Something Fun for a Sunday Morning

[MikeS]

I try to remind myself that (in a perfect world) I play music on an instrument, rather than just that I play an instrument. This helps to keep me from staying in a very narrow lane with the tuba and euphonium. Jon Sass certainly has an open mind when it came to making music on the tuba. Think wide, my friends.

[bloke]

That made me smile.

Even when I'm reading written music and a section of that written music features nothing but a tied over donut (with no indicated changes in volume), I'm always changing the sound of my written donut (maybe not just the volume, but maybe even subtly the timbre, which is a way to fake a crescendo and diminuendo without getting louder and softer) with whatever the prominent thing that is occurring - while keeping the "I'm just the accompaniment" thing well in context.

If at first the trombone players don't catch on to what I'm doing, they soon do - and begin doing it with me.

This is a really low level example of "it's not just playing the tuba but it's playing music", but it's an example. Just sitting on a static "note" is not musical, just as "paint by number" is not artistic, unless the person doing it adds some actual art.

As tuba players, this is just a very small example of some of the je ne sais quoi stuff that causes other people to think of us first, when they need to hire a tuba player... and it's also stuff that (as private studio teaching mostly just covers scales, arpeggios, etudes, solos, and prominent ensemble excerpts) probably isn't taught much (if at all) in private studios... Along with other things, such as "there are a whole bunch of ways to start a sound, other than 'D' , 'T' , or '~' ".

[1 Ton Tommy]

Now that is just more than a bit of alright!

I called that tune at a jam playing trumpet and the lead guitar vamped it in at about 140. I couldn't keep up especially the bridge. That's being played about that fast but maybe in a key that doesn't tie your finger in knots. I don't know what key Monk wrote it in but the Hal Leonard key is Concert F.

What would I transpose it into for my Eb tuba if playing off a G clef chart? I suppose I could look in the Eb fake book but they're what, $35 a pop nowadays. I haven't yet tried playing tuba from G clef charts.