tips for young players: sight-reading: the importances of scales mastery & intervals/compositions "ear knowledge"

[bloke]

This is mostly a post for younger players.

It's just one example (with one arranged piece of music) of how mastery of scales - as well as being able to immediately hear/recognize intervals and familiar music - assist tremendously in sight-reading.

I was called to play a two-hour brass quintet job...typical brass quintet hodgepodge of music - all sorts of selections/all sorts of styles/all sorts of time periods. Quite a few of them: I could almost play for memory, others: I'd never seen them before.

I was handed the folder a week ago (as most of the same players played a quintet job at a church that last week), but the very tunes that were chosen to play (with the list of tunes finally emailed by the first trumpet player a day before the job) had been removed from the "TUBA" folder and were in a stack on the floor (after some texting, discovered to be at the trombone player's home).

I was hired by the first trumpet player (principal in Memphis Symphony) and all of the other musicians were Memphis Symphony musicians, but I found out later that it was actually contracted through the Symphony (even though - oddly, this time - I was not contacted by the personnel manager).

I found/figured this out right when we were about to play a tune that I'd never played before, as the Symphony's Music Director and Choral Director both walked up on the gig.

It's a commonly-played quintet arrangement that I completely knew about, but - even though in this folder, and though I'd played music from this folder before (with this quintet) - it had never been "called" before - when I had subbed with this quintet - so this was my first time to ever play this arrangement. Looking at it, I saw that I would be "noodling around" in six flats. Knowing the Copland ("in my head") - and being able to "hear" intervals, I realized that I would not be the melody - at that point, and that the passage was a harmony line (very useful information, when sight-reading)...so the harmony line (as seen in the linked video) is not complicated at all, but requires that the player be familiar with scalular patterns "on the back side of the tuba" (as none of the tubas' four common build lengths really have much to do with "six flats").

Otherwise, the piece really doesn't present any challenges other than time-relationship changes...and there was no band director there - to talk us through the piece. Simply, the trumpet player began the piece. ...so - besides "scales" and "hearing arpeggios", it's also nice to have some familiarity with music (in this case: "having listened to some Copland"), which - in this instance - kept my heart from racing and kept me calm when the time doubled. The "double low" C...OK, that's just plain-ol' fun, yes? (no particular skills required there)...the worst thing (musically speaking) about this arrangement, in particular: the almost "shave-and-a-haircut" pasted-on ending

[cthuba]

Things that have helped me with sight reading also:

-Practice sight reading and check with a metronome

And the most important part:

- Do not stop and restart.
(^I still struggle with this in my routine/practice)


EDIT:

Being in or having a quintet/ ensemble that does sight read regularly helped ALOT for me. Being able to hear parts around and knowing where my part makes sense.

[2nd tenor]

This is mostly a post for younger players.

To be honest I know a lot of players, and I don’t exclude myself, for whom that advice would be helpful. Just because someone is an older player doesn’t mean either that they have been skilfully playing for decades (some are adult learners or returners) or that during the decades that they’ve played through they gained much in the way of skill. Are younger players more likely to listen than older ones? I’m really not sure, people vary so much in both attitudes and abilities, but I have met a lot of older folk who are unwilling to change whilst younger players are typically more open to knowledge transfer.

[GC]

I admire your ability to play in high registers. I struggle.

[bloke]

I admire your ability to play in high registers. I struggle.

I'm not sure to whom this is addressed, but I'll assume "Anyman".

anyman.jpg (3.82 KiB) Viewed 883 times

Tubas don't really have a "high register".

Rarely is music for tubas written above "middle c", and the pitches that rarely are asked to be played above that (even to another octave or so) are still within the tenor voice range.

The less-often-appearing-on-paper upper tuba pitches ARE close together (whereas adjacent scalular pitches can be played with the same buttons mashed, so there's certainly a greater chance of mistakenly playing a neighboring pitch.

It's really easy to claim this (as a "brush-off"), but I truly believe that concern about playing around-and-above middle c (higher than typical tuba parts) is often anxiety-based. Those pitches are easy to lip-vibrate with a trumpet, trombone, AND tuba mouthpiece, so they're not physically difficult to sound.

To relieve nearly all of the anxiety, I believe that being able to know the sound of a pitch (anywhere on the tuba) - at least in relation to the last one played - reduces the chance of playing the wrong partial by (hmm, maybe...??) 95% (??) If "singing" a part (maybe while playing it on a keyboard ?) is possible, I would predict that would be more productive than dozens of hit-and-miss trials on the tuba. Once a passage can be sung (without the assistance of a keyboard), I believe that it can probably (or nearly) be played by most "pretty good" players (however they choose to "rate" themselves).

Playing the tuba (really) is sort-of easy...particularly when we are convinced that it's sort-of easy.
What's a little bit "hard" is playing MUSIC (ok: musicALLY), because we hear the beautiful music in our heads, which CAN tend to drown out the "plain-sounding emotionless correct pitches" that we might actually be producing.
(I catch myself just playing the notes, and not playing the music more often than I care to admit.)
BOTH sight-reading AND playing the higher pitches (pitches that are closer together on the instrument)…??
These things go much better (for me) when I take a hot tub soak at night, drink a cup of coffee, try to perk back up, and spend an hour or so - night-after-night - with the tuba, instead of conking out. Getting older, it’s pretty easy just to let myself conk out.

[Jperry1466]

Excellent post for young players and all others. A visiting choir director once commented on my sight-singing skills. I told him I knew my scales, keys, intervals, and have really good relative pitch (not perfect pitch). I told him I thought of it as singing (and I play this way, too) to the steps of the scale in whatever key. He said, "oh, you're an 'intervalic' singer". I said, "ok". It paid to pay attention in college theory ear-training.

[bloke]

It’s odd how more instrumentalists (yourself as an example) seem to be able to know the next pitch or all of the next pitches that they’re going to play more often than singers know the next pitch or all of the next pictures they are going to sing – when the piece is unfamiliar… and it’s not simply because the instrument will produce the pitch, but because - more often - the instrumentalist really does imagine the pitch or complete phrase in their head ahead of time.
“Intervallic singer”: to me, that sounds like so much vocalist mumbo-jumbo. How can any singer be anything otherwise, unless they stay on the same pitch always… and regardless of so-called “perfect pitch“ abilities. “Perfect pitch“ doesn’t ensure a good sight-singing…not at all.

[Mary Ann]

I admire your ability to play in high registers. I struggle.

This video by Oystein Baadsvik has a concept that isn't usually presented, which is the width of the aperture changes depending on the range. It has other things too, but the aperture (nearer to the end of the video) I think is an essential concept that many may not know that they do because you can't see it inside the cup. Definitely worth watching the entire video which isn't all that long.

[bloke]

If we’re getting into the mechanics are playing – which is OK,
I have a retired bass trombone playing friend who was a student of Emory Remington at Eastman.

Mr. Remington taught him some similar things to this video:

oh - lowest pitches
ah - middle pitched
ee - higher pitches
m (no vowel, just this consonant shape) - very highest pitches

He told me about that (he was never my teacher, but that’s about when I started playing tuba gigs) when I was about 17, and I’ve always thought about it since.

I would have to guess that a more common problem is response/resonance with the lowest pitches. I’m pretty sure that quite a few players don’t open their front teeth far enough apart to easily play those pitches. Further, if the tongue gets in the way when playing crazy low pitches, I might encourage someone to just blow… Forget the tongue. No one‘s going to arrest anyone for not using their tongue - particularly if the results are very good. Further, so many mouthpieces throat sizes are really large, which takes away resistance – as resistance encourages the lips to vibrate - and the same thing goes for the capillary portions of some mouthpipe tubes. I’m pretty sure that moderation in mouthpiece throat sizes and mouthpipe capillary bore sizes is better for playing in all ranges.

(I don’t like posting tuba teaching type crap on this site, but I guess I got sucked [ trolled? ] into it… The original post was really not about playing the tuba. I swore off teaching “tuba lessons” several decades ago:
- Many students don’t pay all that much attention, and have their own ideas about things.
- I have other stuff to do that – when it’s finished being done - is actually better than it was before.

[Jperry1466]

It’s odd how more instrumentalists (yourself as an example) seem to be able to know the next pitch or all of the next pitches that they’re going to play more often than singers know the next pitch or all of the next pictures they are going to sing – when the piece is unfamiliar… and it’s not simply because the instrument will produce the pitch, but because - more often - the instrumentalist really does imagine the pitch or complete phrase in their head ahead of time.
“Intervallic singer”: to me, that sounds like so much vocalist mumbo-jumbo. How can any singer be anything otherwise, unless they stay on the same pitch always… and regardless of so-called “perfect pitch“ abilities. “Perfect pitch“ doesn’t ensure a good sight-singing…not at all.

I remember from college days 50 years ago that vocal majors were notoriously bad readers. That's true of my own daughter, who is an incredible coloratura that can sing pitches so high that only dogs can hear them. Our college theory teacher let us use numbers of the scale (1234567) rather than solfege, which made it much easier to "hear" the pitches in advance since we didn't have to concentrate on syllable names at the same time. In the 60s, most tuba parts were still "oompah" consisting of perfect 4ths, 5ths, etc., so learning intervals was perhaps easier for me than others. When I am reading, the next note is always an "interval". After that, when practicing, it develops into a melody. I was also lucky to have a band director in high school who turned out strong readers. Knowing and hearing intervals, as well as all the scales and fingering patterns, is invaluable.

[bloke]

I still don’t think it requires all that much muscle tone to play higher on tubas (vs. what Mr. B. claims)…and that “high” on a tuba really doesn’t get into any very high pitches.

I still claim that playing higher on the tuba is a combination of absolutely knowing which pitch is going to be played, and a little bit (or a good bit) of target practice…much like going around a gymnasium and making basketball shots to the goal from all sorts of different places, and – from all those different places – standing still and running at different speeds in different directions.

There are tunes, bass lines, songs, and even harmony lines that we all absolutely know in our heads. What I referred to in a previous paragraph (about knowing what the next pitch is going to sound like) is really not that hard… and the target practice stuff is sort of fun.

BAD ANALOGY:
Since moving to a rural place - about fifteen years ago - to out here in the woods, I’ve gotten really good at picking up all different sizes of pieces of wood - from twigs to large limbs - and throwing them to the same place from various distances into a pile in a trailer - to be hauled away and thrown into a ravine. I wasn’t very good at it at first (nor for a while), and would miss the trailer - or a small branch on the end of a huge limb would end up poking me in the eye as a threw it, or something like that, but I’ve gotten quite good at it… and that’s also transferred to my ability to throw all shapes/sizes/weights of objects way across the room into small trash cans - to the mild amusement of Mrs. bloke.

[Jperry1466]

I still claim that playing higher on the tuba is a combination of absolutely knowing which pitch is going to be played, and a little bit (or a good bit) of target practice…much like going around a gymnasium and making basketball shots to the goal from all sorts of different places, and – from all those different places – standing still and running at different speeds in different directions.

Absolutely agree. Yes.