Posted by Rick Denney on May 23, 2002 at 16:22:37:
In Reply to: Basses and Contra B. posted by WHY on May 23, 2002 at 15:16:13:
Nobody will be surprised that I jump on this first, heh, heh.
Some composers see the tuba as the bass of the brass, other see it as the bass of the winds in general, and still others as a unique voice that sometimes serves a bass role and other times a melodic role. Our responsibility as musicians should lead us to choose the instrument or sound that fits with those objectives.
Why would the tuba ever want to go lower than what the music requires?
Of course, the sound that meets these objectives will also be governed by the tradition and voice of the ensemble as a whole.
A bass tuba is lower than any brass instrument, both in pitch and in tone color. So it can still provide the bass voice effectively, if that fits with the music and the desired sound of the orchestra, even though there are lower instruments available. Even F tubas today make a much bigger and deeper sound than the F tubas that were common in orchestras 100 years ago.
In other cases, the color of a contrabass tuba is more suited to the work, even though it may play in the same pitch range as the bass tuba. Where that line is will forever be debated.
The tuba is often pitched above the bass trombone to provide a contrasting timbre to the ensemble sound. One example is in the Uranus movement of The Planets, where the tuba plays the main motive at one meter to be followed by the trombones (and tuba), with the bass trombone in the tuba range, playing lower, louder, and at a slower meter. There, the roundness of the tuba tone is played against the edge of the trombone sound. It's hard to tell who is the bass voice here, and Holst didn't say in so many words. But he was a trombone player, and I'd bet he did it on purpose.
Rick "taking the bait" Denney