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Trends in horn writing.


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My issue with today's horn aranging trends is that it is technique for technique's sake. It has really spelled the death of melody for the most part. The mold one must fit into in order to be competative has little room for melodic development. The shows have become centered around visual development with musical accompanyment instead of the other way around. That is one reason I would rather watch BOA Grand Nationals than DCI finals. That is also the main reason I have grown to love Phantom so much over the last several years. They are one of the few corps that seem to take efforts to be sensitive to the melodic content of their genre. With so many modern corps, their shows seem to be a 13 minute brass technical study instead of a musical development and performance. I know it is old school, but I miss the days of the sanctity of a melodic line.

Just my opinion and I know that this view would not be a top 3 focal point.

Dan

I totally agree. There's just a lack of...drum corps in a lot of arrangements. Cool, you can triple-tongue. Why did you stop marching? Why did the percussion stop playing?

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...I feel like, more often than not, I am sitting watching a combination of an aerobics class and a brass methods workshop rather than a musical interpretation that stimulates my artistic sensabilities.

Dan

:thumbup:BINGO, We have a winner!

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Anyone notice how the checker board seems to change every several years in terms of brass writing trends. In the mid/late 90s pretty much through the mid 2000s, it was all about 16th note runs. Which arranger could out write the others with their running 16th note licks? And which hornlines could out perform all other hornline's runs? Lately, it seems like multi-tounging is the new trend (double and tripple tonguing). Corps still do runs of course but now the big contest is who can out articulate each other? Makes me wonder what the next new trend in brass arranging will be. Obviously, there is always going to be some of ALL of it (as there always has been a little of all of it in every time period), but it always seems like there is always one common trend that drives the time period.

Regardless of what the next new trend is, lets have some fun with this and talk about what our favorite multi-tonguing moments were of 2012. I know Crown had some great moments...a whole bunch in fact. Any others stick out?

If you want to here 16th note running licks check out 1970 Nisei Ambassadors. At World Open they took high brass while finishing 9th overall (Troopers won overall). They had something like 65 brass - real big back then- and many of their brass were valve-slide. Yet in the opener and a reprise during their finale, they are doing repeated 16th-note unison chromatics.

As one of their former members told me 'We {Nesei] had major problems [i.e., M&M ticks] when we started to move, but our horns were real good'.

Edited by IllianaLancerContra
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Tuba features beyond one measure; beyond a farting stinger; beyond non-readable garbage.

Real notes, covering all registers, for entire musical phrases.

Thank you, Doug Thrower, for bringing your own brand of "Concerto for Drum Corps."

Looks like Shaw will have to do some work now that he has yo...I mean Bob over there at SCV to teach their tubas. But yes, thank you Doug for showing me that tubas can play clean 16th note runs and in tune harmonics

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I don't really see the problem with technically impressive music in the drum corps idiom. There has always been a tremendous history of that in the western musical canon - think piano or violin concertos, or even solo music like Bach's Cello Suites or Violin Partitas. In fact, melodic writing and technical facility can and ought to be executed simultaneously, even if not necessarily by the same performer or section. There is no reason why the drum corps hornline texture has to be essentially homophonic - in fact, the polyphonic writing exemplified this past season by Carolina Crown and the Blue Devils really proved themselves to be far more intellectually interesting than the arrangements of some their competitors; while there is definitely a role for powerful emotional statements in drum corps, I believe there should also be one for powerful intellectual statements. If anything, even more technique, control, and balance would be highlighted by a hornline articulating both melodic content and technical facility simultaenously, and the talents of the best writers would be demonstrated by their ability to maintain clarity of voicing throughout.

tl;dr: triple-tongue while playing compound melodies; have the high brass triple-tongue while the low brass is playing melodic content, or vice versa; polyphony is both impressive and desirable

Edited by Veritaffle
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I don't really see the problem with technically impressive music in the drum corps idiom. There has always been a tremendous history of that in the western musical canon - think piano or violin concertos, or even solo music like Bach's Cello Suites or Violin Partitas. In fact, melodic writing and technical facility can and ought to be executed simultaneously, even if not necessarily by the same performer or section. There is no reason why the drum corps hornline texture has to be essentially homophonic - in fact, the polyphonic writing exemplified this past season by Carolina Crown and the Blue Devils really proved themselves to be far more intellectually interesting than the arrangements of some their competitors; while there is definitely a role for powerful emotional statements in drum corps, I believe there should also be one for powerful intellectual statements. If anything, even more technique, control, and balance would be highlighted by a hornline articulating both melodic content and technical facility simultaenously, and the talents of the best writers would be demonstrated by their ability to maintain clarity of voicing throughout.

tl;dr: triple-tongue while playing compound melodies; have the high brass triple-tongue while the low brass is playing melodic content, or vice versa; polyphony is both impressive and desirable

Agreed. But, there is playing AT the music and playing music. The two are completely different. To be fair MOST people that go to Drum Corps shows are not going to understand these concepts (polyphonic etc.). Music, if done properly, can move people whether they understand it or not. The difference between "meh" music and "great" music is whether or not it CAN do this.

FWIW, you are not going to see more control, balance and technique if all you do is play snippets and not carry a musical thought through to it's completion. Again, playing notes on the page is not always playing music and Arbans has a LOT of notes on pages. :thumbup:

Edited by Mello Dude
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I don't really see the problem with technically impressive music in the drum corps idiom. There has always been a tremendous history of that in the western musical canon - think piano or violin concertos, or even solo music like Bach's Cello Suites or Violin Partitas. In fact, melodic writing and technical facility can and ought to be executed simultaneously, even if not necessarily by the same performer or section. There is no reason why the drum corps hornline texture has to be essentially homophonic - in fact, the polyphonic writing exemplified this past season by Carolina Crown and the Blue Devils really proved themselves to be far more intellectually interesting than the arrangements of some their competitors; while there is definitely a role for powerful emotional statements in drum corps, I believe there should also be one for powerful intellectual statements. If anything, even more technique, control, and balance would be highlighted by a hornline articulating both melodic content and technical facility simultaenously, and the talents of the best writers would be demonstrated by their ability to maintain clarity of voicing throughout.

Quote from the mid 1990s, around the time of - 'Year of Audience Discontent' according to History of DC book.

"OK, you've impressed me with your playing.... how about entertaining me now" - person didn't go to shows for a number of years not long after that.

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