--- On Mon, 5/4/09, Steve Freides <[email protected]> wrote: > From: Steve Freides <[email protected]> > Subject: [Hornlist] New Amsterdam Brass Band and the Tenor Horn > To: "The Horn List" <[email protected]> > Date: Monday, May 4, 2009, 4:30 PM > Folks, I want to tell you about a > fantastic brass band concert I heard > last night, and also ask a few questions. > > The group was the New Amersterdam Brass Band - their web > site isn't > much, and at the moment the home page shows the info for > last night's > concert: http://www.newamsterdambb.com > > To give any of you metro-NYC players an idea of the caliber > of the > group, Jason Ham sat second on the euphonium and Aaron > Vanderweele sat > first - I think Aaron's solo playing was the best I have > ever heard on > the euphonium. The featured soloist was trumpeter > Allan Vizzutti, and > he did not disappoint. The sound, the feel of > listening to this group > is something I'm actually having a hard time putting into > words, but > it was just fantastic. > > Of great interest to me was the instrumental makeup of the > band, so I > ask your indulgence, since I am still relatively new to the > world of > brass instruments, in answering a few questions. > > 1) Why were there only cornets and not > trumpets? The cornets all had > the funny bend the tubing that I know is part of > traditional cornet > design although I also know that not all cornets are now > made that > way. Cornets are the British tradition in brass bands. Their benefits over the trumpet are more flexibility and a better tutti blend. However I have big problems with their so-called lyric vibrato sound, which becomes boring to me. > > 2) There were both euphoniums and baritones. The > group totalled about > 30 players, and had the above-mentioned two euphonium > players plus two > baritones (played by Emilee Bennett and Barry Morrison, > neither name > familiar to me). I found this article on the > difference between the > two instruments: http://www.dwerden.com/eu-articles-bareuph.cfm - and > that seems to cover the issue pretty well, but I would > appreciate > knowing one more thing - does someone who really knows the > difference > between these two instruments write differently for > them? I"m > guessing, based on what I've read, that a baritone might > play slightly > higher and/or lighter parts. > The euph is one of the 3 principal soloists (cornet and trombone being the others). The baritone is lighter and better suited for playing less dominant inner parts in harmony with thee alto horns. > Is the 4th valve something like the thumb trigger of a > double French > Horn? (And, if so, what pitch does it take the instrument > up or down > into?) > The 4th valve on the side acts like the switch valve on a compensating double horn, which is pitched exactly like a euphonium. It rarely makes sense to use the F side of the euph where in-tune notes are available on the Bb side, but the selection of trill fingerings is much enhanced by the availability of the F side. Baritones most often have 3 compensated valves. Without too many details: they are 2 valve compensating instruments in Bb and G. > 3) There were no French Horns, but something called a > Tenor Horn > which seemed, more or less, to play in French Horn > register. A bit > more online research and I learn that this is also known as > an Alto > horn - I have been given Alto horn parts to play, > especially marches > when playing in a band. Is this the instrument a > French Horn player > would play in such a band? I imagine it's a bit of a > transition to > make, as it's fingered right-handed. Using the right or the left hand makes no real difference. > The alto/tenor horn appears to be an Eb instrument - do > they make > these in F, too? And do they make 4-valve models? > British alto horns (actually called Tenorhorns there according to Adolphe Sax’s nomenclatura for his Saxhorn family) always are in Eb as the altos of the CW and Sousa eras used to be. Before the upcoming of the marching mellophone, US makers made bell front dual pitch F/Eb alto horns for school bands to use on the marching fields. They often have lost their Eb insertion tubing when sold on eBay these days. They could be played via alto horn mouthpieces with a stem like that of the trumpet mouthpieces or via horn mouthpieces placed in adapters. Very old alto horns sometimes had 4 valves, but that feature appears to be extinct by now. Advanced models have a trigger on the main tuning slide to clean up the tuning of fingerings 1+3 and 1+2+3. > Thanks much in advance. > > -S- Klaus, who owns a compensated 3 valve baritone, a comp 3+1P euph, compensated 3+1P tubas in F (very rare), Eb, and BBb, plus 5 different Eb alto horns, only one of them compensated (Boosey 1896) _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
