A Note to Tuba Music Composers on Piano Accompaniment

[russiantuba]

Composers--your parts don't have to be overly busy and thickly scored in the piano parts to hide deficiencies of the tuba soloist. Do you want your music played by more tubists (or if really good, have musicians on other instruments ask to make an edition for their instruments)? If so--make your piano parts playable.

This week has been an interesting week regarding the above topic. One of my students was set to do a BM recital hearing yesterday, and his pianist cancelled on him on Sunday evening (lots of personal issues beyond her control), but it left my student hanging to dry without a pianist. With it being the end of the year, in a rural-ish area and jury week at the larger campuses in the metro area to the north, finding a pianist to do a recital with a date before grades are due has been a challenge. The hardest piece with piano he was doing was the first concerto of Lebedev, so no concerto reductions, and the music for tuba and piano is well scored and very playable--he was able to find a pianist. The pianist did say the music was challenging, but in a good way. I have a feeling if he had gone with a major concerto, I would still be looking for a pianist.

As I type this, I am beyond thankful for the pianist I had in undergrad, who had played the Hindemith before, who asked me if I was considering doing it, so she could get another go at it. I am also still defending my stance on playing music that is with electronic playback (tuba and tape) and unaccompanied works as g eneral audiences enjoy the different sound-scapes than just tuba and piano.

"Less is more"

[Grumpikins]

Thank you for reminding me of that.

Finding an accompanist was a nightmare. There were too few when I was in school. One semester, I ended up using a woodwind player who took up piano as a secondary. He wasn't terrible but liked to tell you how to play your part and wasn't very fluid on the keyboard.

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[bloke]

Maybe it's a better idea to learn how to play piano and to be a quick study at playing accompaniments than learning how to play the tuba