Re: Re: Scanning Music?


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Posted by Klaus on December 17, 2002 at 21:34:23:

In Reply to: Re: Scanning Music? posted by Larry Zaidan on December 17, 2002 at 19:28:51:

This is the right answer!

Before I got my BBb basses, I often had to save rehearsals, and even ensemble concerts, by playing tuba parts on bassbone and/or euph.

When I entered a brass band with a badly kept library, I often had to play BBb tuba from Eb tuba parts in either treble clef or bass clef (not a generic brass band thing, but still used very often in hymn music over here).

Here my previous experiences came in handy: I just played the BBb bass in euph/bassbone mode. Octave displacement always is a handy tool in ones weaponery. Playing the lead in church hymns on bone, bar, or euph often invites to take the tune up an octave to the soprano register. No problem whatsoever as long as the tune tops on D concert. Above that concentration is called for.

As mentioned I am with Larry on this one. As I read this type of recurring discussions, the divide seems to go between two types of players.

The ones that say: Read the black and play the fingering called for.

And the ones, that say: Read the music and play out of a holistic understanding of, what the music and the conductors conducting tells you to be the sensible solution.

Back in 1976 or 78, I read a discussion in the now defunct Brass Quarterly about the edition practises of an American editor. King being part of his name.

He wrote the euph/bassbone/tuba parts of 4 or 5 part music on the same staff with occasional octave doublings. The author of that article complained, that this practise ruined the composers outline of the bass part. Making 4th ascends 5th descends, vice versa, and so forth. The worst problem maybe being thirds changed into sixths and seconds into sevenths.

The same problem is met in the Eb tuba parts of brass bands. The true bassline is best handled by euph and bassbone, the true contrabassline is best handled by the BBb bass. Letting the Eb tuba play the bassline is usually technically very well possible, but will often add a situation of strain and overload to the bassline, when it comes to sound and balance.

Letting the Eb tuba play the contrabassline often will take players below their most comfortable range. Especially concerning intonation. So arrangers often let the Eb tuba oscillate more or less at random between bass- and contrabass lines. One of the worst samples coming to my mind is the arrangement of the Hungarian March by Berlioz.

Owning and playing Eb and BBb basses I was a swing person in a certain brass band playing whatever was most needed. My experience can be boiled down to this:

If playing generic brass band music by competent specialist composers, then the Eb part is by far the most interesting one. But if playing arrangements of orchestral and choral music, which was written according to the standard compasses of string basses and human voices respectively, then give me the BBb, euph, or bassbone part any time.

As told, I do not find octave displacement a problem of reading and instrumental technique. However it is often an acute problem of musical performance. Reading a book on Palestrina's voicing rules is no bad start, as he is behind so much later music.

Boiling this problem down to its bare bones one could say, that as long as one stays within tonal, non-pop-non-rock music, then the lesson is: never take two or more leaps in the same direction, if all involved notes do not belong to the same chord.

Once I was confronted wit a Bach chorale arrangement, which started with 2 ascending fifths in the Eb tuba part. That immediately reveals a lack of knowledge in Bach's way of voicing parts. Two ascending fourths can be found by Handel, but only in the melody line. I do not remember having seen them in a Bach score.

Klaus, who of course might be far off when considering the tuba a vehicle of making music more than a tool applicable at social gatherings.


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