WRITING FOR BRASS
WRITNG FOR THE BRASS SECTION
A lot of modern trumpet and brass techniques have come from jazz players. Great jazz trumpet players like Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Maynard Fergusson made an artform out of expressive techniques.
Charlie Porter continues to demonstrate a range of advanced techniques on the trumpet. These techniques can also be played on almost any member of the brass family.
380229964-Jazz-Articulations.pdfMUTES (SORDINI)
To write effectively for brass instruments, you need to know a thing or two about mutes... This is especially true of trumpets and Trombones. Here is Charlie Porter explaining and demonstrating the use of trumpet mutes.
There are two common instructions regarding mutes that you'll need to know: con sordini (with mute) tells the brass player to use a mute for a passage, and senza sordini (without mute) tells the player to take the mute out. If you want to get really good at writing for brass, there are a few other instructions for mutes that we'll look at later on.
Mutes PArt 1
Mutes part 2
Brass instruments have been around for a LONG time, and can be found in many cultures around the world. There are lots of of brass instruments commonly used in classical music. Here are some of the ones you'll encounter most often.
We're going to look at four of these horns; Trumpet, Trombone, French Horn and Tuba. These four instruments commonly make up a brass quintet.
TRUMPET
TROMBONE
FRENCH HORN
TUBA
BRASS SECTIONS IN ACTION
Bohemian Rhapsody
Toccata and Fugue in D minor
War
No BS Brass
THE RANGE OF COMMON BRASS INSTRUMENTS
Writing in the right range is critical for composers of brass music. The TIMBRE of brass instruments tend to vary dramatically, depending on where in their range they are playing. The top end tends to be bright, and have a lot of attack, and down the bottom of the range can be quite dark or muddy.The extreme ends of the range require quite a lot of skill to play, and only very experienced players can really play the very top notes. This chart is a rough guide, but it's always a good idea to talk to the players you're writing for, and find out where they're comfortable. If in doubt, try to stay in the middle of the range, unless you really need a high note for effect.
TRANSPOSING INSTRUMENTS!!
One of the biggest challenges of writing for brass section is the fact that many brass instruments are TRANSPOSING INSTRUMENTS. This means that the note that they read on the page is actually different from how it sounds. For example, if you tell most trumpet players to play the note 'C', the note that they will actually play is a Bb. Confused? Watch this video, and then look at. the chart below.
BRASS QUARTET
Brass Quartets are typically made up of two trumpets, a trombone and a tuba. Trombone and Tuba are typically written in bass clef, and the trumpets are written in treble clef. Note that the trumpet parts are transposed up a tone.
BRASS QUINTET
In a brass quintet, a French horn is added to the traditional brass quartet. Note that the French Horn is written on the treble clef, but is transposed up a fifth.