playing bass trombone parts on "no tuba" symphonic works

[bloke]

I'm very lucky that I have a music director who allows me to do this (f cimbasso), not really so much that it allows me to participate and hang with my section mates when there are no tuba parts on a concert (which is really great) but that it opens up my ears even wider and helps me understand subtleties of symphonic playing even more.

This is only a sidebar - and I don't mean it to be a distraction, but this is part of what's prompted me to design a mouthpiece that defines the sonic characteristics of a (my) f cimbasso as more bass trombone like, and also why I'm building a regular 9 ft B-flat bass trombone cimbasso.

This week I'm playing Dvorak 7 - which is frankly much more intricate and complex than 8 or 9, and also accompanying the Sibelius Violin Concerto (...talk about a violin concerto that requires some over the top virtuosity, but I digress)

It's always a joy to play the tuba in a symphony orchestra, but playing the trombone (being really candid/frank) requires more precise tuning and more subtle nuances. I'm not insulting tuba players (as that's me ) nor tuba parts nor tuba playing, but it's just a fact.

The sonority/resonance/sound qualities of a tuba are less complex than that of a trombone. Even though we talk about varying colors of tubas' sounds, tubas' color(s) of sound - compared to trombones - are truncated on the high end due to the large diameter of the resonating air column. With so many more high overtones in the sound of trombones, it's just way more exposed (due to clarity), the wider range of colors of sonority (as trombones can sound so very different from loud to soft - as well as from low to high) allows for way more subtleties and shading, and slightly out of tune trombone playing is going to be noticed immediately, unlike (truth ) a very slightly out of tune pitch played by a very large tuba.

Further, the music director looks at the trombones differently than the tuba. Rarely does a really well versed and competent music director ask for more tuba, but the same music director will ask for more trombone sound - when it's appropriate. In particular, the first and third trombones are relied on by composers and music directors as the "fists" of the orchestra. The tuba can provide more weight, but it's really the trombones that provide the power (and we tuba players already know this).

Tubas tend to sit more and play less, particularly when a low brass sound is needed at a very soft volume level and with a transparent type of sound - or when a melody needs to be reinforced or echoed. Tubas just aren't particularly transparent, and frankly sound pretty thick. Further, composers of tuba parts tend to place the tuba on a lot of chord roots and occasionally thirds, but rarely on the bottom of some second inversion chord - playing the fifth. These might be the most sensitive chords compared to root position and first inversion - as far as tuning is concerned. I don't need to go into all the stuff about how we favor pitches in chord tuning, because we've discussed that endlessly on this site.

My first outing with doing this was playing Schubert 9. That was a really good piece to cut my teeth on - as far as playing in a symphonic trombone section, but again, this Dvorak is a great deal more complex. I'm really glad that I got to do the Schubert before doing this piece... or even before playing the Sibelius violin accompaniment. It's not that the technical execution of the bass trombone parts in either of these pieces is difficult, but just how they are executed is critical. I hope that makes sense.

I'm not in the least pretending that what the trombone section does is as sophisticated or as exposed as what the strings or woodwinds do, but I'm pretty emphatic about reporting that playing trombone and a symphony orchestra is pretty eye opening to a tuba player. I'll stick my neck out even further and state that a trombone section can make or break a performance, whereas mediocre tuba player (neither particularly bad no particularly good - one who plays all the notes fairly well in tune and doesn't step in any rests) might just end up having no effect in particular on a performance.

If you are lucky enough to be able to play in a symphony orchestra trombone section - and are up to it, it's something you should do. I've already said this way back at the beginning, but I feel remarkably lucky, and I'm learning a tremendous amount from doing this. This is something that I never thought I would be able nor have an opportunity to do, and I've been allowed to do it in both a symphony orchestra trombone section and even in a couple of hybrid orchestra concerts in a "big band" trombone section. Hearing various talented batches of three or four trombonists do this stuff for several decades is one thing, but to be involved in doing it oneself is quite another.

[bloke]

I believe this was from one of the middle rehearsals...possibly the first time we actually played through the end (as we all know that music directors avoid playing the very end/coda of a symphony at the first rehearsal).

If you've read one of my comments in the "Lucks sucks" thread - where I was concerned about (what I consider to be) a bad voicing in the final chords of this symphony, notice how prominent my lower A natural is in the D major chords - EVEN THOUGH I was REALLY trying to back off a LOT. That's just not how to voice chords such as those, PARTICULARLY not with a friggin' bass trombone playing those transgressing A naturals. Notice that you can really only hear the tonic D well at the cutoff of the final chord...(or WAS that Dvorak's intent...??)

Per the initial post, this is obviously NOT one of those "subtle moments" with the pianississimo chords, NOT one of those spots where the trombone section imitates the bassoon or cello section, etc., etc...This - rather - is typical trombone section steamrolling.

You'll need your own - or someone's - facebook account to hear this, if you're curious:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... tid=Nif5oz

[WC8KCY]

...I'm not in the least pretending that what the trombone section does is as sophisticated or as exposed as what the strings or woodwinds do, but I'm pretty emphatic about reporting that playing trombone and a symphony orchestra is pretty eye opening to a tuba player. I'll stick my neck out even further and state that a trombone section can make or break a performance, whereas mediocre tuba player (neither particularly bad no particularly good - one who plays all the notes fairly well in tune and doesn't step in any rests) might just end up having no effect in particular on a performance...

...If you are lucky enough to be able to play in a symphony orchestra trombone section - and are up to it, it's something you should do. I've already said this way back at the beginning, but I feel remarkably lucky, and I'm learning a tremendous amount from doing this.

Having also played trombone in a symphony orchestra, I wholeheartedly agree.

To me, the most eye-opening aspect of orchestra trombone is this: every single note you play has to be a carefully crafted musical expression. You're instantly exposed if you don't dial up the correct pitch, dynamic, attack, release, and timbre every single time. There is nowhere for a trombone's sound to hide. In tuba performance, there may be multiple correct approaches to address a given situation, but this range of possibilities does not often exist for the trombone; after a couple of run-throughs on a given piece, the singular correct interpretation becomes apparent, and you're then locked into it.

There have been times I've wished for something like a B-flat cimbasso.

[bloke]

...I'm not in the least pretending that what the trombone section does is as sophisticated or as exposed as what the strings or woodwinds do, but I'm pretty emphatic about reporting that playing trombone and a symphony orchestra is pretty eye opening to a tuba player. I'll stick my neck out even further and state that a trombone section can make or break a performance, whereas mediocre tuba player (neither particularly bad no particularly good - one who plays all the notes fairly well in tune and doesn't step in any rests) might just end up having no effect in particular on a performance...

...If you are lucky enough to be able to play in a symphony orchestra trombone section - and are up to it, it's something you should do. I've already said this way back at the beginning, but I feel remarkably lucky, and I'm learning a tremendous amount from doing this.

Having also played trombone in a symphony orchestra, I wholeheartedly agree.

To me, the most eye-opening aspect of orchestra trombone is this: every single note you play has to be a carefully crafted musical expression. You're instantly exposed if you don't dial up the correct pitch, dynamic, attack, release, and timbre every single time. There is nowhere for a trombone's sound to hide. In tuba performance, there may be multiple correct approaches to address a given situation, but this range of possibilities does not often exist for the trombone; after a couple of run-throughs on a given piece, the singular correct interpretation becomes apparent, and you're then locked into it.

There have been times I've wished for something like a B-flat cimbasso.

A friend of mine (a bit younger...I repaired his trombones when he was growing up, and he's been in a "major/full-time" orchestra for quite a few years, now, and - being as he and I see the world in the same way - about all he can discuss "at work" is stuff like the weather, etc.) has heard some of my F-cimbasso-covering-bass-trombone-parts outtakes, and once remarked, "good idea...It's in tune"...to which I (for several obvious reasons) responded not-at-all.