MIAID AIC)'IE: S THE BENEFITS OF WIND QUINTETS FOR...

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THE BENEFITS OF WIND QUINTETSFOR YOUR BAND STUDENTS

By MICHAEL BURNS

This adicle is intended to encourageband directors to organize their talentedwoodwind and brass students intochamber groups. There are severaladvantages to your band program to begained from such a venture:

1. The players wi l l develop astronger sense of ensemble asthey learn to balance voices,blend, play rhythmically togetherwithout conductor, etc.

2. The players will get to play oneon a oart instead of in a sectionof many as wi th f lutes andclarinets or being doubled bynumerous other instruments andperhaps not real ly hear ingthemselves as with the doublereeds. This wil l in turn develootheir sense of p i tch andintonation (there is nowhere tohide!), and their sense of playingsoloist ical ly at t imes and asaccompaniment at others.

3. The players can exper iencesome new and fun reoertoireand perhaps find repertoire thatbetter fits their level of expertisethan is always possible with afullband arrangement.

There are several ootions availablelor wind chamber music. Probably themost common ensemble and that whichs easiest to find repertoire for is thestandard wind quintet (also sometimes:alled the woodwind quintet even thought includes the horn) of f lute, oboe,:larinet, bassoon, and horn. There are,lf course, many other varied types ofruind chamber ensembles but for thecurposes of this article I would l ike toloncentrate on the quintet.

The five instruments comprising arvind quartet are quite diverse and thiseads to challenges that must be facedlnd overcome by the players.

By contrast , a str ing quartet is.'ssentially homogenous in nature. The:hree different instruments (two violins of:ourse) all work in the same way and arerasically smaller and larger versions of:he same instrument.

The brass quintet is a lso more'romogenous in nature than the windluintet. Even though the trumpet and:rombone are both cylindrical bore and:he horn and tuba are conical. the method

MICHAELBURNS

of playing and the essent ia l p layingcharacteristics of the brass instrumentsare very similar.

But the woodwinds, they are quite adifferent kettle of fish. The two doublereeds probably have the most similaritiesin playing character ist ics. Both arenaturally loudest in the low register andget softer as you ascend. The flute, ofcourse, behaves in the exact oppositeway. lts lowest register is softest and itgets naturally louder as you ascend. Theclarinet is different again. lt has differentvolume character ist ics wi th in theregisters but behaves quite differentlyfrom the other woodwinds. That darncylindrical bore that is stopped at one endwhich produces the character ist icoverblown 1 2th is a big part of the reasonthat the clarinet acts so differently fromits woodwind colleagues. Then there isthe horn. which. as the lone brass

ABOUT THIS AUTHOR

instrument in the group, has qui te zdifferent method of producing the souncthan the other instruments.

Players in a wind quintet have to deawith very different pitch tendencies fronnote to note within the group. A notethat tends to be low on one instrumenmay well be high on another. When thegroup crescendoes some instrumentstend to r ise in pi tch whi le otherssimultaneously go flat. The five instrumentshave very different abilities in terms oarticulation: f lute is great at multipletonguing, oboe and bassoon are great fora britt le staccato but getting all f iveinstruments to match an exact articulatiorand note length can be quite tricky.

Dynamics are another area odiversity in a wind quintet. The poor horrplayer feels l ike they can never plalabove about mf lor fear of drowning outhe rest of the group. Clarinet can tapelaway to a whisper whereas the doublereeds may be left high and dry, unable tcdiminuendo further wi thout losing thenote altogether. This list is not intendecto be a complaint or to dissuade peoplefrom ever trying to play a wind quintetRather, I think that learning to deal witland overcome these many diversechal lenges can be one of the mosrewarding aspects of playing in a quintetand your players wil l certainly becom€stronger musicians in the process.

l f you have a ta lented playeravailable on each of the five necessar)instruments to form a wind ouintet thenstrongly recommend doing so. Theseplayers will learn skills that can then bebrought back into the band as they silwithin their sections and lead by example

Michael Burns, Bassoon, holds aBMwith Honours from the Victoria Universityof Wellington, New Zealand, an MM fromNew England Conservatory, Boston, and aDMA from the College-Conservatory ofMusic at the University of Cincinnati.

Currently he is an Assistant Professorof Bassoon at the University of NorthCarolina at Greensboro, and the Bassoonistin the Eastwind Ensemble. He has heldteaching positions at Midland College inTexas, and Indiana State University in TerreHaute.

As a performer, Burns has playedPrincipal Bassoon in the Midland/OdessaSymphony Orchestra in Texas, theCincinnati Chamber Orchestra, theRichmond (IN) Symphony, and numerousgroups in his native New Zealand. Inaddition he has performed as a member ofthe Cincinnati , and New Zealand

Symphony Orchestras. Currently heperforms regularly with the Greensboro,Charleston, North Carolina, and CharlotteSymphony Orchestras.

Burns' principal teachers includeWilliam Winstead, Sidney Rosenberg,Sherman Walt, Leonard Sharrow, and ColinHemmingsen. Burns is a YamahaPerforming Artist who recently completeda concert tour of Australia and New Zealand,and he will co-host the lnternational DoubleReed Society convention in Greensboro inJune, 2003.

If you would like to submit an article forpublication in Woodwind Notes please contactMichael Bums at the following address: Dr.Michael Burns, Assistant Professor ofBassoon, School of Music, University of NorthCarolina at Greensboro, P. O. Box 26167,Greensboro, NC 27402-6167, (336) 334-5970; e-mail: mjburns @uncg.edu

It is no accident that many professionalsymphony orchestras have a wind quintetformed from within their ranks ioftencomprised of their principal playeis) aspart of the job description also. Theplayers learn to work as a team,independent of but supplementing theorchestra (or band). Don't forget iboutthe possibi l i ty of subst i tut i ig otherInstruments for the double reedi if voudon't have those players available also.

SOME SUGGESTED QUINTETREPERTOIRE

The fol lowing pieces are al l of adiff iculty level that should be at t imeschallenging but achievable for a groupof somewhat ta lented high sJhoolstudents. Of course the more proficientthe players, the more artistic demandscan be placed on them.

Sude by Robert Washburn8 Dances by Liadov

Six Cuban Dances by Cervantesarr. Lesnicx

:ive rypy Dances by Denes AgayThree Short pieces by Jacques-lb'ert

Suite from Winterpieceby Thomas Schudel

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