Organizing A Vintage Band
'" Jerry Robbins, Conductor
Several times III recent years the Ypsilanti
(MI) Community Band (YCB) has been invited to
provide music for some event at which the venue
wasn't suitable for the entire Band, but the inviter
wanted something more than, say, a brass quartet or a
woodwind quintet. We had to decline the invitations,
for lack of having anything suitable available other
than a "pep band" or a "big band" (that is dormant at
the moment waiting for the guy who owns the book
to complete an educational program).
We decided we needed some sort of "small
band" suitable for use for such events. But what
would that be? Earlier surveys of member interests
concerning ensembles indicated that we had close
to the instrumentation for and interest in some sort
of "vintage" band. We decided against a "Civil
War" era band for several reasons, the primary one
being that there is an excellent semi-professional
"Civil War" band in the area and we didn't want to
compete with that group. Instead, we decided on a
"town band" of the 1880-1920 era of approximately
20 players.
Somewhat arbitrarily, but based in large part on
volunteer interest on the part of players, we decided
on instrumentation of one flute/piccolo, three Bb
clarinets, an' alto. saxophone, a tenor saxophone,
Jerry Robbins is in his
12th season as conductor
of the Ypsilanti Community
Band. Before that, he had
17 years experience, with
two community bands, as
assistant conductor. Before
spending a career, from
which he has recently
retired, as a university
administrator, he was a high
school band director.
four comets, three trombones, two French horns that
we would convert to alto horn as soon as we could
get instruments, a baritone horn, three trombones, a
tuba, and two percussionists. (Once we got started,
we found a number of other band members who
"wanted to play" in this ensemble, so we now have
an appreciable substitute/waiting list.)
The four trumpet players went to work and
came up with four comets in workable order. We
borrowed from a trombone player his grandfather's
alto horn and acquired a new alto horn as well. We
also acquired a tenor horn and added that to the
instrumentation. By mounting a cymbal on a small
bass drum, we were ready to go!
In the meantime, there was the matter of music.
Our band library held very little music that was first
published during the 1880-1920 period, so we had to
go looking. We downloaded a number of selections,
all out of copyright, from the excellent Band Music
PDF Library «www.bandmusicpdforg»
affiliated
with the orth Royalton (OR) Community Band.
Other music has been obtained from the Chatfield
(MN) Brass Band and Music Lending Library
(<http://www.chatfieldband.lib.mn.us/Library
_
08.htm».
Our most recent performance called for
the inclusion of music of the 1850's and early 1860's.
"... we decided
on a "town
band" of the
1.880-1.920 era
of approximately
20 players."
The "Town Band" of the Ypsilanti Community Band, in performance
September 30,2009.
16 ACB JOURNAL
February
2010
at Eastern Michigan University,
...Vintage Band
For this, piano sheet music published during that time was
downloaded from the Library of Congress' American Memory
site (<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mussmhtml/mussmhome.
html» and arranged locally for our "town band." There is band
music of the 1850-1860 period on this site, but much of it is
handwritten and very difficult to read.
For each performance to date, music was distributed to the
players ahead of time. Then, for several weeks prior to each
performance, rehearsals were held immediately prior to our
regular weekly rehearsals of the full band.
The first performance of the "Town Band"--in March 2009-was given in modern dress. However, we quickly went to work to
decide on what to wear for subsequent performances that would
be period appropriate, Since we would be playing music written
as late as 1920, we felt that the "dress" should be approximately
that of the World War I period.
We did a lot of historical research about band uniforms
of around 1915-1920, relying heavily on both photos in The
Music Men--An Illustrated History of Brass Bands in America,
1800-1920 (Margaret Hindle Hazen and Robert M. Hazen,
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987) and a vintage band photo
collection of one of our players. But we knew that, whatever we
did, it had to be done on a shoestring. We checked a number of
sources concerning possible period-appropriate band uniforms,
but nothing we found seemed to fit our needs. (If anyone reading
this knows of a source for a set of period-appropriate uniforms
in adult sizes that could be obtained free or inexpensively, we'd
like to know of it!)
From a number of sources, including on line, we found a
number of photos of bands of the early 20th Century where the
players were in "civilian" dress. We decided to copy from those.
A local costume store was the source for some items. Some
headgear (for both women and men) was located in local vintage
clothing stores. A few new items were found that would fit in.
Some ofthe women had long skirts/dresses made for this purpose.
The costume shop of the Department of Communication, Media
& Theatre Arts at Eastern Michigan University has been of
enormous help to us.
We now have an ensemble "ready to go" for those venues
where a small, vintage "town band" is the appropriate performing
group.
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February 2010