Instrument Making of the Salvation Army
- Submitting institution
-
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 2577212
- Type
- D - Journal article
- DOI
-
-
- Title of journal
- Galpin Society Journal
- Article number
- -
- First page
- 30
- Volume
- 73
- Issue
- -
- ISSN
- 0072-0127
- Open access status
- Compliant
- Month of publication
- March
- Year of publication
- 2020
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- That a denomination of the Christian church should engage in the large-scale manufacture of brass instruments and set up a factory for this purpose is a remarkable phenomenon. This article addresses the questions: Why did it do so? How? And with what result?
The questions ‘Why?’ and ‘How?’ were largely investigated through work in the Salvation Army’s own extensive archive. The question ‘With what result?’ was explored partly through archival research, but also through examination of instruments made by the Salvation Army in various museums and collections. My interrogation of the relevant instruments included acoustical experiments and scientific interpretation of measurements.
This article explores the motivations and methods of the Salvation Army in establishing its instrument-making operations. It discusses the specific requirements of instruments for S.A. brass bands and describes the unusual brasswind designs the Army produced; it describes how S.A. instrument manufacture flourished, survived two World Wars, and eventually declined in the face of competition from competitors employing mechanised and mass production methods.
The history of the Salvation Army and of its musical activities has received considerable scholarly attention, but in the resulting publications only passing reference has been made to instrument manufacture. This account is the only exploration of the topic beyond contemporary reporting in S.A. periodical publications, the few paragraphs in Army histories and brief entries in reference works. This article aligns with a series of outputs in which I have discussed and evaluated the commercial and musical profiles of the major British manufacturers of band and orchestral brass instruments.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -