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Corps moving to Bb sopranos from trumpets


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Yes.

I'm not trained in theory, but I figured out firsthand how skillful corps arrangers were before Bb when I tried to make Downey's arrangement of "When A Man Loves a Woman" work for brass in Bb and C. The lower voices don't come through nearly as powerfully. As much as people loved the shrieking high notes, the most distinctive difference in sound between G and Bb is the way basses and baritones penetrated the ensemble on instruments tuned so much higher.

I miss the sound of G horns from a few corps, but those instruments are beastly to play in tune, which is where a really good sound comes from regardless of instrumentation or venue. There were maybe 3-4 corps per year who could make it work, and it was in large part because of gifted arrangers like Downey and Prime. I think the overall brass sound in DCI was improved by the switch to Bb.

Since drum corps arrangers wrote specifically for the instrumentation, wouldn't they take advantage of the lower notes available to the G instrument?

Maybe not. IIRC from the late 70s/ early 80s there was a lot of F major (I'm guessing relative to concert G major as 'C major', then?) which was playable with two valves. I forget what else we played, but we were pretty limited. (I played baritone, but those facts would apply to soprano too, right?)

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I have always thought G bugles were pitched higher, as the length of tubing is shorter than a trumpet.

G Bugle

G%20Bugle_zps1absvmev.jpg

Trumpet

trumpet_zpslqkqolbh.jpg

Follow the wrap on the bugle and you'll see it leads from the mouthpiece forward, down and back almost to the player, then wraps tightly back to the valve block.

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Follow the wrap on the bugle and you'll see it leads from the mouthpiece forward, down and back almost to the player, then wraps tightly back to the valve block.

The best way to tell is to look at the length of tubing for the first and second valve. Clearly the lengths are longer on the G instrument. Many of my present fellow players thought that a mellophone in G was bigger than in F, but that is wrong - the F is longer than the G. The old G mellos were in fact just big bore and bell G bugles and had even worse tuning and intonation problems than the G bugles or trumpets.

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The best way to tell is to look at the length of tubing for the first and second valve. Clearly the lengths are longer on the G instrument. Many of my present fellow players thought that a mellophone in G was bigger than in F, but that is wrong - the F is longer than the G. The old G mellos were in fact just big bore and bell G bugles and had even worse tuning and intonation problems than the G bugles or trumpets.

Glassmen marched alto horns instead of mellos for most of my time there. In '95, their section shirt showed three alternate fingerings for the same note. The caption under each fingering was "Flat", "Flat", "Still Flat".

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I don't know about the other voices, but G sopranos are very visibly smaller than their Bb counterparts. They're pitched nearly an octave higher.

They are configured more like a cornet with more bends, making them appear smaller, but they are in fact larger and therefore a minor third lower than Bb trumpets.

As to the scoring seeming higher... the G horns had more flexibility in the the sounding upper registers but this is due to the instrument being pitched lower which allows for a closer harmonic series in the scored range of the horn. This is partly why all of the flashy "lip trill" work was much more common prior to the conversion to Bb.

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I went to world class corps last year to show my horn, the trumpet tech pulled out a mouth piece out of his Bach Strad case and played Hayden Concerto. I almost fell on the floor. I asked him to play a middle C with a fortissimo volume, but he couldn't do it. I had to show him what a old Drum Corps fortissimo was like. It hit me pretty hard realizing that today, a large number of the people working in drum corps have never seen or play a G bugle and they teach the line to sound like a nice concert band.

The G bugle is in a lower key. The G soprano is about 12" longer in piping than the Bb trumpets. If you push down the third valve on your Bb trumpet permanently, you turn your horn into key of G, and you can simulate the two valve G bugle that way.

Some reference here.

G Bugle vs Bb Trumpet

F = D

G = E
C = A

A = F#

When arranging for G, it's not hard to find the key that will work. As you know high C or above the third valve becomes irrelevant. So when you play a high "C" on the G bugle, you're really playing a "A." The only note that requires alternative fingering is A flat, so on the G bugle, you play it with first valve and adjust the trigger for intonation.

The Blue Devils is notorious for writing their music in higher keys than other corps (or original music). Specially in the 1980/90's.




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I went to world class corps last year to show my horn, the trumpet tech pulled out a mouth piece out of his Bach Strad case and played Hayden Concerto. I almost fell on the floor. I asked him to play a middle C with a fortissimo volume, but he couldn't do it. I had to show him what a old Drum Corps fortissimo was like. It hit me pretty hard realizing that today, a large number of the people working in drum corps have never seen or play a G bugle and they teach the line to sound like a nice concert band.

The G bugle is in a lower key. The G soprano is about 12" longer in piping than the Bb trumpets. If you push down the third valve on your Bb trumpet permanently, you turn your horn into key of G, and you can simulate the two valve G bugle that way.

Some reference here.

G Bugle vs Bb Trumpet

F = D

G = E

C = A

A = F#

When arranging for G, it's not hard to find the key that will work. As you know high C or above the third valve becomes irrelevant. So when you play a high "C" on the G bugle, you're really playing a "A." The only note that requires alternative fingering is A flat, so on the G bugle, you play it with first valve and adjust the trigger for intonation.

The Blue Devils is notorious for writing their music in higher keys than other corps (or original music). Specially in the 1980/90's.

Excellent, my friend.

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I went to world class corps last year to show my horn, the trumpet tech pulled out a mouth piece out of his Bach Strad case and played Hayden Concerto. I almost fell on the floor. I asked him to play a middle C with a fortissimo volume, but he couldn't do it. I had to show him what a old Drum Corps fortissimo was like. It hit me pretty hard realizing that today, a large number of the people working in drum corps have never seen or play a G bugle and they teach the line to sound like a nice concert band.

The G bugle is in a lower key. The G soprano is about 12" longer in piping than the Bb trumpets. If you push down the third valve on your Bb trumpet permanently, you turn your horn into key of G, and you can simulate the two valve G bugle that way.

Some reference here.

G Bugle vs Bb Trumpet

F = D

G = E

C = A

A = F#

When arranging for G, it's not hard to find the key that will work. As you know high C or above the third valve becomes irrelevant. So when you play a high "C" on the G bugle, you're really playing a "A." The only note that requires alternative fingering is A flat, so on the G bugle, you play it with first valve and adjust the trigger for intonation.

The Blue Devils is notorious for writing their music in higher keys than other corps (or original music). Specially in the 1980/90's.

12"? That's a lot. Wow.

And thanks for the info about holding down the third valve. That's cool. And that photo of the raiders; if you right click and open it in a new tab it becomes a lot bigger and you can see your horns better. They look great. Congratulations! They will be getting Ooohs and Aaahs all summer long for sure!

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12"? That's a lot. Wow.

And thanks for the info about holding down the third valve. That's cool. And that photo of the raiders; if you right click and open it in a new tab it becomes a lot bigger and you can see your horns better. They look great. Congratulations! They will be getting Ooohs and Aaahs all summer long for sure!

Keep in mind when you hold down the third valve, it's gonna be really out of tune, but it's a decent approximation.

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