The Ultimate Concert Band Instrumentation (1/25/2023)

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

 

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