re: "orchestral" tuba players

[jtm]

I realize this is a generational thing, but I went to a band rehearsal tonight trying to re-teach myself how to play B-flat tuba while reading music, a couple of the marches were not in the folder I was handed, and I played them anyway.
Another thing that they rehearsed was that Armed Forces medley that everyone plays, and that was also not in the folder but I played it anyway.
After playing stuff like that dozens and dozens of times - over the years, it just seems to me that that’s enough times to learn how simple stuff like that - well… - “goes”.
People that act like that is some sort of amazing trick… I guess I kind of feel sorry for them, but they treat me like I’m a freak because I’m doing something that really isn’t hard.
That having been said, I suppose it’s another skill other that “playing changes“. It’s probably a less sophisticated skill…simply: remembering music.

They can all sing the Star-Spangled Banner and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, sing the doxology. and mumble through their church’s creed - as well as a bunch of psalms, but think it’s weird that some people can remember how written music goes.
Does anyone even try to remember, or memorize or learn composed music anymore?

The funny thing is that I'll bet you can do that regardless which horn you're holding. So it's not like you memorized fingerings, but more like you just ... know how it goes.

I was playing odds an ends duets with a cornet player yesterday. I had a euphonium, for variety. We had a little music (like some proper trumpet duets), but also no music for some things. We read some brass band arrangements of Sousa marches. Playing just two parts is going to be thin, but it's even worse if limited to the written parts for two specific instruments. So, we picked a couple of parts, played them, and then ... filled in some missing bits as appropriate, just because it sounded better that way. Good fun.

[bloke]

Think of all the people who practice the same list of 30 or 40 orchestral excerpts all the time, and still need to look at the pieces of paper they’re written on.

[bort2.0]

I realize this is a generational thing, but I went to a band rehearsal tonight trying to re-teach myself how to play B-flat tuba while reading music, a couple of the marches were not in the folder I was handed, and I played them anyway.
Another thing that they rehearsed was that Armed Forces medley that everyone plays, and that was also not in the folder but I played it anyway.
After playing stuff like that dozens and dozens of times - over the years, it just seems to me that that’s enough times to learn how simple stuff like that - well… - “goes”.
People that act like that is some sort of amazing trick… I guess I kind of feel sorry for them, but they treat me like I’m a freak because I’m doing something that really isn’t hard.
That having been said, I suppose it’s another skill other that “playing changes“. It’s probably a less sophisticated skill…simply: remembering music.

They can all sing the Star-Spangled Banner and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, sing the doxology. and mumble through their church’s creed - as well as a bunch of psalms, but think it’s weird that some people can remember how written music goes.
Does anyone even try to remember, or memorize or learn composed music anymore?

In 2005, I was in a band that took a tour trip to Austria, I was 24. My music was in a box not in my possession (not my choice), and it was running about a day late. We had a rehearsal the first afternoon we were there, and my music still hadn't arrived.

I played the whole rehearsal/run through without any issues.

The conductor (a LONGtime Baltimore Symphony clarinet player... Just retired recently and must have been close to. 60 years in the group) came up to me afterwards and said "hey, I thought you didn't have your music"

I said, "I didn't"

He said, "you memorized it?"

I said (truthfully) "we've performed it 4 times already and have been playing it for months. I can't understand how anyone could still glued to the page."

He called me a smartass, told me to use my music when it arrived. Then grinned and walked away, in a manner that implied "crap, thats the same kind of answer I would have given".

Was not planning on any of that, or trying to show off... But I wasn't about to sit around and do nothing, gave it a try, and it worked just fine.

[Jperry1466]

I realize this is a generational thing, but I went to a band rehearsal tonight trying to re-teach myself how to play B-flat tuba while reading music, a couple of the marches were not in the folder I was handed, and I played them anyway.
Another thing that they rehearsed was that Armed Forces medley that everyone plays, and that was also not in the folder but I played it anyway.
After playing stuff like that dozens and dozens of times - over the years, it just seems to me that that’s enough times to learn how simple stuff like that - well… - “goes”.
People that act like that is some sort of amazing trick… I guess I kind of feel sorry for them, but they treat me like I’m a freak because I’m doing something that really isn’t hard.
That having been said, I suppose it’s another skill other that “playing changes“. It’s probably a less sophisticated skill…simply: remembering music.

They can all sing the Star-Spangled Banner and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, sing the doxology. and mumble through their church’s creed - as well as a bunch of psalms, but think it’s weird that some people can remember how written music goes.
Does anyone even try to remember, or memorize or learn composed music anymore?

Not trying to compare my skills to yours or any of the other pros on this board, but I have done such things a few times.
You were trying to "re-teach yourself BBb fingerings; as one who plays multiple instruments, you already have massive transposing skills.
You know all your keys/scales and their associated fingering patterns and can apply them across instruments.
You have played these pieces and others just like them (marches) countless times, have them more or less memorized, and can anticipate where they are going to go anyway.
You have good ears, not to mention how many decades of experience.
You NOT being able to do that would be more of a wonder to me. And then I remember the euphonium player who formerly played in our ensemble, for whom I always had to transpose parts to treble clef, because he said he couldn't read bass clef. To be fair, he was a trumpet player - but he was a band director for 30 years!!!???

[bloke]

All of the tubas - that are shorter than B-flat - are just like playing a tuba with a capo.
Just like a capoed guitar, they tend to play a little bit easier (as with frets closer together), but offer less natural resonance (as with shorter strings).
The slightly different figuring systems (four valves, five valves in one hand, six valves in two hands, four valves in two hands, etc.) simply serve as reminders as to which one of them we are playing.
Once someone learns how to read bass and treble clef - at concert or B-flat pitch - with fingerings at four pitch levels, they can do a whole bunch of transposing without having to learn to “transpose“.
It’s perfectly natural to get rusty reading at playing one or more of the different lengths of tubas, if that tuba is allowed to sit for an extended length of time. That has certainly happened to me, with this orchestrated top-down economic shutdown - combined with (not particularly conducive to home practice) recovering from being all cut up, in order to patch up the lower gut muscles.
Moving around on the tuba does require more effort than with many other instruments. The fortunate thing is that composers/arrangers of written-down music tend not to expect all that much of us, but when we do that which is indicated with precision, finesse, style, and panache (as SO VERY LITTLE of the “style and panache“ stuff is notated in written-down music), others notice and really seem to like it.

“pro”:
All that word means is “doing something in exchange for remuneration/money“. Some people like to go on and on about how different professionals are from people who don’t play for money, and there really isn’t any difference other than the money. Some people - who play for money - are just barely carrying out their tasks well enough to be called back again, and some people who don’t play for money could do so, if they chose to put themselves into the marketplace. Carrying out tasks to the best of one’s ability and responsibly always ends up with better results.
Something else curious:
Some people are afraid to contact the very best professional players in an area to hire them, because they believe that those people would not wish to work with them. Whether it’s $75, $100, $700, or whatever it is - and however mediocre or polished is the ensemble, all people who play for money need money, and all people who play for money are accustomed to playing with other players with skills ranging from very low to very high. Further, they are going to be delighted to have been hired, and are going to be concentrating on delivering their product and not on judging their colleagues du jour.

two-or-three-extended-sentences short story:
Just sitting in with my good friends in the amateur community band (that I’ve referred to a few times) – not allowing tempos to sag, and applying the appropriate styles at the appropriate times – I can hear that has been contagious, and people are more excited about trying to really play well, and some of them are beginning to lift their minds up and away from the pieces of paper - that are sitting in front of their faces. I really don’t believe they understand what the catalyst has been…and I like it that way. I believe those types of things are some of our tuba-playing primary duties, as I always say: “to allow and encourage our soprano instruments colleagues - as well as our lower-pitched-instrument colleagues” - to sound their very best.

[Mary Ann]

"not allowing tempos to sag" --- I actually quit a brass band because the conductor was "counting on me to keep the band on the beat" when she would NOT get rid of a snare player who was consistently behind the beat, no matter how much the band slowed down trying to stay with the snare. Someone who started his stroke on the beat instead of hitting the drum on the beat, and who could not even discern what he was doing even after being told. It drove me absolutely freaking nuts, stopped being anything resembling pleasant, and I walked. The same thing is going on now in a New Horizons (old people beginners) band that I am "helping out" on horn. The drum section is being coached to listen to what is going on instead of watching the conductor, and guess what -- the snare, in particular, is behind the beat. The conductor has the patience of Job and is instructing the bass drum player to pay special attention to the beat, because he figures the snare, who is only listening, will hopefully follow the bass drum. IF I manage to get a tuba before next fall, I will TRY playing tuba in that band (they have only an electric bass who has not a clue yet, can't even find the notes much less know where to put them) and see if I can stand it. I'll sit right next to the bass drum, keep HIM on the beat, and we shall see what we shall see. Right now the tenor sax who is sitting next to me is using me to keep HER in the right place and on the beat, and freely admits it. She is showing promise and I'm happy to serve.

As far as being able to just play the music, w/ or w/out the notes in front of you and no matter what sound-producing device you have in your hands, um, that is the definition of a *musician.* Younger ones do exist but they don't have the decades of experience yet to do it as easily and well as those who do.

[bloke]

Tempos usually sag because people are looking at the very note on the printed page that they are currently playing, rather than looking at the next measure or the next phrase that they were about to play – having already viewed/analyzed that which they are currently playing.
Static/immediately-reactive cognition - such as that - doesn’t promote moving forward in well-measured time.

[York-aholic]

Tempos usually sag because people are looking at the very note on the printed page that they are currently playing, rather than looking at the next measure or the next phrase that they were about to play – having already viewed/analyzed that which they are currently playing.
Static/immediately-reactive cognition - such as that - doesn’t promote moving forward in well-measured time.

A bit like my 2nd grade students. Many start the year reading things one...word...at...a...time (sometimes sounding out each letter). As they year progresses we get to reading things in phrases, looking ahead of the word our mouths are saying.

The reading becomes much smoother and reading comprehension begins to happen.

[Casca Grossa]

“pro”:
All that word means is “doing something in exchange for remuneration/money“.

All of those years wasted on the old forum just to realize I was an amateur smart ass all these years. Once again @bloke has turned my world upside down.

[iiipopes]

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

-Robert A. Heinlein

-From the science fiction/time travel novel Time Enough for Love.

Many, many great quotes from that novel. Many of them are in the interlude chapters titled "Excerpts from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long." My favorite is: "Never frighten a little man. He'll kill you."

Second is: "A zygote is a gamete's way of producing more gametes. This may be the purpose of the universe."

And finally, so I don't use up all the bandwidth, and which many of us TFFJ folks may relate to: "Age does not bring wisdom. Often it merely changes simple stupidity into arrogant conceit. Its only advantage, so far as I have been able to see, is that it spans change. A young person sees the world as a still picture, immutable. An old person has had his nose rubbed in changes and more changes and still more changes so many times that he knows it is a moving picture, forever changing. He may not like it — probably doesn’t; I don’t — but he knows it’s so, and knowing it is the first step in coping with it."