A Essay on Old time Bands and Their Instruments

Essay by Bob Hoe*

 

It is highly probable that the full and complete story of the dates of compositions and the arrangers of  Claudio Grafulla marches on this  will never be known. Noting the year of his death as compared to the publication dates shown  proved interesting.

 To fully understand the statement made in the first sentence, one must delve deeply into the subject of the instrumentation of various types of bands from time of Grafulla was nearing the end of his life, the 1870’s and on into the early years of the 20^th century.

  Let us commence by considering the word ‘instrumentation’, this word connotes two basically different things. First, the actual number of each instrument existing in a given band at a given time. And, second, the printed music being used by that band. There are not mutually exclusive, not are they necessarily the same.

    Most research into the subject of bands of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries has dealt with the top professional bands of the era, just as examples – Sousa’s (both his professional traveling band, and the Marine band when he led it). Gilmore’s, Grafulla’s, Reeves, Brooke’s, etc. Little, if any, thought has apparently been given to the typical ‘Town Band’ of that time. There were literally thousands of them, from one end of the country to the other. Orchestras such as we know today hardly existed in the smaller communities of the country, and the professional bands (excluding the circus) until later years of Sousa’s time, were mostly confined in their appearances to the larger cities, which could produce larger crowds and hence, larger income with which to pay the players. The circus bands were generally of a very small size; it is most difficult to fit a large band on the typical band wagons on which the band played during the parade through the town.

    So, let us consider just what was the instrumentation of the ‘town bands’. Basically they were mostly, in some cases completely, brass, with no woodwinds at all. In fact, very often these bands were called ‘Brass Band’ or ‘Cornet Band’. DO NOT confuse these bands with the British Brass bands of today, which are circumscribed in their instrumentation and number of players for reasons having to do with their ‘contesting’ and not because the players would not be available if desired.

    The basic instrument was the cornet (trumpets as we know them today were never used, or even known). The Eb cornet was the leading instrument and Eb cornets also shared in playing the lmelodic line. Eb altos were always in evidence – sometimes little upright instruments,  same as used in British Brass bands today, and later on sometimes ‘the poor mans French horn’, which variously as the ‘mellophone’ or ‘peck horn’.

    Slide trombones were just coming into common use during this time and many bands had only ‘tenors’ which were not too different from the German tenor hors or the British baritone, being valved instruments. American type baritones were used, although a few bands had true euphoniums, but the same part was used by whichever instrument was present in the band. Mostly the basses (tubas) were Eb size, rather than the larger and heavier (an more expensive) BBb type.

    Of course, all bands had a drum section – but the instruments played were 99% snare (side) drum and bass drum and cymbals. There was very little of the great emphasis on the other instruments that felt to be necessary to a full percussion section today. In fact, if someone had walked into the band room of a typical town band in 1900 and spoken of the ‘percussion section’ no one would have had the slightest idea what he was taking about.

    Now as to the woodwinds – the basic instrument which was felt to be a real necessity (and relatively inexpensive) was the piccolo. Flutes were unheard of, as was the more ‘strange instruments’ such as the saxophones, and alto and bass clarinets. The oboes and bassoon were out of the question, no such were ever seen.

    The other two woodwinds used were the Eb clarinet and the Bb clarinet, but they existed in very limited quantities in those days. If a town band had one clarinet that was fine, if somehow they managed to scrape up both an Eb and Bb or two, that put them in a special class, bigger and maybe better than the band in the town down the road. Such bands were often referred to as ‘brass and reed bands’.

    It must be remembered that every musician was expected to buy and own his own personal instrument and if nobody wanted to play clarinet, well, the band got along without any.

    Now it is obvious, since the great numbers of this type of band provided a large and lucrative market to publishers of music, that they would attempt to satisfy the needs of them. However, to sell these bands required music that was not too difficult,a nd that was ARRANGED in such a manner that it ‘sounded good’ no matter how many clarinets a band did or didn’t have, etc.

    In order to achieve this result it was necessary to write into the printed music much ‘doubling of parts’. A composer or arranger might devoutly wish that a certain passage be played on a bassoon, but if the great majority of bands had no bassoon, what was the poor man to do? He could either leave out the particular passage, or have it published (printed) in such a way that it could be played by the instrument in common use, nearest in sound to the bassoon (in that case it would be the baritone-euphonium). There fore a great deal of ‘cross-cueing’ was necessary, or in the very simplest of arrangements, where no part at all was printed for the bassoon, it was given to the baritone without further ado.

    As a result of this particular market problem, the various publishers of the day standardized their own ‘sets of parts’ (what parts were printed) without any regard for what other publishers were doing. It is most interesting to trace the evolution of ‘saxophone parts’, probably the first to print them was the firm of Carl Fischer, who began to do so about 1900. Concurrently Barnhouse was not printing any sax parts at all. Not many years alter Barnhouse editions showed in the upper righ corner of the Solo Bb cornet part (which was also the conductor’s part) a basic price of 40 cents (WOW) for a set of parts, and a note that sax could be had for 10 cents extra. A few years later the price went to 50 cents and sax parts were included I the standard set of parts.

    In 1930 most of the leading bandmasters of the day reached the conclusion that in time when a standard set of parts must be furnished all ALL publishers. This led to the formation of the American Bandmasters Association by such men as Sousa, Pryor, Simon, Bert Meyers, Goldman, Harding and many others. They worked with publishers and came up with what is considered to be an adequate set of parts to be furnished to a buyer. In actual fact, the ‘standard set of pars, problem continues to this day, especially as regards the QUANTITY of each part to be included in the ‘standard set.’

    The great proliferation of flutes, for example, in high school bands makes it an open question how many of this part should be included in a ‘standard set’. Is five enough? In many cases this is claimed to be insufficient. However, we must not be sidetracked, but must continue to investigate the band of yesteryear.

    The average player in a town band, of the type that existed around the turn of the century, most assuredly ;came to play NOT to sit around waiting for his turn to come. He wanted to play most of the time, and demanded music that gave him the opportunity to do so. Admittedly some strange sounds came from these town bands, but everyone both in the band and in the audience was having a good time, and what more could anyone ask?

    What has all this got to do with the music of Grafulla on this record? Well, one must go further in to the investigation to come to this problem. The top bands of the 1880’s, most particularly those of Gilmore and Reeves and the Marine Band, included nearly all the instruments used today in bands. Therefore it stands to reason that the composers of the time knew what these instruments were, what they sounded like and wrote for them WHEN THEY KNEW THAT THE MUSIC WOUILD BE PLAYED BY SUCH A BAND. And the publishers occasionally put out sets of parts including all these instruments.

    A fine example of this is Coleman’s edition of Sousa’s International Congress, published in 1887. Here is the list of the parts that were included:

 

Piccolo in C

Flute in C

Oboe

Bassoon 1

Bassoon II

Eb Clarinet

1^st Bb Clarinet

2^nd Bb Clarinet

3^rd Bb Clarinet

4^th Bb Clarinet

Alto Sax

Tenor Sax

Baritone Sax

Eb Cornet

Solo Bb cornet

1^st Bb cornet

2^nd Bb cornet

3^rd Bb cornet

1^st and 2^nd Eb horns

3^rd and 4^th Eb horns

1^st trombone – printed in both clefs

2^nd trombone – printed in both clefs

3^rd trombone printed in both clefs

Euphonium (and that is what the part was titled – NOT Baritone)

   printed in both clefs

Basses – first and second on one part

Small drum

Bass drum and cymbals

 

There could be no more positive proof that this list of instruments for which parts were printed. In addition, manuscripts of Sousa in the library of the Marine Band, written before this date, also included ALL the instruments.

    Why is it then, that published editions of marches and waltzes and overtures and other standard band music included only a limited number of parts? The answer lies in the economics of the publishing business; the publishers would have had a great difficulty in finding a large market for sets of parts that included the saxes, when no band had them, etc.

    One publisher who seems to have aimed particularly a the ‘town band’ was the JW Pepper, also of Philadelphia. Strangely enough, Pepper put out some extremely difficult music (Some of the marches of Grafuula on this record are good examples) in the 1880s, but then as time went on, into the 1900s, published practically nothing but very easy band music, with only an occasional piece of even moderate difficulty in his catalog. It would appear that Pepper discovered that the money lay in; easy arrangements  -easy compositions’ and took the road to which this discovery pointed. Many other publishers of the time did not ‘write down’ to the lesser competent bands. For example, the earliest publications of the Church Company, when they were still in Cincinnati, were of considerable difficulty, and at no time did Church lower their standards.

    In about 1903 the Coleman firm was sold to Carl Fischer and much of the music previously published by Coleman was ‘re-issued’ by Fischer. In the process, it was necessary to make it conform to the ‘standard instrumentation’ (what instruments parts were pointed for) that Fischer was using at the time. Among other things, this means the addition of Sax parts. Some of the most valuable of the Coleman copyrights at the time included a number of Sousa marches; Washington Post, High School Cadets; Semper Fidelis, among others.

    Fischer soon made these available to the music buying public in ‘new editions’ including sax. Also, in many cases, the horn parts were changed and other things done. It is anyone’s guess what exact process was followed by Fischer in doing all this. It might be an interesting project for a researcher to study with great care the ORIGINAL manuscripts of these marches (of which a few, or portions of a few) seem to be available at the Library of Congress and compare them with the editions as published by Coleman and as later revised and re-issued by Fischer. Did the original manuscripts of Sousa himself include parts for the instruments later published by Fischer? Or did Coleman’s edition conform exactly to what Sousa wrote? If that is the case, then who wrote the changes that showed up in the later Fischer publications? It is not beyond the realm of possibility that Sousa himself was paid by Fischer to revise and add parts to the Coleman for them to print.

 

Part two

To think even more deeply about the subject, let us consider the writing of Semper Fidelis by Sousa. At the time he wrote it, he was director of the Marine Band.  There are two possible hypotheses that come to mind as to the exact circumstances under which Sousa wrote it. I do NOT refer to the fact that he set out to write a march for his beloved Marine Corps and Band and that he had the melody, and most of the harmonization in mind BEFORE he ever set pen to write a score. That goes without saying. The question devolves to these alternatives: 1 - did he FIRST, before writing anything, contact his publisher, Coleman, in Philadelphia and day to him “I am about to write a march for the Marine Corps, dedicated to them, and I think it is going to be a fine march, and how would like  me to instrument it?’ or 2 -  did he compose the march and instrument (arrange) it with the instrumentation of his Marine Band in mind? If he did the latter, then he wrote parts for ALL the instruments, including several that Coleman did not include in his ‘standard set of parts’ at the time. It is much more probable that this is the way Sousa went about writing Semper. So, having written it for the Marines to play and finding it satisfactory, it can be safety assumed that he then took it to Coleman and said ‘How about publishing it? How much will you give me for it (in money)?’

    At this point the ‘reduction of instruments’ begins. In actual fact, Sousa surely knew, since he had previously sold many marches to Coleman, exactly what instruments Coleman wuld include in the printed set. In keeping with the stories Paul Bierley has unearthed, it is most likely that Sousa himself made the reduction arrangement for Coleman, leaving out what he had to, and possibly adjusting some of he other parts to cover what was left out.

    All the above applies in far more extreme terms to the Sousa marches issued by Pepper, who published a much smaller set of parts than Coleman did. There is a great mystery about how it happened that two competing Philadelphia publishers BOTH put out a certain few Sousa marches. The most reasonable explanation is that Sousa originally sold them to Coleman and then Pepper came along and bought the rights from Coleman to issue them in a somewhat simplified edition.

    To illustrate this point, ere is the list of parts as published by Coleman of Sousa’s Espirit de Corps in 1878:

 

Db Piccolo   

Oboe

Bassoon

Eb Clarinet

1^st Bb clarinet

2^nd Bb clarinet (and it was very different from the 1^st clarinet part

Eb cornet

Solo Bb cornet

1^st Bb cornet

2^nd and 3^rd Bb cornets

1^st and 2^nd alto Eb

3^rd and 4^th Alto Eb

1^st and 2^nd trombone (but both played exactly the same part,

there was no division in it)

3^rd Trombone

Baritone

Eb bass

Drums

 

Here is the list of parts printed by Pepper to the SAME march a few years later in 1893:

Db Piccolo

Eb clarinet

Bb clarinets (only one part for all clarinets and  there is no place in which it is divisi – in other words, at all times all clarinets in the band are to be playing exactly the same thing.)

Eb Cornet

Solo Bb cornet

1^st Bb cornet

2^nd Bb cornet

Solo Eb alto (and this part is a melody par NOT an accompaniment part)

1^st Eb alto

2^nd Eb alto

1^st trombone

2^nd trombone

3^rd trombone

Baritone

Eb bass

Drums

 

So, what are the major differences, and how do they tie into the market for which Pepper was shooting? Well, only one part for all clarinets would certainly indicate that the bands which bought his publications didn’t have any, if any, clarinets. Pepper had one less cornet part, and no oboe or bassoon.

    Not only were these instruments changes made, but the introduction was changed and other melodic and harmonic changes made in the Pepper edition.

    It has been necessary to lay some ground work preliminary to further discussion, by bringing Sousa into this essay. Primarily this was done because Sousa’s works and the details of his composing and arranging are far better authenticated than those of any other composer or arranger of the time.

    We are now ready to discuss the meaning of the statement at the start of this essay, the very first sentence. Keep in mid that Grafuula led a band of rather smaller size than the Marine band of Sousa, and also quite a lot smaller than Gilmore’s of Reeves.

    Until this record was made by the Coast Guard band, the only work of Grafulla’s that has been known and played IN MODERN INSTRUMENTATION is of course, Washington Greys. The edition used by nearly all bands is one published by Fischer in 1905 and under the composer’s name is the notation ‘re-arranged by GH Reeves’ (that was a pen name of Laurendeau).The point is that the original arrangement of Washington Greys has not been seen, is not available, and there is no way to ascertain how much of the published version is really Grafuula and how much is Laurendeau’ own ideas. (Lest the reader of this essay feel that ‘arrangers’ are ALWAYS faithful to a composer’s intent, a later record of this series will give a magnificent illustration of the fallacy of this assumption).

    Several of the works of Grafulla, both originals and arrangements of tunes by others, as contained in the famous ‘Port Royal Band books’, found in the Library of Congress years ago, have been recorded – but INVARIABLY by bands using Civil War type instruments, and of course these were very small bands by today’s standards.

   The comment of a world famous bandsman, player, arranger, composer and conductor is most appropriate here ‘Hearing Civil War music on Civil War instruments is interesting for abut ten minutes and then you fervently wish they would all drop dead because the intonation and tone quality is so bad it makes the composer sound like an idiot’ It is for this reason, basically that a major decision was taken by Commander Stauffer and myself, when the Navy band started to make the first records in the Heritage series. After much consideration and debate we decided that all music would be played by the FULL NAVY band as it exists today.

    A few minor concessions were made, particularly inn German marches, saxes were not used. But generally, every instrument in the Navy band played at all times. The same procedure was followed by all the other bands in the Heritage of the March series and also on the Marines-Sousa series.

    Study of the published set of parts of the Pepper edition of Espirit de Corps will show that some adjustment had to be made. It has been a practical impossibility to add parts for the various instruments that exits in these bands of today. Time and talent to do this were not available. The standard practice has been that the director of each band, and this includes the college and school bands on the Heritage Letter series as well, has had to take a view as to what parts to give to which instruments. The practice limits of the ‘fixing up of the parts to be played by a modern band’ has consisted almost entirely of two things. If the band (and virtually NO piccolo players today use it) did not have a Db piccolo, the part was re-written to C piccolo (no change in the sound). The other change was of course to use French horns in F for the Eb alto parts. If the horn players were able to do so, and most all of them are, the parts did not have to be re-written for them, but they transposed.

    Of course, the cornet parts in most cases (not the Navy and Marines but almost all other bands) were played by trumpets, with consequent slight change in the brilliance of sound. The oboes generally played from the second or third clarinet part, transposing and the bassoons used the third trombone part.

    Sometimes saxes are not used. For example, in the Coast Guard Band, which is rather smaller than some of the other bands that have recorded on the Heritage series, the sax players, being professional musicians and capable of doing so, ‘doubled’ and played clarinets. If saxes were used, it was up to the director of the band what parts they played. Often he tried them playing one part and either told them to play, or used a different part. Alto saxes often used En alto horn part, tenor saxes played the baritone part and baritone saxes the third trombone or tuba part.

    The result has been to put on these records the sound of a modern fully instrumental band playing the old time marches.

    Who would question that if any of the composers used on the Heritage series were writing marches (and other music) today, for today’s bands, he would write for ALL instruments of the band. All we have actually done within the limits of available time, is to have the music sound as closely as possible to what they would have done.

    Back to Grafulla. Nearly all the published editions used to make this record had parts printed the same as the list of parts of the Pepper edition of Espirit de Corps. It is very possible that Grafulla wrote his original marches for more OR less instruments than were published by Pepper, Brophy an Schott. The one march Skyrocket, shows an arranger, Henneberg, but there is no way to tell if he used a piano edition of the march to work from, or had a set (partial, full of just what) of band parts of Gratfulla’s own to start with.

    The point is that it is not possible to accurately ascertain if the printed sets truly represented Grafulla’s ideas of what a band should sound like or not. Most likely they did, but he also lead an orchestra in New York and it is conceivable that some of these marches were written for that use of that orchestra, and had to be ‘re-arranged’ for band by someone else after his death. One very reasonable conclusion is that Grafulla himself did not prepare them exactly for the publishers, since the dates are mostly several years after his death.