Hire Bands

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Last updated 04 08 11

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What are Hire Bands: 

A band is a group of people who come together to do a job or activity. What happens when those people play musical instruments and join together to perform songs? You have a musical band!

Some bands are small and made up of 3-4 members who play instruments like keyboards, guitar, bass and drums. Other bands may include a few hundred people who play instruments like the trumpet, tuba and trombone.

There are many different types of bands. For example, members of a rock band play rock and roll music, while members of a jazz band make jazz music. You may also find bands at your school. For example, students in a marching band play their instruments while marching from place to place, often performing at sporting events, like football games!

Some people perform in bands for their job. There are musicians who are paid to play with their bands at special events like weddings. Other musicians may play just for fun or hope that one day their band becomes famous!

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In the 18th century, military ensembles were doing double duty as entertainment at the royal courts, either alone or combined with orchestral strings. Composers such as Mozart were writing chamber music for these groups, called Harmonie bands, which evolved to a standard instrumentation of two oboes, two clarinets, two horns, and two bassoons. In addition to original compositions, these groups also played transcriptions of opera music.

Contact with the music of the Turkish Janissaries contributed to the expansion of the Western European wind band. The splendor and dramatic effect of their percussion prompted the adoption of bass drum, cymbals, and triangle, as well as piccolo to balance the increased weight of the percussion section; see Turkish music (style). More clarinets were gradually added and brass instruments were further developed. By 1810 the wind band had reached its current size, though the instrumentation differed in various countries.

During the 19th century large ensembles of wind and percussion instruments in the English and American traditions existed mainly in the form of the Military band for ceremonial and festive occasions, and the works performed consisted mostly of marches. The only time wind bands were used in a concert setting comparable to that of a symphony orchestra was when transcriptions of orchestral or operatic pieces were arranged and performed, as there were comparatively few original concert works for a large wind ensemble.

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The first notable and influential original symphonic work for band was Gustav Holst's First Suite in E-Flat, written in 1909. To this day the piece is considered the classic work of symphonic band, and beginning with Holst a variety of British, American, Canadian and Australian composers wrote for the medium, including notably Percy Grainger, James Swearingen and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

The works of the British band masters, in conjunction with the aspirations of college band directors, led to the belief that the wind band could complement the symphony orchestra as a vehicle of artistic expression at the highest level. This led to the formation of the College Band Directors' National Association, and spawned the commissioning of works from a wide variety of composers.

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Since the 1950s, military bands have been the primary force behind the concert band genre. The majority of full-time professional ensembles are military bands and, outside the United States, also police bands. One example is the Air Force Academy Band (inception in 1942 as the "Flying Yanks", reactivated for the United States Air Force Academy in 1955, Colorado Springs, CO). This band has often been cited as, "The Thunderbirds of the Air Force Band Program".

Most adult bands outside of colleges and military institutions are community bands. A community band is a community-based ensemble of wind and percussion players, generally sponsored by the town or city in which it is located and consisting of amateur performers. It will typically hold regular rehearsals and perform at least one to three times per year.
 

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