At 6:17 PM -0500 1/14/07, Andrew Stiller wrote:
There is a huge amount of junk music out there, and the band has attracted more than its share. Things have been improving for a long time, thanks to the unsung efforts of innumerable fine bandmasters, but that does not mean there was never a problem, nor that it does not continue to exist.
I can't argue, because what you say is demonstrably true. But it also shows a personal filter or mindset that many classical musicians are brought up to have. Both bands and orchestras originated to provide, as one of their missions, entertainment. Orchestras, however, tended to provide entertainment for the upper classes (including their use in opera and ballet), and bands--especially military bands--for the middle and lower classes. Those disparate missions do show up in the music written for the different ensembles, which makes comparing their music realistically rather difficult.
Somebody else sneered at my mention of massed clarinets--the very idea!
I hope it wasn't me, although I did comment on it. Again, it's a matter of semantics. How many clarinets are in a mass? I wouldn't call a total of 20 clarinets divided into 3 sections massed. However, 20 clarinets in each of three sections I would.
Why, next I'll be claiming an orchestra has massed violins.
Orchestras have as many violins as are needed to balance the winds. That has always been true. Except in Broadway pits, of course.
I was asked what bands I might have encountered in which this phenomenon was exhibited. [snip] almost all the major and minor service bands--
Surely not the minor service bands, those assigned to individual posts, bases or ships. I believe the T.O. for those bands runs between 20 and 30 members. And the admittedly large premier service bands are usually broken down into numerous smaller ensembles. When I was in the USAF Band it was a squadron of about 300 musicians and support personnel, but the band itself was of modest size, and my unit was a 4-man ensemble. The others you cite are all educational bands.
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
