Thinking like a musician

[tubanh84]

Had more thoughts this morning while driving around doing various errands, and I didn't want to hijack Joe's thread on musicality. So here's a second thread!

Relevant background:

I've spent more time playing lute in the past 2-3 years than tuba. So my had has been more into renaissance/baroque music, and I have been thinking in voicing a lot more than I do when I play tuba. There is always a mid-point in learning a piece on lute where you separate out the various voices you are playing to ensure that you are allowing the voices to actually exist as independent voices. Part of that is figuring out where the voices are implied, rather than written, because of the physical limitations of only having 4 fingers to fret.

Second, in spending a lot of time in that period of music, I started following Sarah Jeffries's YouTube channel about the recorder. One of her recent videos is her analyzing Telemann: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgaU1B6T8Us

Finally, I just listened to Roger Bobo's recording of the Penderecki Capriccio this morning in the car and listened to it with all of the above rolling around in my head.

Now onto my thoughts.

Joe's thread about musicality got me thinking yet again about musicality. I know. Big surprise. But one of the limitations we have as musicians is we don't teach or talk about music on the same level as many other instrumentalists. Now, it may be my own experience, but I have never heard the Penderecki taught in the way I thought about it this morning while hearing Roger play it. It very clearly has three voices. And to play it really effectively, the way Roger does, it needs to be played with a sensitivity to those three voices and ensuring that they are all very clear and distinct.

That brings into play having a technical mastery of tone, articulation, volume control, flexibility, etc...The recorder videos do a great job of teaching this because it's an instrument with the tuba's limitation - Playing multi-voice music when you only are able to play one tone at once (I know...multiphonics...I'm ignoring that because it's an effect).

I know when I performed the Penderecki back in college, I was just happy to get from the beginning to the end. That was a successful performance to me. And I know I thought about it as a single line (one voice) throughout. I had and have never heard it analyzed as three voices, but hearing Roger play it, that's what is going on.

He is able to do that because his ability to start one note is in no way dependent on the note preceding it (i.e., prodigious flexibility). So each voice sounds like it exists on its own, without being affected by the other voices.

Now this becomes a cart and horse question, or just a bootstrapping question: Would tuba players become more technically proficient in a nuanced way (not louder, faster, higher) if we focused on that sort of subtlety and demanded it from ourselves all the time, the way many other instrumentalists do? Do we need to develop the technique and THEN bring it to the music? I think the answer to both is yes. But we need to first understand the music with that subtlety and demand it from ourselves before any of that can happen.

Thank you again for everyone who made this new forum happen so that I have a place to put down all my ramblings. It's useful to me to have to write them out to an audience. And I hope someone else finds them useful? Or interesting? Or at least diverting?

[Doc]

I'm reminded of Arnold Jacobs talking about the lack of improvement based on a steady diet of oompahs. But that's what we wind up doing when starting out. Beginning tuba players aren't challenged in band classes to play melody. They aren't challenged to phrase (but they sure as hell get hollered at by band directors on why they can't play eight bars with a good sound on one breath). They are trained toward their function - bass lines/band support. And that is fine, however, that is job-specific, not musician-specific. Hey, if the tuba players can play the bass lines good enough for the band to win at contest, why should band directors care? Of course, many do care, but they can't do everything for every student either.

In addition, countless schools do NOT have private lesson opportunities in which the young student can be challenged to improve technically and musically. They certainly aren't challenged in the way a trumpet student is challenged daily in band class. So from the beginning, beginners don't get out of the function/job/oompah box. Region band, solo contests, etc. might come along in middle school, but young tuba players are already behind the curve. And where is the incentive for them to try? They never have to play stuff like that in band, right? There should be much more emphasis on training the musician, regardless of instrument. But band directors have limited time and resources, and if there are no private teachers available, what then? And some parents can't/don't/won't see the importance of musical development through private instruction, can't afford it, don't make it a priority, etc.

Starting off with low expectations and little to no subsequent developmental support is NOT a way to successfully teach and train anyone. When 2nd violinists can play circles around all but the most elite tuba players (those players perceived by us as inhuman, immortal, amazing freaks of nature), what does that say? Why are we so accepting of this? Well, it's just the tuba... correct?

[bloke]

Your post made me smile. It reminded me of the years I spent studying nylon string guitar, back when I thought of the tuba as a “class in school“ and not really much of anything having to do with “music“.
My teacher gave me a lot of nice standalone popular music arrangements that I could play at adult cocktail parties and make money (and I went on to steal a whole bunch more from Charlie Byrd LPs), but he also ran me through quite a few Baroque and Renaissance lute transcriptions…and yes: “voicing, voicing, voicing!”

Had more thoughts this morning while driving around doing various errands, and I didn't want to hijack Joe's thread on musicality. So here's a second thread!

Relevant background:

I've spent more time playing lute in the past 2-3 years than tuba. So my had has been more into renaissance/baroque music, and I have been thinking in voicing a lot more than I do when I play tuba. There is always a mid-point in learning a piece on lute where you separate out the various voices you are playing to ensure that you are allowing the voices to actually exist as independent voices. Part of that is figuring out where the voices are implied, rather than written, because of the physical limitations of only having 4 fingers to fret.

Second, in spending a lot of time in that period of music, I started following Sarah Jeffries's YouTube channel about the recorder. One of her recent videos is her analyzing Telemann: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgaU1B6T8Us

Finally, I just listened to Roger Bobo's recording of the Penderecki Capriccio this morning in the car and listened to it with all of the above rolling around in my head.

Now onto my thoughts.

Joe's thread about musicality got me thinking yet again about musicality. I know. Big surprise. But one of the limitations we have as musicians is we don't teach or talk about music on the same level as many other instrumentalists. Now, it may be my own experience, but I have never heard the Penderecki taught in the way I thought about it this morning while hearing Roger play it. It very clearly has three voices. And to play it really effectively, the way Roger does, it needs to be played with a sensitivity to those three voices and ensuring that they are all very clear and distinct.

That brings into play having a technical mastery of tone, articulation, volume control, flexibility, etc...The recorder videos do a great job of teaching this because it's an instrument with the tuba's limitation - Playing multi-voice music when you only are able to play one tone at once (I know...multiphonics...I'm ignoring that because it's an effect).

I know when I performed the Penderecki back in college, I was just happy to get from the beginning to the end. That was a successful performance to me. And I know I thought about it as a single line (one voice) throughout. I had and have never heard it analyzed as three voices, but hearing Roger play it, that's what is going on.

He is able to do that because his ability to start one note is in no way dependent on the note preceding it (i.e., prodigious flexibility). So each voice sounds like it exists on its own, without being affected by the other voices.

Now this becomes a cart and horse question, or just a bootstrapping question: Would tuba players become more technically proficient in a nuanced way (not louder, faster, higher) if we focused on that sort of subtlety and demanded it from ourselves all the time, the way many other instrumentalists do? Do we need to develop the technique and THEN bring it to the music? I think the answer to both is yes. But we need to first understand the music with that subtlety and demand it from ourselves before any of that can happen.

Thank you again for everyone who made this new forum happen so that I have a place to put down all my ramblings. It's useful to me to have to write them out to an audience. And I hope someone else finds them useful? Or interesting? Or at least diverting?

[tubanh84]

but he also ran me through quite a few Baroque and Renaissance lute transcriptions…and yes: “voicing, voicing, voicing!”

I'm going back and "re-learning" the cello suites. The Bach Flute Partita in A minor. And so much else. I always thought I did a good job learning from other musicians. And to an extent I did - I attended every masterclass that was available in college. I listened to music of all sorts from a lot of different time periods.

But until I was forced to learn the renaissance and baroque music, I realized I was JUST listening before. There was a lot I subconsciously disregarded because, well "How would I do that on tuba?" The real question is "How DO I do that on tuba?" How "would" I is an excuse - It allows for compromise because of a perceived limitation of the instrument. How "do" I requires significant development.

[bloke]

from the general to the specific:
When I have played through some of those in the past, it has always been fun to do them in a room with a lot of reverberation, so that when those four-string chords are encountered, I can listen to them ring, and judge whether-or-not I played those four pitches - quickly following each other – in tune...or not.
Also, I’ve never used transcriptions of those, and always xeroxed out of music librarys’ complete Bach collections - with no editing. Not only is it far less expensive to obtain the sheet music, but - more importantly - it’s far less “filtered”.

[bone-a-phone]

I play the bach cello suites and the telemann flute fantasies on trombone. I know I couldn't do it on tuba, but I've heard others do it. I do try it from time to time, just to remind myself of how far I have to go. To me the chasm is the air. The valves actually make it easier, on trombone we spend a lot of time trying to make the slide sound like valves. Intonation is easier (or harder, depending on how you look at it) with the slide, but the articulation and note changes are cleaner with valves.

My copy of the cello suites (LaFosse edition, transposed up a fourth) is all marked up with phrase markings and chords (the chords come first so you can understand how to shape the phrases). My teacher John Swallow spent a lot of time with me on this. The intervals in both works are the primary technical difficulty, but if you have your scales down and the chords marked, the rest of it falls into place. Works like the Bach and the Telemann are great musicianship references for all instruments, and the represent different challenges on each. It was interesting to hear these on the recorder, and her comments on transposition for different sized recorders mirrored my experience on the tenor vs bass trombone.

I love to listen to Tom OGrady play tuba. He's a fellow New England Conservatory musician. His recordings are informal and are only intended to demonstrate instruments, but that makes them more believable to me. Here he plays a cello suite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1KC5V4bj4Y, and Baadsvik playing the same one on a smaller ax https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvADJOY_ydc

The first step with learning this stuff is to listen to great recordings. Certainly YoYo Ma and Rampal or Galway for the flute, but then also listen to other instruments closer to home. The flute takes a lot of air, so phrasing wouldn't be monumentally different, but the cello doesn't worry about air, so that approach has to be reworked, but it's still a fantastic reference.

Before he was erased by the cancel crowd, Massimo LaRosa gained a lot of acclaim for his cello suite recording on Youtube, which again isn't exactly perfect, but it is brilliant, and a great example of a real world approach to the suites on a trombone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqvapAxXsVE

For something really interesting, watch this comparison between the same guy playing a suite on cello and trombone, and doing a great job on both.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVxAehgZtCY

Speaking of general vs specific, it's nice to be general with a bunch of chums, but new or younger folks haven't necessarily been there, and don't necessarily know all the inside jokes. The forum probably has more lurkers than participants, and those loo/lur-king for info benefit more from specifics.