Modern Band Expands Opportunities for New Students

The makeup of the concert band or wind ensemble has not significantly changed in the last century and continues to be the core of most school music programs. The advantages are numerous and include using instruments that are easy to obtain, maintain and, likely, already in the school’s inventory.

With more than 100 years of readily available literature, not only does every school band have plenty of music to choose from, but more is being written every day. And the use of that literature provides music educators all the material they need to teach their students about music, notes, rhythms, terms, styles, eras and technique.

From this core ensemble, many schools can then offer other instrumental opportunities for their students. Many have a marching band, one that is simply the concert band performing while moving to completely separate units doing routines and shows. Others offer a jazz ensemble component where several of the core band instruments, enhanced by a rhythm section, perform and explore the wide variety of jazz and popular music. Multiple smaller ensembles can sprout from the concert band including like-instrument trios, quartets and quintets, to mixed woodwind, brass or percussion ensembles. Recently, however, a new variant has emerged that is providing a new group of students the chance to be “in the band.”

Called the Modern Band, this newest type of ensemble incorporates student musicians performing on both traditional and non-traditional instruments. By adding these instruments to the ensemble, the music educator can now perform a fair portion of the traditional band literature using parts specifically written for those performers. That music, having some of the same characteristics as Flexible Band Music (see article in the November issue of HST), allows a wider variety of instruments to perform the core melodies, harmonies and rhythms of those pieces, retaining their character and characteristics.

Involving student musicians on piano, electric bass, guitar, violin, cello and other instruments normally not associated with the band experience helps to expand the music program offerings to a new group of students. That expansion not only helps programs recover from the pandemic, but also broadens its connection to the school and community. However, it is the new music, written or arranged specifically for the Modern Band, that is creating the most excitement and helping to make this new ensemble more of a commonality. These pieces, using new melodies or old ones, take advantage of the unique timbre of the newly added instruments to produce equally unique pieces. Beyond that, they also find ways to combine traditional and non-traditional instruments to create surprising sounds, patterns, rhythms or harmonies.

Many of those non-traditional instruments have capabilities that are significantly different than those heard in a concert band. The continuous sound that a string instrument can produce when bowed; the range, harmonies and accents of the piano or guitar; the interesting quality of percussion instruments more closely associated with World Drumming all contribute to the unique sound made possible by the Modern Band.

The advantages of adding a Modern Band to a school’s music program extend beyond simply increasing student participation numbers. Most of the students will have their own instruments, while many of the others are inexpensive to purchase. The pieces in the current school music library, with the investment of a little time using some common music software, can be modified to include any of the added instruments.

Improvisation can be a part of the Modern Band, adding not only another unique characteristic, but providing an opportunity for students with limited music reading skills to contribute to the ensemble’s performances. Even those instrumentalists often enjoy and thrive at improvising on their instrument, something that they often do not get a chance to do in any other musical ensemble.

While one would hope that the traditional concert band will be the core of school music programs for another century, the addition of the Modern Band concept for many programs has begun to reverse the recent decline in participation numbers. Already, some all-state festivals have begun including the Modern Band in their offerings, providing not only a quality performance opportunity for these students, but the educational audition process to help those not selected improve their musicianship.

As more and more schools look to expand their offerings, the Modern Band will become prevalent and increasingly mainstream, bringing more students and thereby more community members into school music programs.