Talk:Concert band

Tuba Annotations
I've never heard of this Tuba/String Bass thing where the bass plays the uppor octave. It makes no sense since many of these same editions have a separate string bass part. Please give a source or I'll revert it.Justin Tokke (talk) 02:49, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * No one at all? If I don't see a response by tomorrow, I'll be inclined to remove it. Justin Tokke (talk) 00:44, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Removed the nonsense. The top octave of the 2 is for the double bass if there isn't a separate part. P0mbal (talk) 17:00, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I have to agree with Justin Tokke. This practice seems rather unusual to me, since it is commonplace to play the upper part as written on tuba. 80.187.106.136 (talk) 00:54, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Nomenclature
Seeing that there's 15 million different names for the "Concert Band", might there be a "Nomenclature" or "Etymology" section to show what all the different names mean? Because "Concert Band" isn't the same as "Marching Band" which isn't the same as "Wind Ensemble" which isn't the same as "School band" which isn't the same as "Symphonic Band"....etc. etc. etc. etc. Justin Tokke (talk) 21:17, 2 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree with this sentiment. IMHO we are doing a poor job of explaining the relationships between different types of bands. My suggestion is that a new generic article be created to discuss the entire tradition of "wind band" or "wind and percussion band". This article could be used to write a solid history of the tradition and then link to the various types of modern ensembles that are decended from it by function (concert, marching), location (military, school) or instrumentation (brass, various field music units could be mentioned). Each of these articles have separate history sections that sometimes reference each other but the connection isn't always clear. Do others think this would be a valuable endeavor? Telescopium1 (talk) 04:43, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, anything that increases specificity and clarity on Wikipedia is a good thing. Softlavender (talk) 04:48, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
 * In Dutch, 'ensemble' (for example, the Netherlands Wind Ensemble) is used for smaller orchestras only, isn't this the case in English?
 * I agree that a generic article about wind orchestras and bands would be a good idea. This article here should then focus on concert bands (the larger orchestras with all kinds of wind instruments). It seems that the Japanese Wikipedia (Google Translate was my friend) has not only a thorough article on wind orchestras in general (吹奏楽) but also separate articles on symphonic wind bands (シンフォニック・バンド), concert bands (コンサート・バンド), wind ensembles (ウインド・アンサンブル) and wind orchestras (ウインド・オーケストラ). Bever (talk) 00:24, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

More international please
This article is so focused on America that I am still not sure if the concert band is the same as similar orchestras in continental Europe (orchestre d'harmonie / harmonieorkest / Harmonieorchester) or that is a different kind. Bever (talk) 00:37, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Because of the large amounts of unreferenced material (which I just removed), the article appears to have been written by just one or two editors, no doubt Americans with little experience of wind bands outside their own country. (Though Japan is mentioned once or twice.) It seems less overwhelmingly American now, but still needs more (properly referenced) information on continental Europe, at least. I would also like to see more (anything at all) on bands in South America, Australia, and other parts of the world where wind bands exist.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:12, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
 * For a start, I have never heard the term used in the U.K. Brass bands is our standard term, which would include most of the examples on this page. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:03, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Footnotes on Piccolo and Tubas
" In Bavarian wind music no piccolo is called for, as the E♭ clarinet substitutes for it."

Bavarian concert bands do not do that. Piccolo flutes play an octave above the Eb clarinet anyway. Bavarian, alpine and Bohemian "polka wind ensembles" that only play traditional style music are not really concert bands and do not make use of any woodwinds except for sometimes a few clarinets. They do not have a full woodwind section and they often are very small (~6-20 players) and thus not even real concert bands. Their basic Instrumentation is for example 2 flugelhorns,2 baritone horns, Tuba, and perhaps some trombones or bass trumpets, clarinets, and a single trumpet. That does not make a concert band.

"Many tuba parts are written in octaves. In that case the higher notes are to be played by the double bass, sounding an octave lower and therefore at the same pitch as the lower part."

That's quite bizarre. One does not need any evidence to see that this is not true. A single glimpse at any contemporary intermediate grade band piece will show that you can not do that, parts frequently change between unisono and octave doubling and they often remain unisono beyond the low end of the double bass. The high octaves are also to be played by the tuba, not absolutely necessarily in any circumstances, but in more advanced literature they are to be played for sure.

2A01:598:A80F:83DA:1:2:F944:F562 (talk) 23:11, 11 August 2018 (UTC)