This I do because I am concerned about the future of the wind instrument tradition and especially the brass instrument tradition. I have noticed that the instruments now gets very little attention in the media (TV / Radio in Sweden). I predict that they will be even more neglected in the future as the choice to play a brass instrument, and some other instruments too, seems to be the result of circumstances more than good policies. It is not as common now to hear brass instruments and for this reason there are fewer who choose to start playing. I want to change this. I also do this "free sheet music site" because of two people who have had great influence on me. If you read on you will understand why.
I started on piano. This was in 1975 and I was 12 years old. There were still a lot of big bands to listen to and you could sit in a park, grab a cup of coffee, drink lemonade and listen to a wind orchestra playing for free. I remember going to concerts with my mother and grandfather, who incidentally was a military musician. I had a lot of role models. In television you could hear great artists with large studio orchestras and the names of the musicians could be read in the closing credits. This is no longer the case in Swedish television. If it is one of those rare occations and there happens to be an orchestra playing you will se the names of any cameraman and make-up artist but you will not se the names of the musicians in the orchestra. Anyway this future was unknown to me back then and I had the opportunity to see a lot of musicians in TV and hear a lot of good music. I also listend to the radio, and there were no commercials. Whole songs were played and you could even take a breath before next song started. No hysterical presenter who snatched the coda. I bought LP-records in a record shop.
Now I can almost hear you cry: "You are a old and obsolet".
Yes, I am and the 17:th century was best ;-)
I had a piano teacher who was a bit obvious to correct the errors I made and her method did not lead to anything but anxiety. As I sat outside the room waiting for my turn, the saxophone teacher saw me and knew something was wrong. He took me aside and soon realized I wanted to quit. He suggested that I might try another instrument. He suggested I should try the trombone so I began studying with him instead. What I didnt know was that he could not play the trombone, but he was an enthusiast, which leads to my growing interest. We played at school concerts in shopping centers, hospitals, retirement homes and even at dances. Soon we were a small orchestra with an alto saxophone, two trombones, a tuba, plus my teacher playing the clarinet and saxophone, changing to accordion when needed. We were his best and most dedicated students. I also earned money playing at the dances with the odd orchestra under his direction. We rehersed at night on a theater in Salem, and when he had to go home, he gave me the keys to the theater. In the small hours, I went to his apartment and put the keys in his mailbox. It's the kind of people who should work with children in the public music school. This was my first teacher. Without him, I would probably not have played the trombone.
My grandfather Sven Carlberg (1905-1982) played the French horn and violin in the military orchestra in Skövde, a small town in the center of Sweden, and in the early years he played at a local cinema. Besides this, he had a valve trombone of the old Swedish brand Ahlberg Ohlsson. Since my teacher did not play the trombone, my grand father was of great importance to me. I often listened to him when he played his valve trombone. On this small bore horn, he produced the most wonderful vibrato. He had started as a musician volunteer at the age of 14 at regiment P 4 in Skövde in 1919 and served there until the orchestra announced its closure in the late 30's. When he lost his job he got a job as a janitor in a public school. He continued to play anyway, and started his own music school in Skövde in 1944, before there was any public music school in the city, this later lead to the creation of "Skövde musikskola" (music school in Skövde). He had a marching band with boys who were eager to play. The maching band was called "Östermalmpojkarna". My grandfather convinced the headmaster to buy some used instruments from the Salvation Army. He teached them in the evenings while sweeping the schoolroom floors and marched with them on the streets daytime on weekends. He did this without compensation and many proud parents could listen to their sons play at the squares and in the parks in this small town. It was not just a musical deed. It also kept the children busy and out of trouble so his social deed, perhaps was of much greater significance.
The point here is that my grandfather as well as my teacher had the enthusiasm needed to influence people in their early years and that they both did much more than they needed to do. This, we felt and was so affected by in a positive direction. I'm trying to make this site with free sheet music in their spirit, and also as a salute to all good people who puts "that little extra" in their deeds. That little extra that makes others feel important and special, they who are not in business just for the money.
I think there are to few good arrangements and compositions written for brass that are free and when it comes to brass quartets there are sadly very few. There are also not to many musical commercial arrangements worth buying for this setting. The arrangers and composers seem to have forgotten this setup. Since there seems to be a declining number of students who choose to play a brassinstrument, it is not a basis for issuing arrangements to financial gain. Fact is the ones who will keep the brass music tradition alive needs encuragement and access to good music, and not just "very old" good music, or it will be even fewer playing these instruments in the future. The idea of giving away free scores on the Internet is a good one, and there are luckily some good stuff. You can check my links. Naturally the fact that anyone can become a publisher creates another problem. It leads to a lot of junk arrangements to. Sometimes an arranger makes one arrangement and then tries to copy it for any combination of instruments wich could result in poor arrangements for brass, from the original that maybe was "allright". All my arrangements are or will be tested and performed in some context by me and my friends. If I change the arrangement I will publish the corrected version. They are not a work for the desktop or the midi interfaces of the computers on the Internet. If you think the arrangements are to difficult I assure you that I will put some easy arrangements on the page in the future. The brass quartet setting I use are of two trumpets and two trombones. I will make a french horn part available to substitute the first trombone if suitable and the 4th part could be played on a small tuba.
I will keep writing for small settings for a while but In the future a few arrangements for larger brass ensembles will be made.
If you want to know more about the musical climate of military musicians here in Sweden then please continue to read the rest of this page.
My grandfather lost his job in the orchestra in the late 30's. In the 60's even more musicians lost their employment when the military no longer considered it necessary to have their own orchestras, leaving only a few elite orchestras. These orchestras soon turned into "Regionmusiken" in 1971. "Regionmusiken" was composed of 22 departments in eight regions. Their task was to participate in the regional music events and in the military ceremonies. For some reason they did not complete their military duties and in 1982 the military started a military band named "Armens musikpluton" (In English: "The Army Music Corps.") to take care of the military events. This was the first Corps of this kind in Sweden.
My guess is the musicians in "Regionmusiken" were not interested in keeping up the military discipline needed for the task. Nor were they interested in marching in the streets. The young conscripts were in better physical shape and because they were under the military command also much easier to handle. They were also good looking.
The availability of young talented musicians were good back then because a lot of military musicians had been given jobs in the public music schools that started in the 60's. Many of them did a good job. There were also auditions to pick the best to this new army band. In the start there was a lot of very talented musicians on queue for military service. World-renowned trumpeter Hakan Hardenberger made his service in the first year.
Although the second year contained a number of very talented musicians, including trombonist Jonas Bylund who has played with the swedish world-famous trombonist Christian Lindbergh in the brass musical Western-Video, Brassbones, and now works as professor of trombone in Germany. I had the priviliges to serve in the trombone section this second year.
One coincidence is that in the platoon were the grandson of a collegue of my grandfather. His grandfather played the clarinet in the same orchestra as my grandfather. Sweden is a rather small country of nine million people but I think it still is remarkable. We now did our military service together in an orchestra two generations later sitting side by side in the trombone section, like our grandfathers some 60 years earlier.
The military band then was located in Södermanland, at regiment P 10, in Strängnas. The band consisted of approximately 50-60 conscripts until 2005. In 2006, 15 professional musicians were hired as instructors of conscripts, and to participate in the orchestra. From 2009/2010 Corps consists of 18 permanent employed musicians, 17 musicians working on contract and 18 military musicians in elementary education. The musicians of the permanent staff is mainly recruited from previous cohorts of elementary education. I would say that we are now back to the situation we had at the beginning of the 20:th century with employed musicians and volunteers, except this is now scaled down to almost nothing. The great thing about this is that at least 18 of the permenent musician jobs that were lost in the 60's now are back :-).
After the year 2011 the corps consists of 36 contracted musicians and 17 on shorter contracts. The orchestra is now all professional and has changed its Swedish name to AMK ("Armens musikkår"). There are no volunteers and no military service involved. This makes 53 jobs for musicians "with good health". Under military command are also 30 jobs in MMK ("Marinens musikkår") and 30 jobs in "Livgardets dragonmusikkår", on horseback. No military service is involved there either. I must mention that there is also an AMK corps for retired AMK-soldiers but of cause with very limited resources.
Is this something new? No, we have a similar situation as in 1971. Except there are only three orchestras, three departments in two regions, not spread all over the country. Two are in the capitol - Stockholm, in the county of Stockholm and one in Karlskrona in the South, in the county of Blekinge. Their task is to participate in the regional music events and in the military ceremonies. Why did this happen? I know there was a problem to recruit skilled musicians to the later corps when millitary service no longer was mandatory. Since there are no longer nessecary to do millitary service in Sweden I believe the mix of volunteers and professionals had to end. Obviously the best musicians would not volunteer. But the high music standard on recruits did in fact drop much earlier. Why? I believe there are a number of reasons. If you are interested in this, continue reading.
If you want to know what I think about elementary music education in the public music school, continue to read the page.
1) Later students have not studied in a music school that had the same view of culture and musical skills as the previous ones.
The motivated old military musicians that built the music school in the 60's are now retired. Some of them were obviously highly skilled, with high ideals musically, probably working as headmasters in the end. They encouraged teachers and students to have skills. Now the new headmasters lacks tradition and music acumen. This is something I know, since they are not recruited on their musical skills or musical ambitions.
2) Later students have not had access to good role models as easily as the previous ones.
This is a little ambiguous. On the one hand there are the Internet and YouTube, with examples of amazing musical performances. All of these heroes can be role models in any respect. On the other hand, one does not address these heroes as they are not highlighted and recognized. They may not state the same way as a good football player or hockey player. Politicians and others with power to change things do nothing. A change in politics is needed. It's not easy for a teacher to be the only one to motivate the hard work needed to learn how to play an instrument. The student can't be expected to study and be creative on his own without a big goal. Unfortunately the problem now is the same with all wind instruments. Playing a wind instrument does not attract students. In many schools there are to few pupils to put together a complete orchestra. When I studied there were a lot of older students that could be role models and they were also recognized. There was also a hierarchic order that was not all bad.
By the way: The electrified instruments and electrified music is doing fine, as well as singers fronting pop bands. It is only the acoustic instruments that need political help and role models, especially double reed instruments and low brass instruments.
3) Later students have not had the same resources as the previous ones.
The music in the public music school already has a crisis. As an impact the goal has changed. When I began as a teacher in 1982 it still was OK to have as a goal that the pupils should learn how to play an instrument. I had the opportunity to give lessons that were up to an hour long. When I studied I also had lessons that was at least one hour long. This was of cause special cases, if a student was well motivated. Now the goal seems to be to keep budget and keep pupils happy at all times. The teachers goal simply have to be to make students stay so they don't loose their jobs. This is natural since higher demands in the short turn will lead to fewer students. I don't think this is a goal that motivates to have a music school. Maybe this is why it is not called music school anymore. The name has actually changed to "kulturskola", this translates to "school of arts". Quantity is more important than quality in this school. Why don't we do both? An other economic aspect is that when I studied in the public music school in the 70's it was free of charge. The point was that everybody had the right to study an instrument. It was then completley financed by taxes. Today there are high fees combined with taxes wich makes it more difficult to take advantage of for families with a smaller budget. These fees were gradually introduced in the 90's.
The later students have an advantage though, or at least should have. The later students have studied with educated teachers. The first teachers had no education in how to teach. They did just know how to play an instrument. The later ones including myself are educated in methodology, pedagogy and psycology. Why didn't this change things to the better then? The answer is simply that their education does not include a prescription to the problems listed above.
The question is urgent: How do we rescue the wind instrument tradition?
Give me your comments on this article: brazzmusic@yahoo.com
Thank you for reading, and please go back to the download pages!