Posted by Steve Inman on October 18, 2001 at 19:51:17:
In Reply to: A Few Good Tuba Players or Too Many? posted by Randy Mac Iver on October 18, 2001 at 18:02:40:
Here's merely one person's very limited experience:
3.3% to 6.6% of the concert band should be composed of tubas, based on my experience with two groups: a *very* good high school concert band (2 tubas, 60 musicians), and a *very* good community concert band (3 tubas, 45 musicians). I think my Jr. High school concert band only had 4 tubas and 95 "musicians". I would cringe with a 10 member tuba section in a 100 piece band -- hard to play in unison with that many.
To generalize from this, you should always have one tuba (of course), and I'd say not more than 10% of the band should reside in the tuba section. The exception to this is a quintet, where 20% of the group is the tuba. My personal opinion would be to limit the tuba section to 3-4 tubists, and increase the size of the tubas not the size of the section.
Good luck -- I'm afraid I can't think of any way to improve the unison playing of 8 tubists, other than lots of dilligent practice with metronomes and in sectional rehearsals.
Steve Inman
Kokomo, IN