How to Train Your Brass Section

No way bro made a How To Train Your Dragon video and didn't mention Test Drive

Hello, Ryan! I am a young musician from Belarus. I watch your videos every day, and it really help me to learn a lot of new things about composition and music in general. Your videos help me learn English too. I want to know just one thing - which plugins do you use in Sibelius? It sound alive. Thank you for your videos and the experiences you share.

For once the horns get the main melody and the rest of the brass is doing support. As a former horn player this just makes me smile. I was in a community band that got a copy of the Star wars medley where the horn parts were NOT re-written for the trombones, and we hit those notes with great pride.

Brass is difficult to me somehow, when I add into my music, It’s kinda ruining it you know

Thank You Very Much Sir!
🙂🙏

That's great, i hadn't thought of using trumpet for accents like perc, only for the milstep or space jazz parts, thanks again

How to train your dragon was probably one of my favorite animated movies ended perfectly at the right time three movies and a major TV series no more no less

As a trumpet player myself, this analysis was fascinating

The way this is scored 6 or 8 horns would have been more than enough.

Absolutely adore this scoring. So brilliant to see the breakdown!

Horn player here. Loved the video. Just for future reference, us horn players prefer not to be labeled as "French hornists". The horn itself is German, the French put values on the instrument right at the end of the 19th century. This is why late romantic era composers like Strauss and Mahler were writing more chromatic lines for the horns. However, composers like Brahms and Tchaikovsky did not like the sound of the early valved horns and therefore stuck to writing for the natural horn. I see a lot of very well-educated musicians refer to our instrument as "French". Its a very common thing to do and just wanted to let you know.

This score is such a great one. Thanks again for the insight. These LA musicians really are a very special breed.

And those of us in the woodwinds section are wishing that the brass section were playing in another room...

No baritones :(

as a horn, hearing " all 12 horns on melody " was heaven.

uhhg fine ill rewatch how to train your dragon

Where did you get that book with all the full score in it 'cause I need it! it looks so cool!

Where can we find this score?

10/10 title😂❤

this really reminds me of the way Dutch Fanfare Orchestras are generally scored. The only types of instruments you have in that band setting are low brass (Tubas (Eb and Bb), Euphonium, Baritone horn, bass- and tenor trombone), 'middle brass' as we call it (French Horns) and high brass (Flugelhorns, trumpet and soprano/Eb cornet), and the saxophone family (soprano, alto, tenor and baritone).

'Normal' concert bands also have this but with less brass variety and more woodwinds, and the British Brass bands is very similar but they only have one flugelhorn and an army of cornets.

each of those instruments is going to have to be specialised or else you end up with holes in the orchestration.

Flugelhorns are the main melodic instrument or have to provide texture or moving lines like arpeggios etc.
Trumpets/cornets are there for signals and added power/clarity lines.
Tubas are there for foundation setting and support.
Trombones are for power and chord structure.
Horns are for chords as well as harmonizing and colouring, as well as the occasional power boost and main melodic lines.
Baritones are often used for any of the above, doubling horns, trombone, trumpet, flugelhorn or saxophones, as well as euphonium when their sounds get a bit too homogenic.

And finally, we have the euphonium which is literally the wild card of the wind ensembles because it can do everything. Need beautiful melody? Euphonium. countermelody? Eupho. doubling of the tubas? Eupho. strengthen the trombones and take the edge off of them a bit? Eupho. Double the horns to open up their sound a bit and add clarity? Euphonium.
You can tell its qualities from how Gustav Holst used them in his Planets Suite: An instrument that can play melodies and power parts without the bright edge trombones have, or with a more open sound than the horns.
And I wish more composers used them in symphonies.

As a trumpet player, I find it shocking that people find brass hard to write for. IMO that's the only kind of writing that there is XD

"How to Train Your Dragon"
- Composer, John Powell
- Orchestration, Richard Wagner

We played this in highschool, it was a *brass*(t)

I love this, mostly because it’s not a part where the trumpets (my instrument) only plays for a hand-full of measures. In other words Earth Song by Frank Ticheli is boring, wether it be as a choir or a orchestra.

Biggest thing with composing for brass is not to overuse them. I think Mendelssohn's use of the brass is a great example.

I am that these newer composers still don't use the euphonium =_( it's been around for nearly as long as the Tuba

this video is amazing dude.

This is quite late, but that "tuba" in the beginning was not a tuba, it was a better instrument the euphonium/baritone horn

This score was cheated out of the Academy Award by the stupid score from The Social Network.

Need more tuba

It's criminal that Powell didn't get an award for this score.

we’re playing themes from httyd for school band right now.. we have a tuba, five trombones, six trumpets, and no french horns. i guess we’re missing something

what brass library did you use for these demos?

Bruh no Euphs

I finally found it. I watched this when this first came out and remembered it from time to time. And I finally found it again

Brass: a highly versatile section, yet it's given such little recognition from many

This is fantastic. Love this deep dive. Well done.

This is the stuff that is so fun to geek out on.

This is the kind of content I was looking for… thank you so much Ryan. Please, keep up doing great content 🎉❤

As a horn player that “12 French horns” blew me away lol
I’m used to there being no more than 4 in a band

How do you use the word cue or queue in this analysis? I'm not sure I have heard this word used this way before. Thanks.

Hi whats the brass library or libraries used on this video? I think the sound is super clean and powerfull i cant get that sound with any of my libraries

Me as a Horn player approves

The brass is incredible

Do you have a link to where you purchased the score?

I’m biased but my all time favorite franchise has been HTTYD, it’s always had a special place in my heart.

我使用MuseScore 播放的樂器聲音，很明顯比這個影片中的聲音遜色很多