At 4:04 PM -0400 10/7/06, David W. Fenton wrote:
On 7 Oct 2006 at 13:40, Richard Smith wrote:
Some really good music by some respected composers is being written
for wind ensemble and many composition students are being advised that
the best way to hear one's music performed is to write for band, not
orchestra.
Are we talking about bands or wind ensemble?
Maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought there was a difference.
In theory there is. Fennell's original conception of a wind ensemble
was one player per part, but I don't know whether even he held to
that for his clarinet section. (I suspect there is someone here who
can answer that.) And of course the T.O. for most military bands
(although not the ones in D.C.) has slots that are basically for one
on a part, so Fennell's concept was not exactly a brand new one.
In practice (at the college level, at least), a wind ensemble is the
band with the best players in it, on the small side, but not
necessarily with only one on a part. (For one thing, with college
students one has to take into consideration the possibility of
illness or injury, and if 6 players are out sick you'd have 6 parts
not being covered. Choral directors have to deal with the same
practicalities, and since the weather around here started changing
the singers have been dropping like flies!)
At this school the wind ensemble is as I've described above, has very
fine players, and tackles serious musical challenges. The (huge!)
marching band breaks down after football season into a basketball pep
band and a large Symphony Band for those who want to keep playing
spring semester. Neither one is actually too bad.
Then there is the question of whether a jazz ensemble is properly
called a Jazz Orchestra or a Jazz Band, and the presence or absence
of strings seems to have nothing to do with it!
This school is also blessed (?) with a SECOND marching band, the
Corps of Cadets band, called the Highty Tighties. (No, I don't know
why, and neither does anyone else I've talked to, nor does anyone
know why we're known athletically as the "Hokies"!) The level of
playing varies from year to year, because basically anyone who joins
the Corps and plays a band instrument is assigned to the Band Company
unless they are also in one of the Music Department ensembles. They
have a tradition reaching back into pre-history, and an influential
cadre of alumni who kept them from being disbanded in the early '80s,
while our Marching Virginians was only founded in about 1974 or so.
But the Highty Tighties did something at about the turn of the
millennium that I thoroughly approved of. The University Pep Band
has traditionally supported the men's basketball team, but not the
women's. When our women started getting good and attracting some
notice, the Highty Tighties formed their own pep band to support the
ladies, and I was most impressed that they would do so.
None of which speaks directly to your question, David, but does sort
of underscore the true answer: It Depends!
John
--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
