes into great detail about the many challenges faced by all wind players. This section includes detailed information for flutes, clarinets, oboe, bassoon, saxes, trumpet, horn, trombone, euphonium and tuba. Each instrument section shows which pitches on that instrument tend to blow sharp and which tend to blow flat, as well as the possible solutions to correct that pitch placement while the student is playing. I have found this section to be useful to help reinforce to students the need to listen and adjust single pitches while playing, and that simply “tuning” once in a class is not sufficient. I would encourage band teachers to invest in a class set of Superior Bands in 16 Weeks as a good place to begin working on better pitch placement. Foundations for Superior Performance – Chorales and Tuning Exercises My second suggestion would be to investigate the series Foundations for Superior Performance by Richard Williams and Jeff King, published by Kjos. The third section titled Chorales and Tuning Exercises is simply brilliant for teaching students better pitching and is worth a close examination by all teachers interested in better intonation for their bands. In this section, the tuning exercises and chorales are provided in various keys, much like the scale studies earlier in the book. Similar tuning exercises are provided for each key so that as teachers move between the various keys in scale studies, they can also work on the tuning exercises in that key as well. The only challenge here that I have found is that the tuning exercises and chorales are not provided in all the same keys as the scale studies, and this is especially so for the minor keys. The first tuning exercise used in the Foundations for Superior Performance book is called Interval Tuning. In this exercise, the band is divided into two groups, with the first group holding a pitch on the tonic note of the scale being studied. While the first group holds the tonic pitch, the second group moves up to the third of the scale, holds it, and then moves back down to the tonic. In the next two measures, the upper group strikes the tonic again then moves up to the fourth and back down to the tonic while the lower group holds the tonic pitch of the scale. The last two measures complete this activity with the upper group moving up to the fifth and back down again with the lower group still holding the tonic pitch of the scale. Asking the students to complete this activity helps them develop better placement for the intervals of a major third, a perfect fourth, and a perfect fifth. Switching parts in the group allows all students an equal chance to practice this skill of note placement. The next two exercises help students further develop this pitch placement by changing the lower note from the tonic of the scale to the fourth and then the fifth. Each time the lower note is changed, the upper group practices first placing a major third above the new note, and then a perfect fifth above the new note. From there, students can move from the tonic pitch together to a full major chord, and then back to the tonic pitch. Again, asking students to switch parts will help them all develop interval placement equally. Following the tuning exercises is typically a chorale or two where students can practice and demonstrate better pitch placement in action. These tuning exercises and chorales are offered in many keys, both major and minor. This section of Foundations for Superior Performance is worth the price of the book by itself. My only criticism of the book is that I wish that the chorales and tuning exercises were offered in all keys as some are missing, though once students and teachers have learned the patterns of tuning exercises, at least that much can be quickly created by students and teachers without the written page. Frank Batista’s Key Circle Tuning Exercise The next suggestion I have for you to help improve your band’s intonation placement is one that came from Frank Batista, a renowned conductor and educator of wind groups. I believe the article where I read this came from “Teaching Music Through Performance In Band” which is an extremely valuable resource for wind band teachers. There are numerous volumes of this series, and besides analysis of band compositions, each volume offers helpful articles from great educators. In his article in Teaching Music Through Performance In Band, Frank Batista describes an exercise using the key circle that all bands can do to help develop better intonation across the band. Teachers who try this activity will likely need in the beginning to have a key circle copied and handed out to all students. Start by asking the students to play one note at a time moving around the key circle. Don’t forget that your students will need to know their transposition so that when you suggest starting on say, concert Bb, they will know where to begin on the key circle for their instrument. Once they have all found their correct first placement, give them a downbeat for each position moved to the right. The students will then begin in concert pitch through: Bb – F – C – G – D – A – E – B(Cb) – F#(Gb) – C#(Db) – Ab – Eb – Bb. Go slow enough that students have enough time to find the correct pitch before moving on. Move them entirely around the key circle and end on the pitch you started on. Once students can do this exercise without getting lost, you can then begin to use the key circle for intonation. Frank Batista’s intonation exercise would now have the band divided into two groups. One group will play the tonic of a chord, while the other will play the third. Assuming you start on Bb again, that would then be Bb and D. Don’t forget to adjust for transposition. Ask your students to be responsible for their transposition so that you speak in one common pitch to your entire class. It is much easier for them to translate this for themselves than it is for you to translate that concert pitch for every instrument, especially in the middle of an exercise! Now with the two groups playing a major third from wherever they started on the key circle, they should be able to move one position to the right to travel around the key circle once again. This time, though, they will be producing major thirds all the way around. Just like in the Foundations for Superior Bands book, this exercise can be repeated for perfect fourths and perfect fifths. You can also switch parts so that all players can feel what playing the third above is like and has an opportunity to try placing it in tune. You can also move to the left around the circle for variety. The next step will be to split the band into three groups and try moving around the circle in chords. Assuming you start on the Bb chord, the first three pitches would be Bb, D, and F. Assign one group to each pitch and remind students again to adjust for transposition as necessary. Try to have some bass instruments in each group to always provide the chord foundation. After the students then find their pitch on the circle, you can test if everyone is in the correct place by having them play the first chord. If that is correct, each downbeat will move the three groups together one position to the right where the next major chord will be created. Now the challenge is to make each major chord as in tune as the last one, regardless of the tonic pitch of the chord. The first time that I tried Frank Batista’s exercise as described here, I was utterly floored at how much it helped my students feel what it was like to play in tune! After running the key circle in major chords, we then blew through some slow chordal work that the students were already familiar with. It was immediately performed with such improvement in tuning that it just took my breath away and gave me shivers. I knew that I was on to something important, thanks to Frank Batista! Now I must admit that getting even just this far did take some work. We needed to practice going around the circle in unison for a while first. If the students cannot play around the key circle in unison error-free they certainly will not be able to do it in chords! I even ended up assigning the “Once Around the Circle” as a little play test just to make sure that everyone was practicing this and had it figured out. Once they did, though, then working on the chord tuning was so much easier. A last couple of thoughts on Frank Batista’s exercise using the key circle. Once the students have mastered the major chord, do not stop there! Give them the structure of a minor chord, and have them learn to travel around the circle playing all minor chords now in tune. You can also start doing larger chords as well, such as dominant seventh and diminished chords with 4 groups. You can even get into all sorts of jazz chords, depending on how much time you want to spend on this exercise. I found that doing a few minutes of this per day was sufficient to just get the students to start thinking about pitch placement more carefully. The second thing that you should know about Batista’s exercise is that his students were asked to learn to do this exercise from memory. The idea of memorizing the key circle is that then the students will not focus on what their eyes see, but rather on what their ears hear. IF your students can memorize the key circle, they will surely be more focused on pitch placement. BUT, this might be a big ask for younger students. Maybe once they have worked at going around the circle for a bit, you can try incorporating some memorization work here. Remember, though, that doing it all in one day will not work. Rather this is something that you should spend just a couple of minutes on in each class and let it build up over time. Just Intonation Chord Tuning Chart Now, I have one more suggestion for you that you can combine with the first two suggestions. On the internet, you will find plenty of examples of a “Just Intonation Chord Tuning Chart.” This is a chart which outlines to musicians how the pitches of each chord should be adjusted to place that chord into “True Tuning.” Referring back to Part 1 of Teaching Intonation in Concert Band, remember that pitches need to be adjusted either up or down depending on the key that you are playing in at that moment. For example, a Db played as the third in the key of Bb will sound a little bit different than a Db played as the tonic pitch in the key of Db. While students will see the pitch the same way in print, they need to learn to play them ever so slightly differently depending on the setting. In the beginning, we can show them on a page how to make some of these differences, while later they will begin to internalize these changes without constantly thinking about it. Instead, they will learn to listen and feel. Here is an example of the changes that are required to a major chord to move it from Equal-Tempered Tuning to True Tuning. In a major chord, the third of the chord should be dropped 14 cents, which equates to 14 percent of a half step of a scale. This is a fairly substantial drop in pitch. The fifth of the chord would also be raised 2 cents, which is a very small change. Before you begin Frank Batista’s key circle exercise, try asking your students to play for you the starting major chord with the group on the third pulling down a fair bit and the group on the fifth lifting ever so slightly. Listen closely to get everyone working at bringing this chord into true tuning. Change the players on the third so that each group can feel what it is like to pull the third down. You can even start with a small group of only a few players to eliminate as much “out-of-tune-ness” as possible in the beginning. Following that you can add students while striving to keep the chord tuning intact. Mention to students the idea of listening while playing to “make the beats go away.” That is a reference, of course, to the conflict waves of “out-of-tune-ness.” Bringing It All Together Now once the students can play and feel that first major chord in tune, you can begin moving around the key circle to get them all to play in tune. The group on the thirds will need to recognize for each chord how much they need to pull down to adjust for True Tuning. In the same way, you can use the Just Intonation Chord Tuning Chart to help you and your students find better tuning in the Foundations for Superior Bands tuning exercises. Now in the Foundations exercises you can remind students that the third should be pulled down some and the fifth lifted very slightly for each key of those exercises. Don’t forget that the Just Intonation Chord Tuning Chart does not begin and end on major chords. There are adjustments listed for major, minor, sixths, dominant sevenths, diminished and augmented chords. You can use all of these various Just Intonation Adjustments on the complex chords while your students travel around the key circle in Frank Batista’s exercise. Remember, though, that all of those adjustments are made in reference to Equal Tempered Tuning, and not necessarily in reference to the pitch tendencies of all band instruments. When students begin examining the pitch tendencies of their instrument in conjunction with True Tuning on chords, now they will find that they are beginning to get somewhere with intonation. For example, if trumpet players are playing a Db on their instrument as the third of a chord, they will need to doubly drop that pitch – once for the trumpet’s problem with physics, and once again to find the correct placement of the third of the chord! All of these challenges become somewhat of a large and complex listing of the thousands of combinations and permutations of adjustments that need to be made while in performance, and these can leave students quite bewildered about “getting it all covered.” Like any complex problem that students face, they soon want to simplify it so that it can become manageable with a minimum of effort. What is this solution that the students quickly adopt to lessen their workload with all of the tuning problems they need to overcome? THEY START TO LISTEN, and this is exactly what you wanted in the first place! If you would like a PDF copy of the Just Intonation Chord Tuning Chart, please send me an email at [email protected], and I will be happy to send it along to you.     Ed Dumas is a retired band director who taught his entire career in the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows School District. Ed is now retired and living with his lifelong partner Laurie, and their little dog Sprocket in Parksville, BC. Ed & Laurie also work as Mid-Island reps for Tapestry Music while enjoying music in retirement. You can find Ed’s other writings for the MusicED Blog at: https://www.tapestrymusic.com/news.aspx   If you are not receiving these articles regularly and would like to, please send an email to [email protected] to join our email contact list!