Wind Bands
- LAST MODIFIED: 27 October 2022
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199757824-0318
- LAST MODIFIED: 27 October 2022
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199757824-0318
Introduction
“Band” was used liberally in the English language in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to mean an orchestra of the type that accompanied oratorio and opera. This changed by the opening decades of the nineteenth century when “band,” “orchestra,” and “ensemble” acquired separate, if not entirely precise and consistent, meanings. The delineations were prompted by both cultural and pragmatic factors. “Orchestra” became reserved for large instrumental forces in which instruments, often from different families, were deployed to perform “orchestral” music: by this time the modern form of the symphony orchestra was taking a standard shape. “Ensemble” loosely inferred smaller groupings that played art music repertoires. So, for example, a string quartet and a wind octet might both be described as types of ensemble, but “ensemble” would not be used without irony to describe a group of busking street musicians—it would be called a band. It follows that the residual meaning of “band” is difficult to summarize because bands exist in so many forms: some have precise formations with dedicated repertoires and distinctive idioms, others have less uniformity and are formed expediently. So “band” has also developed into a catchall phrase for any group of instrumentalists for which a different descriptor is inappropriate. This leads to the need for descriptive adjectives: military band, brass band, jazz band, pipe band, and so on. To complicate matters further, modern retrospective labelling is often applied to historical groups, such as the Alta band, and modern pop groups are ubiquitously referred to as “bands.” A pragmatic approach is taken in this article. While literature about earlier groupings is cited, the emphasis is on bands that emerged from the early nineteenth century, most having their origin, directly or indirectly, in military bands. It was the rise of the military band in its modern form that probably created the need for the new semantic distinction between “band” and “orchestra.” As well as being primarily formed of wind instruments, these bands often had, and continue to have, a public role, sometimes in outdoor settings. While these points explain the scope of this article its limitations are determined by the organization of Oxford Bibliographies. Put simply, while there is some overlap with other parts of Oxford Bibliographies, this article is primarily devoted to bands that are not the subject of detailed attention elsewhere. So, for example, see the separate Oxford Bibliographies in Music entries on Street Music and Jazz and other entries devoted to individual bands such as Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington.
General Overviews and Reference Works
No specialist general reference works cover the full scope inferred by “bands,” but The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Polk, et al. 2001) and its sister publication The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments (Libin 2014) provide overview essays under “Band” as well as more detailed information on individual types of band and the instruments they typically contain. Schliefer 1992 deals with US bands; Suppan and Suppan 1994 covers continental Europe. Specific entries on brass instruments and their role in various types of formation is provided in Herbert, et al. 2019.
Herbert, Trevor, Arnold Myers, and John Wallace, eds. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Brass Instruments. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
The first extensive encyclopedia on brass instruments, their history, and uses. Contains specific entries on bands in which brass instruments are prominent, but also deals with the organology of the instruments and their use throughout the world.
Libin, Laurence, ed. The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
For the entry on “Band,” see Vol. 1, pp 192–214. Almost identical to the entry in Polk, et al. 2001, but slightly updated.
Polk, Keith, Janet K. Page, Stephen J. Weston, et al. “Band.” In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol. 2, Aristoxenus to Bax. 2d ed. Edited by Stanley Sadie, 622–651. London: Macmillan, 2001.
A multi-authored overview and bibliography is included under “Band,” one of the first major articles to addresses “band” as a genre.
Schliefer, Martha Furman, ed. Three Centuries of American Music: A Collection of American Sacred and Secular Music. Vol. 12, American Wind and Percussion Music. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1992.
This is one of a cumulative series of volumes on American music and is devoted to American wind and percussion music. It deals, in a broadly historical sequence, with various types of bands and their functions in military or other contexts. It has drawn deserved critical praise.
Suppan Wolfgang, and Armin Suppan. Das neue Lexikon des Blasmusikwesens. Freiberg, Germany: Schulz, 1994.
A revised and extended version of Wolfgang Suppan’s earlier encyclopedia of wind instruments.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Adams, John
- Afghanistan, Music in
- Air de Cour
- Albéniz, Isaac
- American Minstrel Music
- American Music Theory, 1955–2017
- Analysis
- Anikulapo-Kuti, Fela
- Armstrong, Louis
- Asia, Southeast
- Babbitt, Milton
- Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel
- Bach, Johann Christian
- Bach, Johann Sebastian
- Ballet Music
- Barber, Samuel
- Baroque Music
- Bartók, Béla
- Beatles, The
- Beethoven, Ludwig van
- Bellini, Vincenzo
- Berg, Alban
- Berlioz, Louis-Hector
- Bernstein, Leonard
- Biber, Heinrich Ignaz Franz
- Boccherini, Luigi (Ridolfo)
- Boulez, Pierre
- Brahms, Johannes
- Brass Instruments
- Brazil
- Britten, Benjamin
- Bruckner, Anton
- Buddhist Music
- Buxtehude, Dieterich
- Byrd, William
- Cage, John
- Canada
- Cantus Firmus
- Canzonetta
- Carter, Elliott
- Castrato, The
- Cello
- Central Asia
- Chaconne and Passacaglia
- Chamber Music
- Chausson, Ernest
- China
- Christian Hymnody
- Chávez, Carlos
- Classical Era
- Clementi, Muzio
- Cold War Music
- Concerto
- Conductors and Conducting
- Continuo
- Copyright and Licensing in Music
- Corelli, Arcangelo
- Counterpoint
- Country Music, American
- Couperin, François
- Cuba
- Cuba, Classical Music in
- Dance
- Davis, Miles
- de Lassus, Orlande
- des Prez, Josquin
- Diaspora
- Digital World, Music in the
- d’Indy, Vincent
- Disability and Music
- Doctrine of Affections
- Donizetti, Gaetano
- Double Bass
- Dowland, John
- Du Fay, Guillaume
- Dunstaple, John
- Dvořák, Antonín
- Early Modern British Metrical Psalmody (1535-1700)
- East and West Africa
- Electronic and Computer Music Instruments
- Elgar, Edward
- Ellington, Edward Kennedy "Duke"
- England
- English Catholic Music after the Reformation to 1750
- English-Speaking Caribbean
- E. T. A. Hoffmann
- Ethnomusicology
- Exoticism
- Falla, Manuel de
- Fauré, Gabriel
- Field, John
- Film Music
- Folk Music
- Foster, Stephen
- Franck, César
- Francophone Caribbean, Music in the
- French-American Colonial Music
- Frescobaldi, Girolamo
- Fugue
- Gabrieli, Giovanni
- Gender and Sexuality in Music
- Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, Carlo
- Gibbons, Orlando
- Glass, Philip
- Glinka, Mikhail Ivanovich
- Global Music History
- Gluck, Christoph Willibald Ritter Von
- Gounod, Charles
- Granados, Enrique
- Greece, Music in
- Grétry, André
- Guido of Arezzo
- Hancock, Herbie
- Hanslick, Eduard
- Haydn, Joseph
- Hensel, Fanny
- Hildegard of Bingen
- Hindemith, Paul
- History of Music Theory
- Holst, Gustav
- Honegger, Arthur
- Ichiyanagi, Toshi
- Iconography, Early Modern European
- Ifukube, Akira
- India, Music in
- Indigenous Musics of the Arctic
- Indonesia
- Instrumentation and Orchestration
- Instruments, Musical
- Iran, Music in
- Ireland
- Isaac, Heinrich
- Israeli Art Music
- Ives, Charles (Edward)
- Janáček, Leoš
- Japan
- Jazz
- Jewish Music
- Joachim, Joseph
- Joplin, Scott
- Karłowicz, Mieczysław
- Keyboard Instruments
- Keyboard Music
- Korea
- Liedekens, 15th- and 16th-Century Dutch Polyphonic Songs
- Ligeti, György
- Liszt, Franz
- Locatelli, Pietro Antonio
- Lully, Jean-Baptiste
- Lusophone Africa, Music and
- Lute, Vihuela, and Early Guitar
- Luther, Martin
- Machaut, Guillaume de
- Madrigal
- Mahler, Gustav
- Makeba, Miriam
- Mass
- Massenet, Jules
- Medieval Music
- Medievalism and Music
- Mendelssohn, Felix
- Messiaen, Olivier
- Mexico
- Milhaud, Darius
- Minimalism
- Monteverdi, Claudio
- Motet
- Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus
- Music and Asian America
- Music and Cognition
- Music and Mysticism
- Music in Colonial Hispanic America
- Music in the Balkans
- Musica Ficta
- Musical
- Musical Instruments, Classification of
- Musorgsky, Modest Petrovich
- Nationalism in Western Art Music
- N’Dour, Youssou
- Nketia, J.H. Kwabena
- North Africa
- Oboe
- Operetta
- Orchestral Music
- Organum
- Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da
- Paraguay, Music in
- Parton, Dolly
- Peking Opera (Beijing Opera, jingju)
- Penderecki, Krzysztof
- Performance Practice in Western Art Music
- Philosophy of Music
- Ponce, Manuel
- Popular Song in the Age of Louis XIV
- Post-Colonialism
- Poulenc, Francis
- Printing and Publishing of Music
- Program Music
- Prokofiev, Sergey
- Puccini, Giacomo
- Puerto Rico, Music of
- Purcell, Henry
- Queer Musicology
- Rameau, Jean-Philippe
- Rap/Hip-Hop
- Ravel, Maurice
- Recitative
- Recorder
- Reich, Steve
- Renaissance
- Resources for Musical Research
- Revueltas, Silvestre
- Rodrigo, Joaquin
- Romanticism
- Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
- Roussel, Albert
- Rumba
- Saint-Saëns, Camille
- Salsa
- Satie, Erik
- Scarlatti, Alessandro
- Scarlatti, Domenico
- Schenkerian Analysis
- Schnittke, Alfred
- Schoenberg, Arnold
- Schütz, Heinrich
- Schumann, Clara
- Schumann, Robert
- Serialism
- Shostakovich, Dmitry
- Sibelius, Jean
- Soler, Antonio
- Solo Secular Vocal Music
- Sonata
- Sonata Form
- Sound Art
- Sound Studies
- Strauss, Richard
- Stravinsky, Igor
- Street Music
- String Quartet
- Suite
- Sustainability, Music
- Symphony
- Tailleferre, Germaine
- Tallis, Thomas
- Talma, Louise
- Tango
- Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich
- Technology, Music
- Telemann, Georg Philipp
- Thailand
- Thomas “Mukanya” Mapfumo and Songs of Protest in Colonial ...
- Tonality
- Troubadours and Trouvères
- Umm Kulthūm
- Variation Form
- Vaughan Williams, Ralph
- Verdi, Giuseppe
- Victoria, Tomás Luis de
- Video Game Music
- Villa-Lobos, Heitor
- Viol
- Viotti, Giovanni Battista
- Virtuosity/Virtuoso
- Vivaldi, Antonio
- von Weber, Carl Maria
- Wagner, Richard
- Webern, Anton
- West Asia
- Western European Music Criticism, c. 1700-1970
- Wind Bands
- Women in Music
- Woodwind Instruments
- Yuasa, Jōji
- Zarzuela