Largest band ever, in terms of the tuba section?

[Dave Detwiler]

Hi all - I've been learning about the National Peace Jubilee that was conceived and led by P. S. Gilmore in Boston from June 15-19, 1869, and discovered that in the combined orchestra and band for this massive festival, shown below, there were 67 tubas (along with 61 string basses)! I even have the names of all 67 tubists, although, sadly, I don't recognize any of them.

Details can be found in my blog post here: https://tubapastor.blogspot.com/2022/07 ... -1869.html

That got me thinking, though . . . what is the largest band ever, in terms of the tuba section? This one, perhaps? I've been in some big ones: The EPCOT Center All American College Marching Band in 1982, which had 47 Sousaphones, and the 1984 Olympic All American Band, which had almost the same number - 46.

Have you been in a band with a tuba section larger than 67? Do tell! Better yet, post a photo!

1869 Peace Jubilee combined orchestra and band.jpg (183.43 KiB) Viewed 1889 times

[LargeTuba]

Does Tuba Christmas Chicago at the Palmer House count? There was a couple hundred tubas there at least.

[the elephant]

Texas Tuba Day IV (September 26, 1981) was pretty big. It was the 450-piece Longhorn Band with about 250 high school guest sousaphones and about 40 UT sousaphones and a dozen or so LHB Alumni Band sousaphones. LHB held that event for years. I got to do it just the one time, though. It was on ESPN, Texas vs. Miami.

[Stryk]

I played in the grand opening of Disney World when I was in high school. I think it was 1076 pieces, as in 76 Trombones by Meridith Wilson (who was the conductor of the band). Somewhere I have a picture of the sousaphone section, but not sure of the number of them. Looking at the video, it looks like somewhere around 80.

https://youtu.be/rf9MUp2PVWg

[Three Valves]

Cool Chit!!

[tofu]

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[the elephant]

Yeah, San Antonio has had for many decades a "Battle of the Bands" marching band show and contest during Fiesta, and at the end, all the featured HS bands play a short concert together in a huge, static formation. The massed band is always about 2,000 kids, in total — with many sousaphones across the back.

Here is a recent example from this past April. All the bands do their contest show from the previous Fall semester, then do this massed band, which has a single rehearsal that is about two hours long. Sometimes this works out great, sometimes it is pretty hairy.

This one is not too shabby.

The "sousaphone section" runs all across the back two rows.

[bloke]

I’m pretty sure that most of us agree that things like this are more spectacle than musical – which is just fine , but - if someone wanted to try to make it a little bit more musical - I wonder how helpful a wireless click-track earbud would be for bands of this sort of size.

[bloke]

A click track would be helpful to a degree, but no matter what is done, there’s still about 1/3 of a second time delay from end zone to end zone.

With groups big enough to encompass an entire field, the musicians would need to be “beamformed” to a point. Anything off axis, especially far off, will start to see aliasing.

Having everyone exactly in time/phase incurs the least offensive result for an arbitrary listener in the audience. If a single point could be chosen, the time delays could be managed (people on the edges start a bit before people in the center so that the wavefront hits the same point at the same time) such that things are time aligned for a single point in the audience, but the result for everyone else would be worse.

A pretty interesting thought exercise for a Sunday morning. The logistics of something like these huge masses of players is already difficult, adding in the physics of reality makes it much harder.

[bloke]

yeah…sorta like the BBB-flat-because-we-can tuba thing…but it’s OK by me.

[bort2.0]

"Massed Band" things were always dreadful.

The worst was the Peach Bowl like 20 years ago. Halftime show was some rapper and it was outrageously loud in the dome. Because of the amplification, literally no band sound was heard, we were just for show along with like 1000 HS band kids. We did what any self-respecting people would do... Switched instruments with each other and didn't play a single note for real

[bloke]

More and more off-topic…
… but to the same general topic,
Years ago, a whole bunch of really good musicians were hired to play in a symphony orchestra with Sandi Patty at a concert in Memphis.
We realized that our microphones were turned off, and that she was pumping a recording of all of our parts through the PA system. When we realized that, we mostly didn’t play.

When I see locally hired people posting selfies -playing horn parts along with 75-year-old legacy band guys (like “The Who“ or something), I tend to suspect the same.

[bort2.0]

"Wow, those guys sound just like the recording I've listened to for the last 40 years."


No kidding

[Dave Detwiler]

With all due respect to TubaChristmas and combined marching bands, I was thinking more of a serious ensemble of extraordinary size. How big can one get, or has one gotten, with a massive tuba section, and still produce great music? That's what Gilmore seems to have done way back in 1869, with a combined orchestra/band of 1,011 musicians, including 67 tubas, and 10,404 vocalists.

Here's what the Chicago Evening Post had to say about the final number of the first concert of the Peace Jubilee:

1869-06-16 Chicago Evening Post report on Anvil Chorus.jpg (101.65 KiB) Viewed 1772 times

[Dave Detwiler]

One more tidbit that I just stumbled upon. Here's a cartoon from the July 3, 1869 edition of Harper's Weekly showing the exhausted musicians of the massive ensemble departing the Jubilee. Looks like they played their hearts out! Notice, for example, the tuba player on a stretcher in the bottom right corner!

1869-07-03 Harper's Weekly - the exhausted band departing.jpg (159.85 KiB) Viewed 1762 times

[tofu]

.

[Dave Detwiler]

I've never heard a massed anything - pro or amatuer that sounded great. I seriously doubt this thing back in 1869 with over a 1000 musians and more than 10400 vocalists sounded great. Especially with the state of amplification back then. 67 tubas - just no way that didn't sound muddy. I wouldn't put too much stock in the writer's infatuation. Bands like Sousa & Gilmore coming to town was big stuff back then and that alone would lead to a lot of hyperbole. Add in they would advertise the shows heavily in the papers -so the newspaper had a big incentive for a favorable glowing write up.

You're probably right, if we're comparing what was produced by that enormous ensemble to a regular-sized professional orchestra or band in that day. But even the more critical reports, which address the very issues you have raised, seem to give these concerts an ultimately positive review. Here's the conclusion of the New York Times following the first day of the Jubilee (June 15, 1869):

1869-06-17 New York Times - first concert review, conclusion.jpg (123.89 KiB) Viewed 1707 times

[the elephant]

Lots of massed groups with lots of tubas out there, some being kids' things and some being more "serious" as mentioned above by others.

An example of a more serious attempt to be "good" and not just "big", here are about 500 brass with a lot of tubas and sousaphones, but they are scattered through the group so there is no way to tell how many there are.

But you can sure hear them.

Here is Käse Meister André Rieu in another of his "big moments"…

[bloke]

I have a relative who was stationed in his hometown. That guy is the emperor of musical spectacle, for sure.

[Finetales]

If you want to hear a massed ensemble whose performance is so out of sync that it truly doesn't sound even a bit like music, I give you this.

This was a successful attempt at breaking the Guinness world record for largest trombone ensemble, about 10 years ago. I was there!