Common doubling combinations from the Broadway doubling list

ByBret Pimentel

The most popular thing on my website is the Woodwind doubling in Broadway musicals page, which brings in visitors from around the world. I’ve even been lucky enough to hear occasionally from major woodwind doublers who are working on Broadway.

I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the most common combinations of instruments called for. I’m including a table at the end of this post that shows every combination that occurs 10 or more times on the current version of the list. The first column numbers the rows for convenience in referring to specific data; the second column indicates how many times that particular combination occur.

Six of the top seven “combinations” are actually “straight” books, calling for only a single instrument (or multiple instruments within the same family, such as flute plus piccolo). The fifth most common “combination” on my list is a question mark, which indicates that I know (or have reason to believe) that a reed book exists, but don’t have specific information on the instruments required.

The most common “straight” book is clarinet only (I use “clarinet” on the list to mean B-flat or unspecified clarinet, and “clarinet in A” when I know that is what is used). If you include lines 13 and 14, which call for clarinet plus bass clarinet, or B-flat clarinet and A clarinet, the total count of clarinet-only books is 399. This would seem to imply that if you play only a single instrument and want to work in musical theater, then clarinet may be the best option. However, this fails to take into account a number of other things—for one example, it seems to me that “straight” books have become less common as pit orchestras have shrunk, so clarinet-only players may be less employable in theater now than they once were.

Bassoon alone comes in second, followed by flute only and oboe only, though if flute-plus-piccolo and oboe-plus-English-horn books are included in the counts, they each outnumber the straight bassoon books. Straight saxophone books are relatively rare, with 19 alto-only books and 16 tenor-only. No combination of multiple saxophones occurs more than 10 times, unless it also includes other woodwinds.

The most common true doubling book is piccolo, flute, clarinet, and alto saxophone, with 80 occurences. Another 184 doubling books are subsets of this group of instruments. Adding tenor saxophone to the group adds 110 more books.

Doubling combinations with oboe/English horn most often use clarinet and/or tenor saxophone, totaling 69 books.

The most common low reeds book is clarinet, bass clarinet, and baritone saxophone (27 books); adding bassoon and/or flutes adds more possibilities for the low reeds player.

Among the “rarer” instruments, alto flute is the only one that appears on this list, though it appears with relative frequency in the full list. Its infrequency here is because it is used in such widely varying combinations of instruments. Its appearance here (line 50) is as part of a straight book with flute and piccolo.

Of the 1983 books included here, 616 are doubling books. Of these, fully 584 call for clarinet. 355 call for flute, 266 call for alto saxophone, 182 call for tenor saxophone, 162 call for piccolo, 128 call for bass clarinet, 74 call for baritone saxophone, 69 call for oboe, 59 call for English horn, 33 call for soprano saxophone, and 25 call for bassoon.

# instruments
1. 327 Clarinet
2. 208 Bassoon
3. 202 Flute
4. 181 Oboe
5. 116 ?
6. 104 Piccolo, flute
7. 85 Oboe, English horn
8. 80 Piccolo, flute, clarinet, alto saxophone
9. 65 Flute, clarinet, alto saxophone
10. 55 Clarinet, tenor saxophone
11. 47 Clarinet, alto saxophone
12. 39 Flute, clarinet, tenor saxophone
13. 37 Clarinet, bass clarinet
14. 35 Clarinet, clarinet in A
15. 32 Oboe, English horn, clarinet, tenor saxophone
16. 32 Piccolo, flute, clarinet
17. 27 Clarinet, bass clarinet, baritone saxophone
18. 27 Flute, clarinet
19. 21 Piccolo, flute, clarinet, soprano saxophone, alto saxophone
20. 20 Clarinet, bass clarinet, tenor saxophone
21. 19 Alto saxophone
22. 17 Oboe, English horn, clarinet
23. 17 Clarinet, bass clarinet, alto saxophone
24. 17 Flute, piccolo
25. 16 Tenor saxophone
26. 16 Piccolo, flute, clarinet, tenor saxophone
27. 14 Clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, baritone saxophone
28. 14 Flute, clarinet, bass clarinet
29. 14 Flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, tenor saxophone
30. 13 Piccolo, flute, alto saxophone
31. 12 Flute, clarinet, soprano saxophone, alto saxophone
32. 11 Clarinet, baritone saxophone
33. 11 Clarinet, bassoon, baritone saxophone
34. 11 Flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, alto saxophone
35. 11 Flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, baritone saxophone
36. 10 Oboe [optional], English horn [optional], clarinet, tenor saxophone
37. 10 Oboe, clarinet, tenor saxophone
38. 10 Piccolo, flute, alto flute

Similar Posts

  • Sidney Bechet’s “Summertime”

    ByBret Pimentel

    View the transcription

    Sidney Bechet may be jazz’s most unfairly forgotten genius.

    Once the favorite son of his native New Orleans, as well as his many adopted European hometowns, Bechet’s recordings are now too often overlooked. Bechet, born in 1897, was a true virtuoso of the clarinet, and played a major part in establishing the instrument’s role in Dixieland and early jazz. His pioneering use of the soprano saxophone set a precedent that would come to fruition in a later generation of saxophonists. Bechet’s penchant for unusual instruments is documented in a few surviving recordings on the bass saxophone and the sarrusophone, instruments as nearly obsolete in Bechet’s day as in our own.

    But Bechet’s genius transcended his choice of instrument. His abilities may even have rivaled his contemporary, and sometime bandmate, Louis Armstrong. The eminent Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet upheld Bechet as “the highway the whole world will swing along tomorrow.” Ansermet would no doubt be disappointed to find his prediction has been disproved. Read More “Sidney Bechet’s “Summertime””

  • From Google: Lord of the Rings on whistle, low A on bassoon, woodwind commonalities

    ByBret Pimentel

    Classes are canceled today due to a freak snowstorm in my little Southern college town. (Typical yearly snowfall: 0 inches. Yesterday’s snowfall: 5 inches.) So instead of teaching a woodwind methods class and rehearsing on contrabassoon with the university’s Wind Ensemble, I thought I would take a few minutes to do something I’ve been seeing some of my favorite bloggers do lately.

    With some simple traffic-tracking tools, I can see what Google searches are leading people to my website. Most times, to my satisfaction, their search brings them to highly relevant content on my site. Other times I know they are not finding quite what they are looking for. So I’d like to address a selection of the searches that have brought people here unsuccessfully lately, and hopefully future searchers will find what they are after. Read More “From Google: Lord of the Rings on whistle, low A on bassoon, woodwind commonalities”

  • “More air”

    ByBret Pimentel

    When I use the term “breath support,” students and colleagues often echo back something like “oh, right, more air.” But is breath support the same thing as “more air?”

    Measuring quantities of air isn’t completely straightforward—when we say “more air,” we might rightfully wonder whether that means a greater volume filled with air, or a greater number of air molecules, or whether we’re really thinking of something like airflow or air velocity.

    For my purposes in teaching, I find a few different measures to be relevant:

    First, you must set up breath support with a good inhalation, and I think it’s generally helpful to inhale a large volume of air into the lungs.

    Then, you must pressurize the air by engaging the torso muscles, constricting the space in which the air is contained. (The diaphragm’s relaxation alone does create pressure, but not enough for good woodwind playing.)

    The increased pressure makes the air escape your embouchure at a higher velocity. You can adjust the size of your embouchure, allowing more or less air to pass through, which is the basic mechanism woodwind players use to change (sound) volume (or “dynamics”).

    I’m most directly concerned with air pressure when I talk about breath support, and in some ways in which that does translate to “more” air. But since “more” can be measured in multiple ways, I like to use a more exact term like “breath support.” That also has the concreteness of referring to something that the player actively does, rather than focusing the imagery on air, which is invisible.

    Be precise in your pedagogical vocabulary, and consistent in your breath support.

  • Achieving an ideal tone

    ByBret Pimentel

    A lot of the questions people have about woodwind playing center on tone: how can I get a better tone? a darker tone? a tone like _____’s? There’s not a lot of clarity on this, for a few reasons:

    • Firstly, of course, “good” tone is subjective, and trying to communicate clearly about tone in more dispassionate terms is problematic due to inconsistent vocabulary.
    • Tone is made from a recipe of factors, so it’s hard to isolate individual ones. Will adding another egg improve your cake? Depends on what else is in it. Will a certain warm-up exercise or piece of equipment have a specific effect on your tone? Depends on what other equipment and playing techniques you are using.
    • Much of what affects tone is difficult or impossible to observe and measure.

    Let’s look at the physical factors that influence tone:

    • Yes, of course, equipment. It’s axiomatic in woodwind playing that your equipment does affect your tone, but not as much as you affect your tone. Still, your particular combination of headjoint, reed, mouthpiece, ligature, barrel, bocal, instrument, and various other parts and accessories does influence in some way the sound that you make. Equipment of good design and construction, and within typical parameters, will contribute to an essentially characteristic tone quality. (By characteristic I mean easily identifiable as a specific instrument by someone with a musically-educated ear.)
    • Basic woodwind-playing techniques, including most notably breath support, voicing, and embouchure. Assuming these are well-trained, they also contribute to a characteristic tone quality.
    • Some subtle aspects of those woodwind-playing techniques that are hard to pin down. These small things determine how the tone fits into the larger world of characteristic tone qualities, usually described poorly in vague terms like “good” or “pure” or “rich” or “buttery” or “vocal.” For example, an oboist’s embouchure puts different pressures on different parts of the reed. Those pressures can be adjusted very subtly using the small and flexible muscles of the embouchure, but most oboists probably aren’t very aware of exactly what adjustments they are making (though they may know what it feels like). Most are also not very capable of passing that wisdom (i.e. a feeling) along to a student or colleague. Some of them can be described in too-general terms (“bring the corners of your mouth in more”), or can be evoked with spotty accuracy through metaphor or through tone exercises.
    photo, Tom Page
    photo, Tom Page

    So, how do you ever develop a tone that is characteristic, personal, and beautiful?

    • Use appropriate equipment.
    • Employ solid fundamental woodwind-playing techniques.
    • Listen frequently, widely, and at length to good music, particularly on your instrument, to develop a tone concept—an aural impression of your ideal tone. In early stages, that might be based on how deeply you have absorbed the sound of a favorite musician, perhaps your teacher. In later stages, it might be a sort of composite of your favorite aspects of many tones that you have internalized, perhaps even things that inspired you about a performance on an instrument other than your own (or a voice). Ultimately, it might be a tone that you have never heard before, but which you can imagine.

    Here’s why tone concept is so crucial:

    All those subtleties of woodwind technique that affect tone, the ones that are so hard to understand and communicate? You can find them with patient and dedicated practice, if you know what you are listening for. As you have already discovered, your tone tends to change from day to day. This inconsistency can be a problem, but can also be a way of stumbling, even subconsciously, onto something positive. (When it’s a conscious process, your thought might be, “when I hold my embouchure this way, I get a sound that is more _____.”) Additionally, a clear tone concept may aid you in intuitively pursuing it; you already use the muscles of breathing, voicing, and embouchure to intuitively produce a huge and subtly-differentiated set of speech sounds, and for most of those you would be hard-pressed to explain how you make them. If you get comfortable and familiar enough with your instrument through years of practice, you can begin to tap into that intuitive control, but again: only if you know what sound you want to make.

    An ideal tone is a lifelong pursuit—invest in yours by listening and practicing daily.

  • Student-selected online woodwind pedagogy articles

    ByBret Pimentel

    If you are teaching a woodwind methods course, you might be interested in my book.

    In the past I have had my woodwind methods classes make woodwind pedagogy notebooks. The idea is to have them explore some available pedagogical resources, and assemble them into a resource they can use for reference in their future teaching. But that assignment is starting to feel a little weird, especially since I have been trying to go increasingly paperless in my own life, and because it has been increasingly difficult to persuade my digitally-oriented students to go to the actual library and look at actual books.

    To be clear, I’m a lover of libraries, and for me there’s no question that there are tremendously valuable resources there that are not available online (yet?). But it seemed like time to experiment with embracing an online approach to the assignment. So during the past semester I had them each locate some online articles they thought might be useful. Then they used a discussion board to collaborate on vetting the articles for usefulness and author credentials, and to compare their content against the concepts we covered in class.

    I’m going to provide here a heavily-edited report of their results with my own commentary. Some articles were proposed but were rejected by classmates as less useful or credible, and I don’t see any need to list those. Also, I wanted my students to go through the process of vetting online information, but I didn’t entirely agree with their conclusions, so I’m omitting some that I personally think are problematic. (If you’re wondering, my own blog posts were off-limits.)

    photo, Knight Foundation
    photo, Knight Foundation

    Here are some of the articles my students voted to be worthy of inclusion in a digital notebook:

    • Clarinet Basics: Maintenance Habits, written by Julie DeRoche for The Woodwind and The Brasswind. This one was very highly regarded by the class, and I am inclined to agree with their assessment. My students liked the article’s thoroughness and day-to-day applicability. Two cautions with this article: firstly, I think it’s wise to be careful with (paid?) articles from websites that want to sell you things, but Ms. DeRoche’s credentials are above reproach and the information checks out. Secondly, the article does describe briefly the process of oiling a clarinet’s bore, though it does not strongly recommend this procedure. That is probably information best not given to beginners—at that stage it should be prescribed and carried out by a professional.
    • Reed Help for Beginners, written by Sarah Hamilton. This oboe-related article was another top pick by the class, who appreciated its down-to-earth advice, clearly-explained concepts, and helpful illustrations. I agree that this is a great resource, though some of the reed evaluation and adjustment procedures described might be beyond the scope of what a non-oboist band director can or should attempt.
    • Beginner Clarinet Tips, written by “Andrea.” This one is really more of a table of contents to some other articles on the site. My class liked the breadth of material covered and the extensive photos. I find the information to be very similar to much of the conventional wisdom regarding beginning clarinet playing, which mostly but not completely agrees with my preferred approaches.
    • The Big Switch, by Amanda King. My students found this advice on switching students to the bassoon to be useful. I am on record as disagreeing with the premise that beginners should start on some other instrument before switching to the one they want, but the article does raise some relevant points for cases where that is happening.
    • Teaching the Beginning Bassoonist, written by Terry Ewell for The Double Reed. I’m including this excellent article even though it really is geared toward private bassoon teachers rather than band directors; it’s a good example of solid information that would be mismatched to this particular audience. It’s also a good (and relatively harmless) demonstration of the importance of using up-to-date materials, as bassoon reeds now cost well over $6 USD.
    • Tips for Teaching Beginning Flute Players written originally for BandWorld Magazine by Randy Navarre. My students liked the article’s concision and clarity. I generally agree with the information presented.

    I think some good things came out of the assignment, though I still feel like I sold out a little by excusing my students from visiting the library. I stayed fairly hands-off through the discussion process, and that did result in the students selecting some articles that weren’t really a fit for what I wanted them to learn. In the future I might consider being more involved with guiding the discussion. I’m also concerned that the final product—this blog post—isn’t as tangible as an actual notebook, and might not be as ready at hand, but hopefully they have developed some skills in evaluating information they find online.

  • Woodwind doubling on both oboe and bassoon

    ByBret Pimentel

    Mid- to late-20th-century music written for woodwind doublers, such as musical theater “books,” largely solidified around three main types of doubling specialists. The most common of these is the clarinet/saxophone/flute player. Less common but still widely used are the oboist with passable single reed skills, and the “low reeds” bassoon/bass clarinet/baritone saxophone player.

    In the 21st century, “doubler” woodwind sections have shown a tendency to shrink in number of players while growing in number of instruments. That means that some new combinations of instrument are becoming common that weren’t before: for example, it would have been very unusual in the late 20th century to write both flute and oboe into the same book, but this is becoming much more commonplace.

    My sense is that woodwind doublers today are more willing/likely to embrace double reed playing, despite those instruments’ reputation (deserved or not) for being more difficult and their reputation (deserved) for being more expensive. But there seems to be some emerging conventional “wisdom” that oboe or bassoon is the way to go, and that playing both is inadvisable. I have to disagree.

    It seems unlikely to me that the trend of shrinking woodwind sections, with increasing demands on individual players, is going to reverse. I predict that within a decade or two we’ll see movement in major Broadway productions toward doublers playing oboe and bassoon in the same book.

    There’s another wrinkle to this: not all doublers are making their living in top-tier performance situations. It’s quite common for a small- to medium-sized university, or a large high school to hire one person to teach “double reeds.” Nearly always, this means hiring someone who is well-qualified on oboe or bassoon and relatively clueless on the other. I think oboists or bassoonists headed for doctoral degrees and university teaching would be well-advised to consider getting a minor, or at least some lessons, in the other double reed. (There may even be room for someone to develop a graduate program in “double reeds,” or perhaps at least the ability to tailor an existing multiple woodwinds degree to accommodate this.)

    Woodwind doublers already understand the benefits of being able to get the doubling gig, but also to get a broader array of single-instrument gigs. If you have the motivation to pursue both oboe and bassoon, I think you will find—as I have—more opportunities to make music.

2 Comments

  1. Pingback: Nutty Broadway Doubling « pakikipagsapalaran ni patti (adventures, patti style)

  2. Any chance you could (or recently did) update this table? I’d be curious to see how much the last 15(!) years of both database updates and new productions/orchestrations has changed what combos are most common

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comments that take a negative or confrontational tone are subject to email and name verification before being approved. In other words: no anonymous trolls allowed—take responsibility for your words.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.