ABOUT THE ECB SERIES: Here’s the easiest way you’ve ever seen to put together a concert with a small ensemble!

We all LOVE to play, we love to have people enjoy our music. There are many places to play if you have a small ensemble – nursing homes, retirement homes, hospitals, malls, background music for fund-raiser gatherings for foundations and other organizations.

With the ECB series, you just grab a book for each of the players in your ensemble, and go play the gig!

Types Of Tunes: The tunes we include in this series must meet two principal criteria. First, they must be tunes that most people in an older audience will recognize. This criterion can be waived for tunes that have outstanding musical value, that are tremendously fun to play and to listen to, and that we are certain almost everyone will like, whether they’ve heard it before or not. The second criterion is that the tunes must be in the public domain. In the early phases of these books, we’re not going to bother with any copyright hassles, so we’re sticking to tunes in the public domain. Don’t worry, we have a list of over 200 tunes that meet both these criteria, so we won’t run out of tunes for the books. Later on, if these books are wildly successful and the demand is there, we will look into obtaining permission to arrange for tunes that are still under copyright.

Order of Tunes: Each (standard) book contains 12 tunes, enough to play about a 45-minute set. The tunes are in such an order as to provide an excellently listenable varied concert, even if you just start with the first tune and go straight through to the last.

Difficulty: The tunes are arranged to target no higher than a high “Grade III” level, such that moderate musicians can play them with minimal rehearsal, and excellent musicians should be able to pretty much sight read the tunes.

Instrumentation: You will need an ensemble of at least five instruments to play the tunes in the ECB series, covering the voices SSATB. ECB series books are available in 27 transpositions, so you can mix whatever instruments you have available. Standard brass quintets or woodwind quintets can play the arrangements. Clarinet choirs, saxophone choirs, ensembles with strings, pretty much any group you want to put together.

See Available Instrumentation

Intended Audiences: The tunes in the books are the tunes that most people know and will recognize. Please see our PLANS page for some examples of the kinds of tunes we will have in the standard and specialty books.

The two main types of gigs you will play will be either as dedicated concerts, where people come to listen to you, and they sit there and pay attention to the music, or as incidental music, where your playing is background music to something else that’s going on, such as when you’re providing music for a fund-raising event for your local epilepsy foundation.

For incidental music, you can simply go from one tune to the next, and take breaks as needed.

For concerts, it is always better to have an announcer talk about the tunes before they’re played. This gives life and interest to the tunes, and it also gives the players a bit of a rest between the tunes.

Narrator Notes: We also provide narrator notes for all the tunes in each standard book. These notes are printed in fairly large type (16-point) so the narrator can read them in dim light, or if he or she has lost their glasses.

Appendix Tunes: There are certain tunes that might be needed in any performance situation, so we put an appendix in each standard book (not in the specialty books) with the following tunes:

The Star-Spangled Banner
Three Fanfares (for when people are introduced)
Good Morning To You (this is the 1856 tune from which “Happy Birthday To You” was taken) – two versions, plain and fancy
Auld Lang Syne
Take Me Out To The Ball Game
Trio from The Billboard March
Hot Time In The Old Town Tonight (chorus only)
Hail, Hail, The Gang’s All Here (short version)
Till We Meet Again

This brings the total number of tunes in each standard book to two dozen (although the appendix tunes are the same in each book).

Please see the Call For Arrangers page for more information on how you can help.

Questions? For other queries, please see our Contact Page.

Transpositions Available for Each Part in the ENSEMBLE CONCERT BOOKS SERIES

This chart describes each transposition available for each voice in the Ensemble Concert Books Series, along with a list of most of the instruments that can be appropriate for playing that part. This will give you a good idea of which books to order, based on which instruments you have. The preferred instruments for each part are highlighted in red.

SOPRANO 1:

In C. This part includes both the high octave, suitable for flute, piccolo, and violin, and the low octave, suitable for oboe or brass instruments in C.
In Bb. This part is suitable for trumpets, (soprano) clarinets, and soprano saxophones.
In Eb. This part is suitable for and voiced for the Eb soprano clarinet. It can also be played by an Eb sopranino saxophone. If necessary, it can be played by an alto saxophone, but it will not be in the right register, and it would be good if the alto sax player could play it an octave above the written notes.
In F. This part will be available only on request. Please allow six weeks for us to produce it. It is available in the event that a French horn or F trumpet is the only instrument you have to play this voice, and it will require a horn player with a good high range to play it.

SOPRANO 2:

In C. This part is voiced for oboe and violin. It is possible for a flute to play it as well, but this part will frequently be in the lower range for a flute and therefore might lose some power.
In Bb. This is the part to get for (soprano) clarinets, trumpets, and soprano saxophones.
In Eb. This part is voiced for alto saxophones and alto clarinets. It can also be played by an Eb soprano clarinet, but should be played an octave below the written notes.
In F. For French Horns.
In Alto Clef. For violas. This part is only available on request. Please allow six weeks for production.

ALTO:

In C. For violin, viola, or any other C-pitched instrument playing treble clef n the alto range.
In Bb. For soprano clarinets. It can also be played by a trumpet, as it has higher-octave cue notes for those notes that go below the range of a trumpet. It can also be played by tenor saxophones and treble clef baritone horn, but that player should play an octave above the written notes.
In Eb. For alto saxophones, and alto clarinets.
In F. For French Horns.
In Alto Clef. For violas, and those rare (and strange) trombone players who prefer to read alto clef. This part is only available on request. Please allow six weeks to produce it.
In Bass Clef. For trombones and baritone B.C. players. This part will usually be in the higher end of the range of these players, but not uncomfortably so.

TENOR:

In Bb. This is for tenor saxophones and baritone horns who play treble clef.
In Eb. This can be played by alto saxophones, although it will be somewhat low in their register.
In F. For French Horns. This is not the preferred instrument for this part, but they CAN play it.
In Tenor Clef. For violas, and others who prefer tenor clef. This part is only available on request. Please allow six weeks to produce it.
In Bass Clef. For trombones, baritone horns, and cellos. It can also be played by bassoons when needed.

BASS:

In Bb. For Bass clarinet and contra-bass clarinet. Also for Bass Saxophone and brass band type tuba/bass players who read Bb treble clef bass parts.
In Eb. For baritone saxophones and Eb Contra-alto Clarinets.
In F. For experienced horn players only. This part is only available on request. Please allow six weeks to produce it.
In Bass Clef - High. For string bass players.
In Bass Clef - Low - for tubas and bassoons.

MISCELLANEOUS PARTS:

Piano. If you cannot fill in all five other parts, adding a piano player may give you all the extra harmony notes you need.
Drum Set. While not required, adding a drum set to your performances, especially when you are using ten or more players, will definitely enhance the presentation.

Like this:

Transpositions Available for Each Part in the ENSEMBLE CONCERT BOOKS SERIES

What is a VIRTUAL CONCERT?

And how do we make one?

Share this:

Like this:

Transpositions Available for Each Part in the ENSEMBLE CONCERT BOOKS SERIES

What is a VIRTUAL CONCERT?

And how do we make one?