weird march with silly tuba part

[bloke]

This is a very strange march which was composed by Mac Davis on a golf course bet that he was incapable of composing a march.
Apparently - a month later or so - he laid this (in the form of a melody and chords lead sheet) on the desk of the person who was with whom he made the bet.

This was an EXTREMELY sloppy concert during the pandemic era, whereby the music was passed out at the rehearsal, each tune was run through one time, and two 1-hour concerts were performed the same night (with an hour in between them).

Apparently, the reason this was programmed was because Mac Davis had just passed away. I believe the location mentioned in the title has to do with where his recording studio was - southwest of Nashville.

Someone else fleshed out the orchestration for brass ensemble. If you listen to the tuba part, you’ll hear a textbook example of how NOT to write a tuba part for a march… way way WAY too busy… that having been said, it sort of made me chuckle to play it, as I would rate it as even busier than the bassoon parts in most marches.
Even though the tuba part is very silly, I would actually like to hear this (sort of “Hollywood“-ish melody and chord changes) played sometime after actually going through it at least two or three times, and everyone in the ensemble having their parts under their fingers.

[arpthark]

Ha, I kind of like it! That is a very busy tuba part, sheesh.

3-tuba concert, eh?

[bloke]

I used the contrabass for most pieces.
I used the F tuba to play the second movement of the Vaughan Williams (and warmed the F tuba up playing that nutty march, which was just before the tuba solo).
The other tuba is my E-flat, which I used for the obbligato line in the trio of Stars and Stripes Forever.
Just as a D-flat piccolo puts that solo in G-major - which is a very good flute key, with the E-flat tuba most of the pitches in that passage involve either no valves, 1st valve, 2nd valve or valves 1-and-2 together...extremely easy.

[Jperry1466]

That reminds me of the arrangement of Stars and Stripes that has the tuba playing the piccolo solo. Well-played and you obviously weren't struggling, even with only one rehearsal.

[bloke]

That reminds me of the arrangement of Stars and Stripes that has the tuba playing the piccolo solo. Well-played and you obviously weren't struggling, even with only one rehearsal.

credit goes to that 40-year-old F tuba (which - I continue to remind everyone - plays itself). With any other F tuba (all of which do too much reminding that they must be dealt with), I probably would have been in trouble…yes, really.

We did two identical one-hour shows (w/1-break) to comply w/virus stuff. We actually PLAYED - btw - S&SF as an encore. I always refuse to play that piccolo part (stealing the flautists’ annual solo…NOT nice) at patriotic concerts (and it’s NOT funny to the people out there sitting on blankets), but was fine with playing it as written in that brass choir arrangement. The E-flat tuba (seen) was there to play that A-flat piccolo solo (super-easy on E-flat - equivalent of playing in E-flat on a B-flat tuba).

[Jperry1466]

We did two identical one-hour shows (w/1-break) to comply w/virus stuff. We actually PLAYED - btw - S&SF as an encore. I always refuse to play that piccolo part (stealing the flautists’ annual solo…NOT nice) at patriotic concerts (and it’s NOT funny to the people out there sitting on blankets), but was fine with playing it as written in that brass choir arrangement. The E-flat tuba (seen) was there to play that A-flat piccolo solo (super-easy on E-flat - equivalent of playing in E-flat on a B-flat tuba).

The only really entertaining version of that I have heard was many years ago with David Kuehn's North Texas U. Tuba Ensemble (all tubas, no euphs) playing Connie Weldon's arrangement of S&SF at TMEA. He had a piccolo player standing by, and we all assumed she would play the picc. part. When the time came, she stepped up and played the tuba part (up several octaves) while a tuba player played the piccolo part. It took that whole room full of band directors, me included, by surprise. It was hilarious at the time.

I agree with you when it comes to doing that with a full band at a patriotic concert. It takes away from the purpose for said concert.

[bloke]

Yeah, the picnickers don’t get the joke at all, and it deprives the flute players of playing something that they all look forward to playing.
The context that you explained could render some chuckles.

[bloke]

Yeah, the picnickers, etc. don’t get the joke at all, and it deprives the flute players of playing something that they all look forward to playing.
The context that you explained could render some chuckles.

I wrote an arrangement a few years ago for our orchestra’s low brass section (as we did a low brass section chamber music concert) - of Chicago’s “Color My World”.

I wrote it out so as the trombones were pinging the piano notes in the arpeggios, and I was playing the electric bass part on tuba. (It was pretty amazing how much it sounded like the record, but - when people have the right sound concept - stuff like that can happen, and the trombone is remarkably flexible, as to its range of sonority - much more so than the tuba.) After one chorus of that – just like the record – I stood up and sang it, but I also had passed out the words to the attendees - who were all the perfect age to know it. At the end, the orchestra’s principal flute surprised everyone by standing up in the back of the audience and playing that flute solo in the last chorus. It was a great way to end the first half just before intermission; everyone had a smile on their face.
As we know, there’s a wide variety of music one can come up with between trombone quartets, tuba quartets, that French piece for tuba solo and three trombones (which I played on cimbasso), a couple of sophisticated-harmonies jazz ballads, the Chicago thing I mentioned above, some Bach, some Mendelssohn, etc.…

[Jperry1466]

I wrote it out so as the trombones were pinging the piano notes in the arpeggios, and I was playing the electric bass part on tuba. (It was pretty amazing how much it sounded like the record, but - when people have the right sound concept - stuff like that can happen, and the trombone is remarkably flexible, as to its range of sonority - much more so than the tuba.) After one chorus of that – just like the record – I stood up and sang it, but I also had passed out the words to the attendees - who were all the perfect age to know it. At the end, the orchestra’s principal flute surprised everyone by standing up in the back of the audience and playing that flute solo in the last chorus. It was a great way to end the first half just before intermission; everyone had a smile on their face.
As we know, there’s a wide variety of music one can come up with between trombone quartets, tuba quartets, that French piece for tuba solo and three trombones (which I played on cimbasso), a couple of sophisticated-harmonies jazz ballads, the Chicago thing I mentioned above, some Bach, some Mendelssohn, etc.…

I believe you're referring to "Etre Ou Ne Pas Etre", which coincidentally, I played on my graduate recital at Kentucky with a great group of guys on trombone. It was one of my best performances, and while I still think it is a weird piece, the academes fawned over it. Your arrangement sounds like a lot of fun. Our local tuba ensemble is not so much a "serious music" group; I leave that to the university guys and have done a few arrangements for them. Our group is more about entertaing the people my friend calls "Joe Popcorn Eater". We are rarely paid except with a good meal, with occasional exceptions. Octoberfest and Christmas are fun times, we play for local church services, and we recently did some arrangements of mine on that big community band concert in Arlington. I did an arrangement of Lassus Trombone with our lead euphonium/trombone player and tuba quartet that turned out really well. For the printed program we were obliged to call it "Trombone Rag" for you-know-what's sake, but when I announced it, I said its real name, because I'm old and rebellious like that. Mark Finley and Eric Stephens sat in with us and gave the group some real class.

[bloke]

That orchestra’s chamber music concert series sort of evaporated during the plannedemic, and was replaced with neighborhood concerts outdoors - to keep the patrons thinking about (and contributing to) the orchestra. The chamber music series was founded on a shoestring, and only covered two services and one mileage payment. The thing is that the orchestra’s personnel is spread out all the way from eastern Arkansas to Missouri (north of the bootheel) to Nashville to southern Kentucky to central Mississippi to northern Alabama, and getting together to rehearse is pretty much impossible, so each group had to figure out times to rehearse during a masterworks or pops week that was the month before their scheduled chamber music concert.
It was pretty wild, and most most of those chamber music concerts (unless it happened to be some string players who all lived in Nashville, or something like that) were under-rehearsed – at least as far as working with each other was concerned. Yeah… the Tomasi piece (in that low brass concert…) We just had to all agree to listen to the same recording of it, and play it like the record, rather than rehearsing it with each other.
That brass choir concert (not really a chamber music concert, but classified as a masterworks) during the economic shutdown era wasn’t rehearsed at all, except for one same-day run-through of each piece in one short rehearsal.

We also played a transcription that I did of Contrapunctus IX (with only four instruments) on that low brass chamber concert. Of course, the original organ version only features four lines, but it’s pretty busy for only for low brass players to cover those four lines. When I transcribed it, I kept it in D – which worked out for euphoniums and a couple of tubas, but I probably should have rewritten it in E minor or F minor - possibly even G minor - for an orchestra low brass section, because it was a little bit low for trombones with one tuba.

[Jperry1466]

My hat's off to you for playing the Tomasi with no formal rehearsal. I believe we had to have a conductor for the first couple of run-throughs until we were on the same page. Not a terribly tough piece, but hard to play together. I did an arrangement of Contrapunctus IX for Brass Quintet once. Hard to imagine handling it with 4 low brass, since one has to allow players to breathe once in a while. I'd like to hear your arrangement.

That orchestra’s chamber music concert series sort of evaporated during the plannedemic,

"Plannedemic" - great word; I'm going to steal that if you don't mind. It will probably "trigger" (their word) a few liberal acquaintances that need their balloon popped occasionally.

The plannedemic was the genesis of our tuba ensemble when we couldn't have community band for a year. Three of us have performance degrees, another played in a well-known major university band, and our "hero" is our 90-year-old who played tuba in one of the lesser known Navy bands.

[bloke]

My hat's off to you for playing the Tomasi with no formal rehearsal.

We meet around 1:30 (some of us had church gigs in other cities/towns) hit some things once, some once-and-a-half, twice for a couple of the pieces, and none for a few of them, drank some Gatorade (or something...??), chilled, and played the (typical for Sunday) 2:30 recital-thing. With a couple of the pieces, (as surely you might imagine) there was a ton of eye contact and - during the Tomasi - I quasi conducted. I believe we all referenced Toby Hank's recording. (It's the best one, agreed ?) I could have gotten "nervous" on that tune, but it was too important to not screw it up, so there was no room for "nervous" - only concentration.

The Chicago tune (with the pointillistic triplet arpeggios) actually required the most rehearsal time (out of that 45 minute rehearsal).
One of the guys, said, "Hey, I didn't know you can sing." My response was that if all I have to do is imitate Terry Kath, I can manage that.

I'm now remembering that I had some of the patrons (ie. "You're either going to have to sing along with me, or keep time!") play "drums" on their thighs. Yeah...That tune was pretty fun.

[Jperry1466]

I believe we all referenced Toby Hank's recording. (It's the best one, agreed ?) I could have gotten "nervous" on that tune, but it was too important to not screw it up, so there was no room for "nervous" - only concentration.

I'm now remembering that I had some of the patrons (ie. "You're either going to have to sing along with me, or keep time!") play "drums" on their thighs. Yeah...That tune was pretty fun.

I agree on Toby Hanks. I've listened to that recording many times but could never make it sound as effortless as he did. I assume he played it on an F tuba. I played in on my CC, but still... Wish I could just make it sound so easy. It was a sad day when Toby left us. You're not kidding about having to concentrate on the "tune".

I figured out that I could combine Pennsylvania Polka and Deep In The Heart of Texas into one arrangement (who knew they had nearly identical chord structure?), and we played that at Arlington. I told the 2nd tuba players to play the part where the hand claps happen on Texas, figuring the audience would feel compelled to do that, but the clapping didn't happen. I guess no one wanted to look "silly" at such a serious venue. When we play at the Independent Living Senior place where our 90-year-old lives, I know they will. They are a boisterous and appreciative audience and even serve us beer with dinner.

[bloke]

I'm pretty sure that Mr. Hanks recorded that with a B&S Symphonie F.

Again, I played it (Tomasi) on an F cimbasso...but it was before I built the really-easy-to-play one, and was working really hard with one of those Chinese ones.

audience participation:
It can be fun, as long as they are in the mood, and it's not "forced fun". Your folks may have just been tired...?? My wife drags me to some social event monthly whereby there are singalongs and other such things. I'm too tired (they're on Monday nights) from working all day to be silly. OK...I'm probably a grump, but I'm also really tired.
The low brass recital:
Only a couple of hours after (most of) those people had to shut up and be quiet in Sunday school and church, so most all of them were in the mood to make (at least) a little bit of noise...and probably (to a person) they were all Chicago fans.

Just in case someone is SO young that they have no idea to what I've been referring...