We tried the music I put together at the Charnwood Training Band tonight. It worked out okay but I will need to do a bit more homework. In particular, now the initial panic is over, I can work on getting it better organised and fitting the instruments in the band.

One thing I’ve got to do is consider the range of each instrument – the lowest and highest notes they can play. There were certainly some parts which fell either a little or a long way outside the playable range for various people.

The other factor goes by the fancy Italian name of tessitura. In music, that means the range in which each instrument sounds best. That is complex though. It depends to some extent on what the part is meant to do. For example, the low end of a trumpet’s range is lovely but, if you want it to stand out in an ensemble, it benefits being pushed up an octave or more. It also depends on the player’s ability. There are notes which are harder to produce or just not practised as much and that makes it harder to pin down than just looking up instrument ranges online.

Time to start on draft 2 and then to circulate for comment among the players.