Instrumentation 2/2

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Aug 4, 2017

Damned by faint praise

In about 1843, Hector Berlioz wrote in his famous Treatise on Instrumentation "The bass tuba possesses an immense advantage over all...

Aug 2, 2017

What mouthpiece do you play?

Most of the trumpet players I play with usually play C trumpet in public, so I used to write only C trumpet parts. But there was some...

Aug 1, 2017

With tinny blasts on tiny trumpets

The title of this entry is a portion of one of my favorite quotes (see below) by cartoonist Walt Kelly. Of course, this is not at all how...

Jul 31, 2017

Striving for balance with horns

Another curious Richard Strauss quote "If you can just barely hear the (French) horns on stage, the balance is perfect." Strauss clearly...

Jul 17, 2017

Why just 2 horns?

I only wrote about 5 charts using 4 horns early on for the Denver Brass. In 1988, at my urging Denver Brass went from 4 (or sometimes 3)...

Jul 16, 2017

Regarding instrumentation - Why 423.11?

I started writing brass arrangements while still in high school (late 70's) after first hearing the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble and...