BRASS TRIOS.HORN,TROMBONE,TUBA.

[eeflattuba]

I play tuba in a very good brass quintet up here in western Canada but on occasion one or both of our trumpets are unavailable.The others in the group would like to continue playing so we have been exploring the idea of playing brass trios.We have acquired some rep but are looking for suggestions regarding music.I spent yesterday crusing youtube and came up with a small list of music that we could possibly acquire.In listening to some trios i am finding the music to be a little quirky.We are all strong players and looking for music we could possibly get.Ideas and comments greatly appreciated.

[bloke]

Though (a bit of a warning, which means they would need to be evaluated for viability) trumpets/violinists/clarinetists/flautist are expected to possess somewhat-to-very gymnastic technical capabilities, there are plenty of string/woodwind/brass (trumpet, horn, trombone) trios that could be modulated downward in pitch and transcribed.

I don't possess any of the music-writing programs that can scan sheet music, recognize characters, and modulate/transcribe it, but a whole bunch of people do.

As there are so many more pieces written for these groupings of three, it's more likely (yes?) that you'll be able to find larger quantities of crowd-pleasing (transcribed) trios than might (??) be written specifically for horn, trombone, and tuba.

bloke "me - too often: out-of-the-box, rather than - simply - offering up what is requested...(sorry!)"

[acemorgan]

I have had a lot of success using the MuseScore program. They have tens of thousands of arrangements in all instrumentations.

Something I do quite often is find a piece I like--literally anything--download it, then in less than 10 minutes of keystrokes, I can have it scored for tuba or euphonium or both.

Following your quest, I looked for string trios. MuseScore has close to 3,500 pieces for that specific instrumentation. Any of them can be rescored for the brass instruments you listed very, very easily. I chose string trios because I thought that was "low-hanging fruit." You could start off with brass trios; they have a lot of stuff for small trombone and tuba groups, then just change one of the instruments to horn. Transpositions are automatic with copy and paste actions. You just have to change the octave sometimes, but even that is really simple. (And it is really easy to "one-keystroke" eliminate all that bow action falderal that clutters up the pieces I capture from string arrangements.)

I probably mention MuseScore in every third post I put on this forum. I own no stock in the company, it just really works for the type of thing I described. Your results may vary.

[Mary Ann]

Clarinet Institute might be a resource.

Another idea: most higher level horn players can read a number of transcriptions. Trombone trios might work, depending on your horn player.