Re: Getting the Gig


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Posted by Rick Denney on January 02, 2001 at 18:48:21:

In Reply to: Getting the Gig posted by SD on January 02, 2001 at 17:49:43:

I'll give you the run-down on how the TubaMeisters got started. They are not rich and famous like the TubaFours, but they did get (and continue to get) fun part-time gigs that keep them in lederhosen and felt hats. And they did do the big-time theme-park thing, at least for a little while.

The TubaMeisters started out as the tuba section of the San Antonio Municipal Band. The principal player in that group was Ray Grim, who has also done extensive arranging for that ensemble (some of which is available from Cimmaron Music in Dallas). He is a solid, pro-quality player with a master's in performance on tuba, and he held the rest of us to high standards as a section, even when we as individuals could not live up to that standard. That philosophy built a strong section that played with great confidence and musicality, even if one second-rate amateur in the section (me) had to lay out frequently to Do No Harm.

Three of the members of that section frequently built a quartet together with the principal trombonist, who was really a euphoniumist. Al Tapia is a retired Army musician and bandmaster with tremendous talent on the euphonium--he could hold his own with anybody in town, including an ex-soloist with the U.S. Army Field Band, a soloist at the time with the Air Force Band of the West (except for jazz--that guy was peerless), and any of the symphony players who doubled on euphonium. He was a eupher in the Glenn Call tradition--he made a big sound with a big mouthpiece.

One of the other tuba players in the SAMB section doubled on euph (sometimes Tubenetter Richard Wallace), and I played F tuba. That made a quartet. We did various gigs in the usual manner, starting with church gigs, and leading up to special events such as a concert in the park, where we played a (slightly) shortened transcription of Scheherezade along with various and sundry other long-hair musical selections. We called ourselves the Low-Down Brass. Our most interesting gig was at a Karaoake bar, for which we were paid actual money. We specifically avoided polka music, because we did not want to further the stereotype the tuba as an oompah instrument (also, apparently, we didn't want to make any money).

Then Opryland decided to turn a disused quarry in northwest San Antonio into a musical theme park called Fiesta Texas, and they put the word out that they were looking for a tuba quartet. We asked ourselves whether we wanted to get into that kind of commitment for about two minutes, and made the appointment.

I think our audition piece was "Folk Songs from Somerset" by Vaughan Williams. The fellow stopped us after about 12 bars and said, "You're hired. Do you guys know any polkas?" We pointed our proud noses up in the air, and said that we were committed to the positive portrayal of the instrum.... "It pays 12 bucks an hour" ....ent and we could have 12 polkas by that Sunday and 40 by the end of the month. We played 16 to 20 shows during each of the next 35 weekends, with a quartet from Tennessee Tech filling in on weekdays during the summer (led by Kenyon Wilson).

After the season was over, the TubaMeisters stayed together and went back to the more occasional gigs, such as fraternal halls like the Beethoven Home und Garten in San Antonio (where the German heritage is almost as strong as the Hispanic), where we were recorded and shown on German television (or so we are told). Our musical high point was a recital at Southwest Texas State University, where I narrowly avoided a complete panic-induced breakdown at the thought of playing the horn solo part in our transcription of Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks in front of a bunch of music professors. We also did a number of professional gigs with the representation of a local agent.

Al Tapia and I both left San Antonio soon afterwards, and the TubaMeisters have metamorphosed as groups do when needed. They came up to my neighborhood to play a gig in nearby Maryland about 18 months ago, and we had a grand time. Pictures of that gig adorn their current web site (I do not appear in them, but the redhead is my wife).

So, that's how it happens: Opportunity meets preparation. We had a group ready to perform when the gig appeared, and (with some provocation) we were ready to play what the people wanted to hear.

Oh, do I miss those days.

Rick "now hopelessly nostalgic" Denney



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