tuba playing and (really) making music
Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2020 8:29 am
This is more a "tuba" post than a "euphonium" post, just fwiw...
Our instruments are unwieldy quirky, and approach the mechanical and physical limits of what can be managed...
...but double basses (string basses) are all of these things as well, and (can we talk?) often, quite a bit more demand is put on them (technically) than us, and many of them seem more (well) musically sensitive than do many of us - and at all levels of ensembles.
We strive to master tone production (loud/soft high/low), articulation (smooth/hard slow/fast), time (when we can tolerate playing along with that blasted metronome, which seems to race and slow down), and intonation (arguably, often to a lesser extent - as the bass-oriented/treble-muted resonance of our instruments often cloaks intonation context clues to others' ears, and - this, combined with some pitches on our instruments that are not naturally true).
The one group of playing aspects that many of us (I'm raising my own hand, here) seem to tend to ignore (and get away with ignoring, because "that's really good for a tuba") is phrasing and expression. Even when we believe we are making phrasing/expression efforts, (often) it may be more in our heads - than out our bells (much as when people sing along with expertly-sung recordings, and believe that they themselves are executing all the subtleties heard in the artists' recordings - along with which they are singing).
Some of us scoff at "country" music (OK...that genre itself has degraded over the last couple of decades, but that's beside the point). The reason, though, that people are attracted to it is not because it is sophisticated (it almost always is not), and not because it is clever (it often is not), but because it is expressive and affects emotions...and the same goes for hip-hop/rap/etc. Nearly everyone (note: "nearly") who listens to music is seeking emotional expression, and not-so-much the technical nor the clever.
Phrasing and expression are not mysterious. Rather (and just as with all other aspects of playing) they are mechanically executed, and involve (not just these things, but these things and even more things...things which will occur to us as we study examples of superb phrasing, and strive to imitate it and learn from it).
> the use of many more than three or four types of articulations. So called "jazz" players use all sorts of unnamed articulations, most of which also enhance "classical" music (and most of which are also utilized by those "remarkable" classical musicians whom we admire the most).
> more use of dynamics - and legion more use than those marked dynamic changes, but also those which are implied.
> in ensemble playing (which is most of our playing) and accompanying a solo line (which STILL is most of our playing), executing subtle phrasing techniques which ENHANCE the (typically treble-voiced) solo line, and thus make the solo line's delivery to the audience (well...) even more emotional.
> Even when other "reinforcement" instruments around us (amateur or paid players) are ~not~ doing these things, having them hear us do them is "catching", and (eventually) more of them will begin to do them - thus elevating the amount of (actual) music that is created by the corporately generated sounds.
Marcel Tabuteau - the father of the American school of oboe playing - developed a mechanical system to teach his students how to play expressively. A couple of the most simple things in his system are to (generally, with exceptions) play louder as a phrase climbs in pitch, and to (generally, with exceptions) diminuendo as a phrase lowers in pitch (much as with human vocal expression). Another thing is to (rather than just these: ppp, pp, p, mp, mf, f, ff, fff) to actually set numerical dynamic levels (perhaps twenty of them
) for each pitch on one's instrument, to take control over them, to learn them, and (eventually) always be aware of the loudness "number" being consciously selected for any given pitch.
https://www.google.com/search?ei=_MxgX9 ... ber+system
It just seems to me that the more (actual) music we make (rather than just "well-executed pitched sounds - at various volume levels") the more we will be considered (by other musicians and patrons of music) to be musicians, and without the attached-adjective "auxiliary"...and maybe even without the (unspoken, but - likely - often thought) expression, "good, for a tuba".
bloke "...or perhaps not."
Our instruments are unwieldy quirky, and approach the mechanical and physical limits of what can be managed...
...but double basses (string basses) are all of these things as well, and (can we talk?) often, quite a bit more demand is put on them (technically) than us, and many of them seem more (well) musically sensitive than do many of us - and at all levels of ensembles.
We strive to master tone production (loud/soft high/low), articulation (smooth/hard slow/fast), time (when we can tolerate playing along with that blasted metronome, which seems to race and slow down), and intonation (arguably, often to a lesser extent - as the bass-oriented/treble-muted resonance of our instruments often cloaks intonation context clues to others' ears, and - this, combined with some pitches on our instruments that are not naturally true).
The one group of playing aspects that many of us (I'm raising my own hand, here) seem to tend to ignore (and get away with ignoring, because "that's really good for a tuba") is phrasing and expression. Even when we believe we are making phrasing/expression efforts, (often) it may be more in our heads - than out our bells (much as when people sing along with expertly-sung recordings, and believe that they themselves are executing all the subtleties heard in the artists' recordings - along with which they are singing).
Some of us scoff at "country" music (OK...that genre itself has degraded over the last couple of decades, but that's beside the point). The reason, though, that people are attracted to it is not because it is sophisticated (it almost always is not), and not because it is clever (it often is not), but because it is expressive and affects emotions...and the same goes for hip-hop/rap/etc. Nearly everyone (note: "nearly") who listens to music is seeking emotional expression, and not-so-much the technical nor the clever.
Phrasing and expression are not mysterious. Rather (and just as with all other aspects of playing) they are mechanically executed, and involve (not just these things, but these things and even more things...things which will occur to us as we study examples of superb phrasing, and strive to imitate it and learn from it).
> the use of many more than three or four types of articulations. So called "jazz" players use all sorts of unnamed articulations, most of which also enhance "classical" music (and most of which are also utilized by those "remarkable" classical musicians whom we admire the most).
> more use of dynamics - and legion more use than those marked dynamic changes, but also those which are implied.
> in ensemble playing (which is most of our playing) and accompanying a solo line (which STILL is most of our playing), executing subtle phrasing techniques which ENHANCE the (typically treble-voiced) solo line, and thus make the solo line's delivery to the audience (well...) even more emotional.
> Even when other "reinforcement" instruments around us (amateur or paid players) are ~not~ doing these things, having them hear us do them is "catching", and (eventually) more of them will begin to do them - thus elevating the amount of (actual) music that is created by the corporately generated sounds.
Marcel Tabuteau - the father of the American school of oboe playing - developed a mechanical system to teach his students how to play expressively. A couple of the most simple things in his system are to (generally, with exceptions) play louder as a phrase climbs in pitch, and to (generally, with exceptions) diminuendo as a phrase lowers in pitch (much as with human vocal expression). Another thing is to (rather than just these: ppp, pp, p, mp, mf, f, ff, fff) to actually set numerical dynamic levels (perhaps twenty of them
) for each pitch on one's instrument, to take control over them, to learn them, and (eventually) always be aware of the loudness "number" being consciously selected for any given pitch. https://www.google.com/search?ei=_MxgX9 ... ber+system
It just seems to me that the more (actual) music we make (rather than just "well-executed pitched sounds - at various volume levels") the more we will be considered (by other musicians and patrons of music) to be musicians, and without the attached-adjective "auxiliary"...and maybe even without the (unspoken, but - likely - often thought) expression, "good, for a tuba".
bloke "...or perhaps not."
