perennial community-band down-an-octave players

[windshieldbug]

Vaughan Williams' ride of Bydlo's fountains.

John Vaughan Williams' Ride of Bydlo's Fountains Amaya

[doublebuzzing]

And then let us not forget those players in the warm-up/waiting room at orchestral auditions playing the most dizzying, loud, high, low, technical stuff imaginable. Hear what Phil Smith says about these people at around 37:30: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2Z1qlpU6DU" target="_blank

[Billy M.]

Vaughan Williams' ride of Bydlo's fountains.

John Vaughan Williams' Ride of Bydlo's Fountains Amaya

Must've been revised. Ah well, better get to practicin' so I ain't gotta do that at an elephant room next year.

[southtubist]

I'm too classy to blast excerpts or tuba solos (other than Capriccio) before a rehearsal. Playing trumpet excerpts is what true virtuosos do!

Seriously though, I can't stand it when the conductor wants us to play full volume in a last minute dress rehearsal. Especially when the rehearsal is 3 hours long, with a short break before a 2 hour concert. . . I quit that group- getting too old and impatient for that.

Or, when you have a solo marked pianissimo, and the 50 strong woodwind section is permanently cranked up to 11. Whoops, there goes all my carefully rehearsed phrasing and dynamic contrast!

Gee, sometimes I, you know, maybe (?) want to get to a true pianissimo! Like, so quiet that people hold their breaths and sit on the edge of their seats!

[luke_hollis]

It is bad when it sticks out. When it blends and enhances, you don't notice. SO if it is a problem, it probably sticks out in tone or texture.

[PaulMaybery]

Over the generations of band playing, (back before 1900) adding a lower octave is not that unusual (Oops, this is about community bands - sorry)
However, in professional bands, it was an unwritten practice in Sousa's band to not only add a lower octave, but also an upper one as well. Please bear in mind this was not intended as a show-off trick, but rather a way of emphasising certain chords or passages, all in the days before EQ and reverb. I'm thinking of the ubiquitous diminshed 7th chord in the 11th bar of march melodies.

Back to the problem: I've played in, and conducted, enough community bands to understand that many of the players are compelled to show-off certain of their skills, while not in the best insterest of the music and/or the band. Heck even pros get a little 'frisky' now and then.

But like any "effect" or "embellishment" when it is used to excess it looses its effectiveness.
Probably one low and final pedal note is sufficient per concert.
Other octave doublings may have room for more frequent use.

But quite frankly I believe it is a "lost art" these days.

[Uncle Buck]

Did you mean to post the same YouTube link twice, or was the second link meant to be a different ("better than the previous") link.

I found the recording fascinating. One thing I'm completely ignorant of is whether, in 1890, the Marine Corp band attracted the same, comparative, top-tier talent that it attracts today. In other words, would we expect the Marine Corp band in 1890 to have played at a similar professional level to Sousa's touring band?

If so, and this was really as good as wind band playing ever got in 1890, then I think Joe's unanswerable question about what Sousa might think of today's performances is really interesting.

[PaulMaybery]

Did you mean to post the same YouTube link twice, or was the second link meant to be a different ("better than the previous") link.

I found the recording fascinating. One thing I'm completely ignorant of is whether, in 1890, the Marine Corp band attracted the same, comparative, top-tier talent that it attracts today. In other words, would we expect the Marine Corp band in 1890 to have played at a similar professional level to Sousa's touring band?

If so, and this was really as good as wind band playing ever got in 1890, then I think Joe's unanswerable question about what Sousa might think of today's performances is really interesting.

Its a very interesting question and there is some light to be shed upon it. Like in evaluating any performance there are factors that figure into it. How much preparation was planned, what were the conditions in the room, for instance accoustics and temperature. Were the musicians jammed into corners and were the recording megaphones effective in transcribing the sound. It was frequent practice in those early days to record on several machines simultaneously, say 5. If you needed 50 recordings, well then the band needed to play the piece 10 times. Was there a certain fatigue and or dispassion for the whole process? What we do know is that some of these players were phenomenal musicians, and I believe might even impress today's modern players.

It is well documented that Sousa had a distain for recording and out of the nearly 1000 recordings that the Sousa Band made, he only conducted on 6. and one was actually not his band.

Most of the RCA recordings were done in Camden, NJ at the RCA Studios. Members of the Philadelphia orchestra such as Saul Caston on Trumpet and Anton Horner on Horn were regulars. The RCA contract books still exist today. So it is fair to say, that not only was the recording band, not really his own, he was not even there conducting. In the later years when electronic microphones were finally introduced, and a master disk was produced for duplication the sound of the band seemed to improve.

It would certainly be fascinating to hear him with a 90 piece band such as he had when at the New York Hippodrome in the years after WWI. When the band was that large they frequently used 5 rain-catchers. (2 of the extra large and 3 of the jumbo size.) One can only imagine the sonority coming from the rear of the band. Were that band recorded with modern equipment, I believe it would impress most modern ears.

What is important to remember about recordings is that they only freese one moment in time. We should never assume it is anything more than that.

[Donn]

The recording I listened to there sounded like a small band, to me - I wasn't counting, but maybe two dozen or fewer.

[roweenie]

The earliest non-electric (before the invention of the microphone) recordings of the Sousa Band (and others) employed only a small percentage of the players that were used in the normal sized full ensemble (usually around 15 to 25 players, or so). The rudimentary recording technology of the day was incapable of capturing that volume of sound in an acceptable manner.

Many of the arrangements for these scaled-down ensembles were made by Arthur Pryor; he was a true pioneer in this regard. Not only did all the parts need to be covered by a smaller group, but longer selections needed to be edited to fit within the parameters of a record that could only run for, at most, four minutes. In fact, in 1909, he became a staff arranger and conductor for Victor, and pretty much gave up touring with his own band - most, if not all, of the recordings marked "Victor Military Band" are, in fact, the Pryor Band - they, in essence, became the "house band" for Victor.

As Paul said earlier, before the technology existed to make a master, each record was individual - for example, if you wanted 250 copies of a number, the band would be required to play the piece 25 times before 10 recording machines! Even later, when the ability to make a master was developed, the musicians would still spend an entire day cranking out dozens of recordings, oftentimes one on a part, with no one to "spell" them.

I've got to imagine that even the best musicians would start to fail under these circumstances.

[iiipopes]

What most of these jokers don't get is, if on the singular occasion it is appropriate to take the note(s) down an octave:
1) only one person gets the sub-octave. Everybody else must play the ink, or it will sound hollow and not support the band;
2) and this is counterintuitive: the sub-octave note must be played softer, not louder than the ink. I'm not going to waste bandwidth with a long dissertation about how overtones reinforce fundamentals and make them appear louder, please just take my word for it, or have one or more of the engineer members of the forum explain it.

One time a few years ago we were playing a medly of a famous broadway show, including a chorale section in concert D major. Everybody else played the ink D one ledger line and one space below the bass clef, and I got to play the sub-D below that. All I had to do was make sure it was in tune with clean intonation and soft dynamic. The hall picked it up, knitted everything together, and everything sounded like a huge pipe organ chord, perfectly in tune and balanced in tone.

Opposite example: when I was playing tuba with a small group, especially if the parts were written with divisi notes, I would often play the upper note to better knit the rest of the ensemble together and retain clarity and blend. (most common example - 2nd line Bb instead of below the staff BBb).

[Worth]

What most of these jokers don't get is, if on the singular occasion it is appropriate to take the note(s) down an octave:
1) only one person gets the sub-octave. Everybody else must play the ink, or it will sound hollow and not support the band;
2) and this is counterintuitive: the sub-octave note must be played softer, not louder than the ink. I'm not going to waste bandwidth with a long dissertation about how overtones reinforce fundamentals and make them appear louder, please just take my word for it, or have one or more of the engineer members of the forum explain it.

One time a few years ago we were playing a medly of a famous broadway show, including a chorale section in concert D major. Everybody else played the ink D one ledger line and one space below the bass clef, and I got to play the sub-D below that. All I had to do was make sure it was in tune with clean intonation and soft dynamic. The hall picked it up, knitted everything together, and everything sounded like a huge pipe organ chord, perfectly in tune and balanced in tone.

Opposite example: when I was playing tuba with a small group, especially if the parts were written with divisi notes, I would often play the upper note to better knit the rest of the ensemble together and retain clarity and blend. (most common example - 2nd line Bb instead of below the staff BBb).

The thing that gets under people's skin, I think, is the annoyance of the chronic offender without regard for the above, well thought out, musical points. Things get serious sometimes! I've heard the legend in one local community band of two 75+ year old euphonium players just about come to blows (certainly very nasty verbal altercation) because one always insisted on playing the cues without regard for coverage.

[Three Valves]

13 track recording.

Cool!!

[peter birch]

it was our bass trombone player who did this (too often) while our first trombone player plays up an octave.
In the orchestra I played with, we had commissioned a piece, it went well until I figured out that I was playing higher than the trombones and horns. I asked if this was correct, and he assumed that the tuba played an octave lower in the same way that the basses did. It might be the composers don't understand the range of the instrument, it might also be that with older compositions the tubas they had didn't have a 4th valve (noticeable when the music changes register during a descending scale), but I do believe that players should be encouraged to play what is written for them