Playing divisi parts in community band

[Phil Dawson]

Back in the day many concert bands had an upright string bass along with the tubas. The parts were often marked basses and notated in octaves. The string bass would play the top line sounding an octave lower and everyone would be playing he same notes. Phil

[Michael Bush]

Back in the day many concert bands had an upright string bass along with the tubas. The parts were often marked basses and notated in octaves. The string bass would play the top line sounding an octave lower and everyone would be playing he same notes. Phil

Your day is today in one of the bands I play in.

[sousaphonehero]

Back in the day many concert bands had an upright string bass along with the tubas. The parts were often marked basses and notated in octaves. The string bass would play the top line sounding an octave lower and everyone would be playing he same notes. Phil

The only song I have played where this is true is the English Folk Song Suite by Ralph Vaughn Williams. The rest of (older) band music was mostly written an octave higher to accommodate the range limitations of Eb tubas.

[Phil Dawson]

Many marches especially those on the small size parts were also written that way, Phil

[Donn]

Many marches especially those on the small size parts were also written that way, Phil

Example? I guess we're looking for a "basses" part where there's a continuous upper line all throughout the piece, that never goes below E? I have a lot of Sousa, King etc. marches, and they aren't like that at all. Liberty Bell is an interesting example, John Church edition 1894, in that it has its own string bass part, so the divisi in "basses" is obviously for bass and contrabass tubas.

My vague recollection from a couple months playing string bass in concert band is that parts were usually available, separately, never saw a part that was written together with the tuba part.

[hduong]

If I was the only player, I would always play the bottom part. Usually the bari sax or bass trombone would have any moving lines within the top line, if not the director would tell me to play it.

When there are 2 players, we would play both splits, and if we had more than 2 players, than it would be 2 low + 1 top, or 2 low and 2 top.

[iiipopes]

My high school band director, Navy trained, said that he was taught that divisi parts were for Eb tubas that could not play the low notes (obviously, when most American Eb tubas were small bore and three valves). The Rubank Advanced Method tuba book reinforces this in the way the exercises are written. Since in high school we had all BBb instruments, he instructed us to play the lower notes. Period.

I understand some modern composers write tuba parts in certain passages as fifths, and even thirds or other intervals as divisi parts, (even Nelhybel tone clusters) so that may not generally hold anymore.

But even keeping this in mind, very rarely have I taken exception, for example:

1) when a scalar line broke back in a seemingly awkward place, so I would carry the line up and break back to the lower notes at a different point that seemed to make more musical sense;

2) playing in an ensemble so small that the lower note would not knit to the rest of the lower brass due to there being too many "holes" in the instrumentation, so long as the range did not go so high that it actually overlapped the other mid and low brass.

Like most everything else, "it depends." It depends on the player, the size and configuration of the ensemble, the piece as written, etc. Unfortunately, there is very little common sense or rule of thumb anymore to give guidance.

Sorry - I just gotta - I guess when presented with divisi parts, we all have to "play it by ear."

[Donn]

My high school band director, Navy trained, said that he was taught that divisi parts were for Eb tubas that could not play the low notes (obviously, when most American Eb tubas were small bore and three valves). The Rubank Advanced Method tuba book reinforces this in the way the exercises are written.

It's amazing what kids will believe. Instead of looking at an exercise book, pull out any classic march with divisi and look at it, within 10 seconds even a high school kid could have seen that it isn't true.

I mean, sure, you will see a few passages divided to avoid sending bass tuba below Bb (or to avoid running the contrabass tuba above F), but those range extremes will show up rather rarely in the piece. Most of the way through, the line is well within the normal range of either bass or contrabass tuba. Yet it will be divided - in some places, and not divided in others with more or less the same notes. For musical reasons that might not apply to exercise books, and if you're playing for musical reasons, it's worth a try to see if it will sound better played as written, even if all the tubas are BBb.