Band-a-stration?

Since my last post, not only did I have the opportunity to present my short score for band to the class, but we were also visited by a delegation from the Gower Community band, for which my piece is intended. They led a very informative class on what to keep in mind when writing for a band of their level, and things to consider if you want your work to be played by an average high school band. 

The next class I presented what I had so far of my piece. Most of the feedback was concerning things that had been mentioned in our class with the people from Gower band. There were a couple of runs and rhythms that looked a bit too complex, but I plan to orchestrate them in a way that will make it as easy as possible for the band to execute. I had expected more comments on my content, but the general consensus seemed to be that what I had so far was ample material to begin orchestrating with, so over this past week I got to work bringing the short score into its full form.

I found this extremely challenging for a variety of reasons. The first, and most trivial, being the teeny tiny size of my laptop screen and its inability to show hardly any of the score at one time. Switching back and forth between the piano reduction and the full score didn't help with the already cluttered space either. I need to devise a more intelligent strategy for my work flow. 

My second, and probably most significant challenge: transposition. While I had played in a concert band for 6 years, two of those were on French Horn, and the rest were in the percussion section. I have a very very limited understanding of wind instruments, their capabilities, and most of all their ranges/transpositions. This is especially frustrating when working from a short score that is in concert pitch. The process was slow going at first, but by the third hour I finally began to remember which instruments did what, somewhat. 

My final frustration with writing for this medium is the specificity of each instrument. This is something that I hope to learn to use to my advantage, but at the moment it feels like the band is just begging me to write a generic band piece. I'm beginning to understand why so much of the repertoire sounds so similar. But this is a challenge that I accepted in choosing to write for band, so I will put my head down and push on.

Although the process is slow going and quite trying on my patience, I'm glad I decided to do it. In the very least it will be a great learning experience!