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Get a set of Hungry Five in Germany books. A set of books include 1st clarinet, 2nd clarinet, trumpet, trombone, & tuba. Yes.... I have several sets if you would like to borrow the books for a bit.

Played in a German band once. The clarinet sound is essential. Suggest trumpet, flugelhorn, 2 clarinets, trombone or bari, and tuba. Accordian would be nice for polkas. Don't need any percussion, but bass drum is often used.
If you can find it, check out the old LP of the "Guckenheimer Sourkraut Band". The off-beat bass drum in "Under the Double Eagle" is hilarious.

I once had a four-piece group put together with tuba, trumpet, trombone, and drums....I would also recommend a clarinet....a pretty essential element.

Songs....here ya go....

The Chicken Dance
Pennsylvania Polka
Too Fat Polka
In Heaven There is No Beer
The Happy Wanderer
Hoop Di Do (sp)
Rosamunde/The Beer Barrel Polka
Muss I Denn
Who Stole the Keishka?
Under the Double Eagle
Ein Prosit (which you mentioned)
Hokey Pokey (you really can't go wrong there....hehehe)

I can't think of any others right now......but this should give you a good start. I think for our gig (it was for Opsail 2000 in Norfolk, VA), we had to arrange tunes FAST....so we used some midi files from the net and used them as a base to create palpable arrangements for the instrumentation we had. If you have any access to another source you would probably be better off, but the midis helped.

Speaking of help, I hope this did!!!

Take care and Good Luck!!

If you can find it, check out the old LP of the "Guckenheimer Sourkraut Band".

Ah, yes, my favorite LPs. I have two different records by this fine group and I still listen to them occasionally when I need an escape from serious music. Does anyone know if their "music" has been put on CDs, or even cassette tape? My turntable is almost as ancient as the records.

bloke wrote:Doing that stupid "Chicken (Bird, whatever) Dance" as it gets faster and faster...

The TubaMeisters version of the Chicken Dance follows the traditional pattern, except that it has a key change where the second tuba plays the melody very slowly with a lot of power. It's a reversal of the expected trend, and it works well to highlight what a tuba quartet is about.

For a general-purpose polka gig, you can get away with a tuba, accordian, and clarinet. Those are the three essential sounds, and I've done gigs with just that instrumentation. A tuba quartet is a novelty group, and it will be hard to sustain long sets unless you do a lot of schtick to go along with the music.

Rick "who suggests choosing the accordian player well" Denney

Lowdown wrote:I knew I could rely on you guys. Thank you.

I sent you a private email, but in case you didn't get it.... I sent you a set of Hungry Five in Germany booklets and several sets of other popular German tunes. You should have them early next week. I also sent a hand scrawled transcription of the infamous 'Dance Little Bird'... not a German tune at all, but highly popular with either kids of drunks! On the 'Chicken Dance', have the clarinets begin with the melody line... then the rest follow in. Otherwise, you'll have a heck of a time kicking it off.