Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?

Subject: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 09:21 AM

If I am creating a chordsheet arrangement for stringed instruments, can I also create one for horn and/or woodwind players that will work for them?

Will we be limited to certain keys (and/or modes), and if so which ones for the strings and which ones for the winds and brass?

Do the horns and winds have the SAME key "requirements"?

I've had brass players try to explain this all to me in depth in music theory terms, and my mind glazed over. I just want to know if it is feasible to add these to what we do, and if so what I need to do as our arranger to facilitate it. There ARE some players in the area that I KNOW sit in, informally, with other players-- I just don't know who is having to adjust to whom, so I don't know how big a request it would be if I were to invite someone to jam with us.

I think this is analogous to some threads we've had about guitars and melodeons playing together?

~Confused but Interested

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: leeneia
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 10:26 AM

I can't answer your question, WYSI, but I can give you a link to a good page:

http://cnx.org/content/m10672/latest/

Unf'ly, your situation seems quite complicated. Clarinets, trumpets and French horns, for example, have different requirements.
On the other hand, many people who play transposing instruments have learned to transpose in their heads as they read conventional music. There is a woman in our choir (plays French horn and trumpet) who can do that.

From her I have learned that guitars like sharp keys and horn players like flat keys. There's not too much you can do about that.

There are a couple of other approaches you might take to a session. If you know the horn players, you could give them the tunes in advance and let them make their own notations and changes. To deal with the problem of flat keys vs sharp, you could have the different groups take turns. When the horns play, the guitarists could sit out, just sing along or do a little percussion.

I believe capos could deal with that problem, too, but I don't think a guitar with a capo on it sounds as nice as one without.

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 11:02 AM

Although we would of course want to jam with them, our primary interest would be in playing with them more often with planned arrangements. Dotless.

I'll go check out that page, thanks.

~S~

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 01:35 PM

I'd suggest looking up the basics of orchestration - i.e. instrument ranges - so you don't ask players to do the impossible. Then write the score out at sounding pitch; tell each player what you've done and leave it up to them to either say what transposition they want (if you're doing it on a computer, you can presumably do any transposition on request) or do it themselves.

You don't want to force a B flat clarinet player to go sharper than C major or flatter than A flat major for routine playing. And some apparently easy cantabile passages are impossible on some brass instruments.

I find playing arrangements dotless pretty difficult (you are asking people to memorize something that isn't really a tune), whereas jamming an accompaniment line of my own is quite easy. You might get better results by keeping the directions rather loose.

For the usual folky keys of G, D and A, players will need clarinets or trumpets in A to do anything fancy. These are nowhere near as common as B flat ones.

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: Compton
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 01:39 PM

...Or listen to Brass Monkey and La Bottine Souriante that it seems to work for!

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: Darowyn
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 02:50 PM

If you can learn, or if you know someone who already knows Sibelius software, it will automatically create a correct score for transposing instruments.
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: GUEST,M.Ted
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 03:01 PM

This has a lot to do with what sort of music you are playing, and what sort of part you want from your instrumentalists. Jazz and funk horn players, for instance, generally can create their own parts by working from a chord chart. And, if you want solos, that generally is pretty easy.

Other than that, you'll have to write out a pretty fair outline of what you want them to do, even if it is only in concert pitch, or be ready to run a very long rehearsal--

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 03:37 PM

To repeat-- CHORD SHEETS. Not memorizing, not notation, CHORD SHEETS.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 03:45 PM

I think I know what you want. Problem is, bery few horn players will have the specific skill you will need.

I have played horns for forty years, and stringed instruments for 25. I can hear a tune, and then very quickly play it on a guitar or banjo (chord sheets help a lot). But, to play a decent horn part, I need to have some music written out -- and tadpoles, not chords. There are some good (usually jazz) players who can play a decent part straight from their heads, but most non-written-out playing is not very good (mine included).

Maybe I am an anomaly, but I think not...

If you can supply the horn people with chord sheets, then send them away for a while to work out a part, then you may have something.

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: LilyFestre
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 04:14 PM

If you have someone in mind, why not just ask them what they can do? That's easy enough.

LQF

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: GUEST,ridge plucker
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 04:41 PM

What good is chord sheets to melody carrying instruments. Unless you are going to play the melody every time for them before you play the piece how are they suppose to get an idea of how the song goes? Can you play melody on an Auto Harp? Or do you plan on leading them vocally?

Pete

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 04:47 PM

OK , So I DID Start in Jazz , playing Clarinet and Sax , but playing in 'silly' keys is only a matter of practice ! Was chatting to a lass playing some lovely Soprano Sax at a session , she said she plays in D G and A so much , she has to really think about Bflat ! And because I do it at a session (Quietly , NOT plugged in ) I am quite happy in C# and F# on mandolin !
As Compton said , grab an earful of Brass Monkey - Horns and Melodeons and guitars !!

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 05:20 PM

But, to play a decent horn part, I need to have some music written out -- and tadpoles, not chords. There are some good (usually jazz) players who can play a decent part straight from their heads, but most non-written-out playing is not very good (mine included).

Maybe I am an anomaly, but I think not...

If you can supply the horn people with chord sheets, then send them away for a while to work out a part, then you may have something.

Yes, that is exactly what I can do, and I can give them recorded samples to fool around with at home as well. It's exactly the input I needed from someone with playing experience. My conclusion is that IF it CAN work out, great, If not, then we won't have a horn section-- simple as that.

Leadfingers, GREAT input, thanks.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: Rowan
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 01:57 AM

Some years ago there was a group of musos in various parts of Australia's east who wanted to dilute the dominance of Irish tunes and styles of playing; they organised a series of performances of English dances where only English tunes would be played. Anyone who wanted to join in was welcomed to be part of that evening's version of "The Old Empire Band".

Various free reed instruments tended to dominate and thus most tunes were in D, G, sometimes C and the Em, Am (and, occasionally, Dm) variants. Those of you who remember the New Victory Band or Flowers and Frolics will have an idea of the sound and the repertoire, as there were usually a bass trombone or two and occasionally a tuba. At what I think might have been the last performance of The Old Empire Band (National Folk Festival in Canberra, 1992?) there were 42 players on stage, with some bass trombones and clarinets joining in with no troble at all. I had specially invited a mate of mine to bring his French horn along and join us.

Some of you may have met Tom Loy, the player of the French Horn, as I gather he lived in Arizona for a while and played in an Alaskan equivalent to Australia's bush bands. He lived in Vancouver for some time, woring in the museum there analysing organic residues on prehistoric stone tools. [Tom was the only real person mentioned by name in the book version of Jurassic Park and was the person who did much of the analysis of the residues on Utzi's tools; Utzi was the name given to the ~5000 year old 'iceman' recovered from the Austrian (oops! Italian) Alps some years ago.]

Tom (now no longer with us) had no trouble playing French horn along with English dance tunes in the various keys used; neither did Ian Blake on his clarinet. So I'm puzzled by the notion that players of such instruments should have difficulties with arrangements. Is there something vital that I've missed?

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 04:54 AM

A slight aside.
Jon Freeman's web site Folkinfo.org recently introduced a section where you can input ABC format tunes and it will (amongst other things) print out the dots. It will also take your input and transpose it up or down by a selected number of semitones, so if you needed sheet music for a pianist playing in concert pitch and also for a clarinet in B flat, you could print out two sets of dots but with different keys.

Note :-
To match the note coming out of an instrument in B flat to one in C, you would need to print a score two semitones higher for the B flat instrument.

Quack!
Geoff.

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 06:49 AM

I was assuming you'd want to make a conservative estimate of people's playing abilities. Someone who's only played clarinet or trombone in a Dixieland or military band won't have used a wide range of keys. Once you know the players better you can ask for more.

But if you want confident virtuosic flourishes it would still be better to keep the tonality conservative. Example of where that is *not* done: the Janacek Sinfonietta, which is mostly in A flat minor, but you need to pay for serious amounts of rehearsal time to make it work. It has probably the toughest flute solo in the orchestral repertoire.

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 09:06 AM

I was assuming you'd want to make a conservative estimate of people's playing abilities.

Yes, I do-- and I'm getting a much better feel, now, for how to approach the various brass and wind players we might have an opportunity to work with. They range in ability and experience, and I think I know now how to go about a conversation with them. If any of them are musically adventuresome, it should be fun and if they aren't, I'll understand now what their reticence is about.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: Stu
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 09:46 AM

It works a treat for Bellowhead too.

I think it should work a treat.

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: GUEST,M.Ted
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 10:37 AM

Rowan,

Horn and reed players are trained to play notes from the page, and can live happy and productive lives without ever doing anything else. Unless you play jazz or such things, there is generally little need to create your own part.

What Tom Loy and Ian Blake could do(and I would have absolutely loved to hear it) was a product of their own imagination and creativity, applied lovingly to a kind of music they knew and understood--you can't expect the same from every other horn or reed player--

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: leeneia
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 03:05 PM

Just a note of encouragement here. We have a woman who plays along with our choir on French horn or trumpet. She has a master's degree in horn performance, so she's good. We get a lot of compliments on her participation. People like the warm richness of the horn and the excitement of the trumpet.

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 03:19 PM

Thanks, leenia.

~S~

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: Rowan
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 04:13 PM

Thanks, M.Ted.
I keep forgetting that my complete inability to read music blinds me to others' inabilities in different areas. One of the reasons why I keep encouraging my daughters (only in high school but very talented players from dots) to acquire a good ear as well. I'm not sure of Tom's reading (he was doing it all be ear when in my company) but Ian is a renowned composer as well these days (some may remember him from Pyewacket) so he could have handled anything.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 04:21 PM

Jack - I would possibly be prepared to accept your denigration of Miltary Band musicians IF they have only played in regiment voluntary bands , most Dixieland (Hate that term) and New Orleans musicians play in a wide range of keys !

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 07:58 PM

"guitars like sharp keys and horn players like flat keys. There's not too much you can do about that." No problem whatsoever if the guitars use capos.

"I don't think a guitar with a capo on it sounds as nice as one without."

I truly can't hear any adverse effect whatsoever, so long as the capo is put on right and the tuning is OK.

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: GUEST,M.Ted
Date: 28 Feb 07 - 09:37 PM

My guitar works just fine in all the keys;-)

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: fogie
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 06:08 AM

Bb Saxophones like # keys so, as has been previously stated, they play well in C F G D A(thats my limit) I find more difficulty improvising in Bb, but Eb-saxes can manage it

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 07:13 PM

The whole point is that your instrument IS IN B flat.
If the rest of the world plays in C, than they are playing a whole tone higher than you.
When THEY play in B flat, all you need to do is play in (what to your instrument) is C, and you are playing the same notes.
QUack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 07:44 PM

An example of how to do it right: Serge Hovey's arrangements of Burns for Jean Redpath's voice and a chamber orchestra.

VERY carefully thought-out so maybe not what you're trying to do, but an inspiration regardless.

Subject: RE: Add Horns or Winds to Folk Arrangement?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 01 Mar 07 - 07:49 PM

Hey-- I bet there are a LOT of folkies here who would LOVE to be able to add a horn section! :~)

~Susan