Brass Chorale No. 1 (For Marching Band Brass Section)

Two summers ago, my friend asked me to write him a chorale for the brass section of his marching band to use as a warm-up. And not so much a warm up to get the blood flowing and to practice any real technical fundamentals but rather a piece that they could use to practice blend, intonation, breath support, getting that big "marching band sound" etc. He gave me a very specific instrumentation- 4 trumpets, 1 mellophone, 3 baritones and 2 tubas. He also wanted reasonably conservative ranges with the exception of a few key players. The thing is, I wrote it and they played it some, but I never got any feedback on it so I would greatly appreciate any that you can offer! Thank You.

Brass Chorale No. 1 (For Marching Band Brass Section)

It's a brass chorale. Okay.

I gotta get going so I'ma be brief.

The sonorities are pretty nice. +++

The ending is good. ++

If you are going to have silence, make it a caesura preceded by a fermata. Don't have a count of complete silence. Particularly for a marching band chorale, all cadences should be held; that's kind of where the tuning work happens. What you have on pg1, ln2, m1 would work if you wrote a line that melded the two phrases together. Otherwise you need to fully cadence on a held note and start the new phrase after it.

M.4 is too sudden a change in volume. Have the baritones do that descent as well. Why did they drop out there?

2nd page: You have a looot of vanishing notes. Individual lines moving in and out of unison = intermittently disappearing voice. It sounds awkward when done more than once or twice.

2nd page, right before "Loud!": tpt 1 should not have that last eighth note. The entire band either has to elide into the last phrase or hit it together. Right now tpt 1 is being left to dry with his line that WANTS to connect the phrases, but doesn't. A quick breathe for the whole group right there is understandable, but not with that eighth note.

Hope that helps.

-Pete

The person that marches to this is going to look ridiculous. Just teasing. I think you accomplished what you set out to do regarding the sound. It seems like great warm-up material. I'm not a brass player, though, so I can't say whether it works well or not. Neat.

Thanks to both of you! :)