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Thread: Community Band Questions

  1. #11
    Thanks for the great advice on sight reading! I have been working on scales for my lessons and just by chance I have been improvising within scales just for fun, making up my own melodies, stumbling on familiar ones. That's a big part of the pleasure of playing again for me. I'm taking your advice to heart (and everyone else's, for that matter) and just working hard and seeing what happens. Whether this band works out or not, I know all of this will improve my playing, and I'm still enjoying myself, which, as has been pointed out, is what really matters.
    Neal

    Wessex Dolce Compensating Euph
    G&W Kadja
    Fender Telecaster

  2. #12
    Sorry to revive an old thread (actually my first post). I've recently picked the euphonium back up after ~10 years, having played through high school (seems like a familiar story). I've been looking for a community band to get involved with in the Reno, NV area that will take people with a full time job that want to participate on the evenings/weekends and allow a few absences due to travel (a brass quintet would be a huge plus!). My network outside of work is pretty limited since I've only been here a few months.

    Google has given me a couple ideas (Reno Wind Symphony, Capital City Community Band, Reno Municipal Band) but not a good sense of the their scope or availability.

    A previous post suggested the route of taking lessons from a local professional and asking them. Wondering if anyone has additional tips for how to get involved with the community band scene either here in Reno or in general?

    Thanks for the help!
    Rudi

  3. I suggest finding a community band that allows anyone to join, and contacting its conductor or personnel manager. They will be happy to have you join, and you can start building relationships in your local music community. Good luck!

  4. #14
    Hi Rudi,

    Just taking a quick look at the websites for the bands you listed, I think your better bets for coming back to playing would be the Capital City Community Band and the Reno Municipal Band. The Reno Wind Symphony looks like a wonderful organization, but they look like they're seeking more advanced players.

    But, my best advice would be to go to a performance of the band you want to join and find a way to talk to the musicians after. Over the years, some of my best players (and good friends) have come into the bands through conversation after an event.

    Best,
    Adrian
    Adrian L. Quince
    Composer, Conductor, Euphoniumist
    www.adrianquince.com

    Kanstul 976 - SM4U

  5. #15
    Join Date
    Aug 2015
    Location
    Rochester NY, USA
    Posts
    25
    A google search of concert bands in your area should give you some options, after that contact those that interest you and ask to come down and observe or sit in on a rehearsal. Some groups don't require auditions and basically will take anyone, if you're just getting started again these are the groups I would look at first. It will also help if you aren't the only Euphonium in the group, if you have other more experienced players in the group then you can pick and choose when you play and when you lay out. If you just can't get that difficult run up to speed it's OK when first getting started to lay out for those few bars and let the others in the section play it (you should be working on it at home though, to get it up to speed for the future). One of the things I do for my own education, and practice is keep a three ring binder and I copy pages of my music that have tricky or difficult runs and I use them for practice material. When that piece is pulled out again I'll have those parts down.

  6. #16
    I've played in probably 6-8 community bands over the past 23 years I've been back to the States and 4 British-style brass bands, not to mention the various orchestras, jazz bands, and chamber groups here and there. None of them, save possibly one brass band and one community band in the Chicago area rehearsed in the manner the OP mentioned. Usually, it's much more relaxed and laid-back.

    Personally, I opt for the more "challenging" groups as I find it makes me a better player. But there are plenty of folks who like the pace somewhat slower, and that's fine too.
    U.S. Army, Retired (built mid-1950s)
    Adams E2 Euph (built 2017)
    Boosey & Co. Imperial Euph (built 1941)
    Edwards B454 Bass Trombone (built 2012)
    Boosey & Hawkes Imperial Eb tuba (built 1958)
    Kanstul 33-T lBBb tuba (built 2010)

  7. #17
    To get ready you might want to get this book of excerpts. It has a lot of the most common literature, and even when you're playing different pieces the practice in these styles will help:

    http://www.dwerden.com/eu-books-ee.cfm
    Dave Werden (ASCAP)
    Euphonium Soloist, U.S. Coast Guard Band, retired
    Adams Artist (Adams E3)
    Alliance Mouthpiece (DC3)
    YouTube: dwerden
    Facebook: davewerden
    Twitter: davewerden
    Instagram: davewerdeneuphonium

  8. #18
    Thank you everyone for the really quick responses and the guidance. I've reached out to the conductor of the Reno Wind Symphony and Municipal Band (same person) and will check out their upcoming concerts. I also love the idea of sitting in on and/or watching rehearsals, I'll see if they'll let me.

    Until then, I'll keep hitting the Arban exercises (and another post suggested the Remington routines, which have been very helpful in getting back the range, tone, strength).

    I'm excited to be playing again and this forum has proven to be an awesome resource for doing so!

    Rudi

    Edit (clicked post before seeing the next two replies):
    Eupher6, I'm definitely looking for the most challenging group that will have me. In the past, playing the difficult pieces and having to practice for hours to get it right was much more rewarding.
    David, Thank you for sending that. I'll take a look.
    Last edited by rudibred; 03-30-2018 at 04:24 PM.

  9. Time, patience, and consistency are the three key elements you must abide by if you wish to elevate your playing. Breathing, buzzing, long tones, flexibility, upper and lower range work, overtones, and tonguing should all be part of your regular routine in order to develop the chops, range, and sound desired. Good luck!

  10. #20
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    Central North Carolina
    Posts
    2,368
    Maybe you should also give some thought to what you might find intolerable in a band (though this may change as you play more). There are primarily three things that will drive me away (and have driven me away) from a community band:


    1. A bad conductor. I don't think I have excessively high standards here, but I find that I just can't tolerate a conductor who is poor at conducting (constantly difficult to follow, can't read the score, seems to lack a reasonable sense of musicality, etc.), or who is willing to tolerate what is obviously sloppy and inadequate performance -- and especially when this includes a willingness to perform a piece in public that is still being poorly played by the band. Lack of perfection is a way of life in (certainly most) community bands, but tolerating absolutely embarrassing crap should not, in itself, be tolerated. I also quickly lose patience with a conductor who does not prepare for rehearsal himself/herself, but expects the band to have spent the time preparing. Or a conductor who can never seem to tell the band what pieces are likely to be rehearsed at a given practice session. To me, these are just basic requirements for a conductor, and I haven't often seen them violated. But when they are, I don't stick around.
    2. Lack of concern for intonation. There's not much more to say about this. If the band doesn't care about being in tune, and the conductor won't work at ensuring that the band plays in tune, then I'm out. Again, I'm not talking perfection here. But there's a point beyond what you're doing isn't music.
    3. (Back to the conductor -- but also somewhat membership dependent ...) I find that I can't tolerate an approach to "rehearsal" the consists simply of "run throughs" of pieces, one after another. I mean, no stopping to correct a problem, no focus on getting a section to play a passage correctly or in tune, no attempt at clear instructions on how a section is to be played, no concern about dynamics, etc. The result is sound, but not music. I've had the experience of bands in which a number of the members voice the complaint that they get bored with and "don't see the sense of" stopping and spending five minutes on getting the horns to do an entrance correctly, or getting the trumpet section to play a fanfare with the proper rhythm and in tune, or getting the percussion section to get a difficult passage correct. Sure, people should practice at home. But you can't expect a collection of amateurs who practice a few times a week (at most), who have one group rehearsal per week, and who don't have sectional rehearsals, to come to the band rehearsal with all their technical challenges satisfied and prepared just to focus on the performance of the entire ensemble. It's not realistic. And I really love those people who object to spending time on ensuring that some other section gets attention for a few minutes in order for the performance not to sound like a train wreck.


    Anyhow ... those are the major things that can make me sorry I decided to join a community band (and I've had it happen only a couple of times), but if you have similar things, it's best to figure it out before you really join the band. I guess a big part of my point is that there's a lot of variation in community bands, and there are things that may need to be tolerated in order to participate in any given band. But there are limits to this, and it's good to think of what your limits are when evaluating an organization to join. This is where a "sit in on one or two rehearsals and then both the band and you will make up your minds" approach can be valuable. Also, a lot of organizations have web sites (or social media pages) where they post audio or video recordings of their concerts -- and sometimes a lot can be gleaned from these, as a kind of "pre-filter" to looking more closely at the group.
    Gary Merrill
    Wessex EEb Bass tuba (DW 3XL or 2XL)
    Mack Brass Compensating Euph (DE N106, Euph J, J9 euph)
    Amati Oval Euph (DE 104, Euph J, J6 euph)
    1924 Buescher 3-valve Eb tuba (with std US receiver), Kelly 25
    Schiller American Heritage 7B clone bass trombone (DE LB K/K10/112/14 Lexan, Brass Ark MV50R)
    1947 Olds "Standard" trombone (Olds #3)

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