Posted by Rick Denney on June 26, 2002 at 11:59:16:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Extreme high range on tuba posted by tubajake on June 26, 2002 at 11:26:54:
I have a solo that is based on a Yorkshire folksong that ranges from C below the staff to Eb above the staff. The C is the first note, and the first strain ranges from there to the middle of the staff. You don't reach the top of the staff until halfway through the work, and the high Eb is in the last phrase. In that context, it soars and it makes your hair stand on end (when well played, heh, heh). That Eb isn't that high compared to many works, but it is about as high as a tuba goes, still sounding like a tuba. But context is everything. The piece builds and builds, and by the time you reach the high Eb, it seems about an octave higher than it is. If the piece started up there and stayed up there, you wouldn't realize that it was high, because no tuba ever sounds high to a non-tubist.
Another example: Velvet Brown makes the high tessiturra of the Broughton Sonata second movement sound so easy that it doesn't sound high. When I play it, it kills me, but she makes it sound almost too easy. Arnold Jacobs said in Portrait of an Artist that tubas impress people by playing low, not high--just the opposite than for trumpets. This ought to be food for thought for composers.
Rick "who wants to play that Yorkshire ballad well at least once before he dies" Denney