NEW LINK: "THE MUTOPIA PROJECT" MORE THAN 2000 PIECES OF MUSIC (free download)

THE BANDS

-

Image result for parade band

The origin of the bands is uncertain but it is believed that it occurred when the musicians accompanied the soldiers in the battle.

The ancient Mesopotamian civilizations already used musicians in the war. In Roma times, musicians played bronze fanfare trumpets with the military, and sometimes hundreds of trumpeters would lead large processions. In the Renaissance, brass instruments began to develop and evolve to resemble the instruments used today. 
European instruments were brought to the new world by the colonists. During the time of the American Revolution, marching bands consisted primarily of fifes, pipes and drums. 
In the nineteenth century, new instruments were invented: flugelhorns, tenor horns, baritones, euphoniums, trombones, tubas, valve trumpets, French horns and other brass instruments of all shapes and sizes. Adolph Sax invented a family of sax instruments and existing instruments were also improved upon. The concert band became established and gradually grew to include flutes, clarinets, and other woodwinds. 
Towards the end of the 19th century, more percussion instruments such as bass drums, cymbals, bells, and triangle were added to brass and wind ensembles. 
The main types of Bands are:

1. Marching bands. They are divided into:
  • Parade Bands march in parades and include a variety of instrumentation ranging from fifes and drums to full wind and percussion bands. 
  • Show Bands perform at sporting events, such as football games. Show Bands often perform a field show prior to the game and at halftime and can also be seen in parades, competitions and large events. Show bands usually contain brass, woodwinds and percussion instruments and can have elaborate marching routines. 
  • British Brass Bands are traditionally comprised of all-brass instruments and often march in parades and other events, although they often play indoors as well. Traditional British Band are comprised of cornets, flugelhorns, tenor horns, baritones, euphoniums, trombones, basses (or tubas) and percussion. Trumpets, French horns, saxophones and woodwinds are generally not included.
2. Concert bands. There are two main types:
  • Wind ensemble, which includes woodwind, brass and percussion instruments.
  • Symphonic band. It is a wind ensemble to which has been added some string instruments such as cellos or double basses. 
In the following links you can watch a great concert of the Lawrence University Symphonic Band, an another one of the British Army Band.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

COMPOSER OF THE MONTH - JUNKIE XL

-
Image
Tom Holkenborg (Junkie XL) is one of the most famous film composers of the 21st century.  He was born in Holland in 1967 and in his youth, he was a rock and electronic music player in several bands ( Fear Factory, Dog eat dog ...) In the middle of the 90s, he started his productions for video games and films. At that time, his friends used to call him “Junkie”, because he was addicted to work in his production studio, were he spent a lot of his time. At the same time, he put his focus on electronic dance music, playing in night clubs. In 1997 he won the Grand Prix to the best producer of house music in his home country. Some of his albums were among others Big sound of the drags , Saturday night teenage kick , Radio JXL , etc. In 2003 he decided to move to Los Angeles, California, the city of the best film studios where he became into a great film composer. Some of his works in this field include: 300: Rise of an empire (2014) Divergent (2014) Mad Max: Fury Road (
Read more

COMPOSER OF THE MONTH - JUSTIN HURWITZ

-
Image
This month we want to talk about a very young film composer, who won several awards last year with the score for the musical film La la Land: The city of stars; we refer to Justin Hurwitz. He was born on 22 January, 1985 in Los Angeles - California. His parents are Ken Hurwitz and Gail Hurwitz, writer and classical dancer, respectively. Justin began to play piano at the age of six and composed his first song when he reached ten. In 1998 his family moved to Wisconsin and he joined Nicolet High School. During this time, he took some lessons with pianist Stefanie Jacob at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music in Milwaukee. Some years later, he attended Harvard University, where he was a classmate of the director Damien Chazelle. Both collaborated at that time in several projects together: (2003) Chester French: An indi-pop band formed by David-Andrew Wallach (vocalist), Maxwell Drummey (multi-instrumentalist), Damien Chazelle (drummer), Michael Judge (bassist) and Justin Hurwitz
Read more

NATURE IN MUSIC

-
Image
Archaeological evidence known at this point of time report that the origin of the artistic activity dates back from more than 64,000 years, being its creator the homo neanderthalensis . In particular -and according to Science review- these are cave paintings in three Spanish caves located in Cantabria, Caceres and Malaga. Since then and to present day, man has expressed, from different artistic points of view, all the creativity that he has been able -or we would say,  has had the need- to transmit. From our origins, the contact, relationship, and interaction with nature have  been and  are  evident. Many artists have benefited from that  to create  their work in any field, either  pictorial, literary, sculpture, musical, cinematographic, etc. It would be a very intense and arduous study to refer to all these areas so, in this article, we are going to  focus on the inspiration that some great composers,  who preceded us,  found in those areas and we will analyze three of their mo
Read more