TromboneChat

A question based on very limited experience:

I didn't pay much attention to baritones in High School band. I just thought of them as a bland instrument that didn't get to sparkle in Pep Band like a trombone.

Now that I'm sitting next to a baritone in city band, I can't help but have noticed that she is much busier than I am. Not that I am the sort of person to compare the number of notes I get to play vs. the number of notes my neighbor gets plays, no, not me, I'm not that sort of person, no, not at all.

But, if I were, I would have noticed that, across the board, she has far more notes to play than I do. If we get some type of Etude, or anything at all classical or fancy, my music is on one sheet, hers is on two. I will be counting rest measures, and she's playing little runs up and down the scale. I will be tooting single notes on the off beat, and she is zipping up and down with one counter melody after another.

And when I finally do get my chance to go to town, there she is playing right along with me. Unfair! (although I get some recompense by being able to drown her out.

I wouldn't trade tone for all the horn oil in the world, but I am a little envious of her fun baritone parts. Am I drawing conclusions based on small sample size and limited experience, or are baritones generally a busier instrument in many types of orchestra and band music?

In old Band transcriptions of orchestral pieces the Baritone got all the countermelodies and the trombones (tenor horns) were given on-beats or off-beats.

In newer pieces the arranger usually has the Baritone double the tenor sax.

Either way, they play more than the trombone part.

Try playing a Baritone part some time. See if you can handle the runs. In particular, find a piece by Karl King called "The Melody Shop".

I really prefer playing euphonium in a concert band over trombone. You actually get the melody for more than 4 bards per concert, especially in the British stuff.

Quality over quantity.

In British style Brass Bands, the Baritone is a very important instrument, along with the Euphonium. They regularly get solos and counter melodies all over the place.
They have a sound that bridges between the tenor horns, eupho and troms.
I have no worries in letting the valved instruments do all the crazy runs!

We sight read a piece last week in E major (4 sharps) and she had enough runs to open a ski resort. I heard some pretty choice grumbling: "@#& this &*% % *$# key, what the ##@6 was that @$$ #@!! thinking!"

I was very happy with my two toots per measure.

Zandit75 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 21, 2019 10:00 pm In British style Brass Bands, the Baritone is a very important instrument, along with the Euphonium. They regularly get solos and counter melodies all over the place.
They have a sound that bridges between the tenor horns, eupho and troms.
I have no worries in letting the valved instruments do all the crazy runs!

I started out on Baritone in British brass bands. There are two Baritone parts in this context. The first part is as interesting and busy as others have described. The second Baritone line is much more pedestrian in my experience. Offbeats, long notes and harmonies. Great for newbies but not so interesting after a while.
I was struck by how much rest the trombones get relative to Baritones when I switched. The lack of solo repertoire for Baritones relative to tenor (alto) horns, euphonium, cornet, flugelhorn and trombone in brass bands is notable too.
Mind you, I do very little brass band work now, and only on trombone when I do, perhaps things have changed.

Geordie wrote: ↑Fri Feb 22, 2019 12:32 am

Zandit75 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 21, 2019 10:00 pm In British style Brass Bands, the Baritone is a very important instrument, along with the Euphonium. They regularly get solos and counter melodies all over the place.
They have a sound that bridges between the tenor horns, eupho and troms.
I have no worries in letting the valved instruments do all the crazy runs!

I started out on Baritone in British brass bands. There are two Baritone parts in this context. The first part is as interesting and busy as others have described. The second Baritone line is much more pedestrian in my experience. Offbeats, long notes and harmonies. Great for newbies but not so interesting after a while.
I was struck by how much rest the trombones get relative to Baritones when I switched. The lack of solo repertoire for Baritones relative to tenor (alto) horns, euphonium, cornet, flugelhorn and trombone in brass bands is notable too.
Mind you, I do very little brass band work now, and only on trombone when I do, perhaps things have changed.

The Baritone has been getting a bigger part in recent years, both 1st and 2nd parts. Weather this is just something I've only noticed recently, or it's because the music selection lately has been allowing our 1st seater to show off her talents.
We've been re-building our band over the last couple of years, and starting to branch out into more challenging music. This also includes more challenging parts for me on Bass Trom swinging between the bass section and supporting the remainder of the troms. I'm loving how much time I'm spending below the stave these days!

Great quote from Lance LaDuke of the Brass Junkies podcast - "all euphonium solos are either fast as hell or Danny Boy."

PaulT wrote: ↑Thu Feb 21, 2019 6:52 pm...are baritones generally a busier instrument in many types of orchestra and band music?

In a lot of concert band music, the baritone/euphonium part is MUCH "busier". More melody/countermelody in general, and a lot more solos. Classic marches (Sousa, Fillmore, King, Alford, etc.) usually have awesome euph parts where they're playing all those fast black notes with the woodwinds, along with some great countermelodies. The major non-march original works for band from that era (the Holst suites, for example) also have great euph parts. As for orchestral transcriptions, the euphs often get the lions share of the cello lines.

I have seen what seems to me to be a "dumbing down" of euph parts in some newer music. It's as if the composers and/or arrangers just don't know what to do with the instrument. Yes, it's a little tuba - but that doesn't mean it's supposed to spend all of its time playing the tuba part an octave up.

In actual orchestra music, baritone/euph parts are pretty rare. There's a few tenor tuba parts that are sometimes played on euph, and a Bb tenor horn part in Mahler 7 that's sometimes played on euph or baritone rather than an actual oval tenor horn. Not much else, AFAIK.

Burgerbob wrote: ↑Thu Feb 21, 2019 8:49 pm Quality over quantity.

LOL.

I invented an explanation to myself to help assuage my ego in a concert band, that prolly the trombone had already been typecast by the time that kind of band got going, and so got the clunky orchestral type parts in transcription, but the newcomer got the cello part transcriptions.

I have no idea whether that matches the truth though, and not sure my ego could handle it.

I second the motion (above), that within the context of British, German or somewhat similar European Brass Band literature, the Euphonium (tenor, and larger sizes) seems to dominate with respect to the assignment of "good" parts...meaning "front and center" melodies or countermelodies. The fluegelhorn, similarly, seems to get more of the limelight than the trumpets.
More and more though, I am noticing that the 1st trombone parts in these type of ensembles seem to mirror many of the fluegelhorn passages...acting almost like a bass trumpet. Not so much with the 2nd and third trombone parts.