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I just got back from a rehearsal for my church's cantata service this Sunday, and it made me remember why I play tuba.
I like brass quintet and solo stuff and orchestra a lot, but getting to play at a big, resonant church under a really great choir with an organ along with is one of the coolest experiences I get to have as a tuba player. Anybody else feel this way?

(we're playing John Rutter's Gloria, by the way.)

I like it best when it's just me in there in the empty sanctuary. Who needs those other guys when you're the one with the tuba? Well ... OK ... euphonium sounds nice in there too.

Seriously (sort of), when I have the place all to myself is one of the few times I get to enjoy what the thing sounds like. I think, because the sound comes out up there somewhere above my head, I can't truly hear how it sounds when there is bunch of other stuff going on too. I recorded us about a month ago hoping to be able to hear on the recording what I can't hear while playing; but because of the location of the mics, and the fact that the tuba and euphonium play up at the ceiling, and the horn plays into somebody's fist, about all you can hear on the recording are the trumpet and the stinkin' trombone.

Playing with people in there does occasionally draw favorable comments about how the tuba improves the ensemble -- even though I don't play all that well -- so I suppose the ego gets a pat on the back sometimes while playing in a group.

Next week I'm playing in what will undoubtedly be the worst performance of the Rutter - Gloria in which I will have ever participated

Gosh! I didn't know you were helping out. Please look for me when you get here.

http://flctulsa.org/music.htm

And no, I will not be performing in the Gloria although I will be doing some tuba honking and recorder playing on other stuff. The director had her hopes up with me supporting the baritone section of the choir. But after a couple of rehearsals and all the do-do I have to put up with at work, I decided this piece of music required too much slogging through all the weird intervals and goofy note timings to end my day rehearsing it.

Charlie Goodman wrote:... getting to play at a big, resonant church under a really great choir with an organ along with is one of the coolest experiences I get to have as a tuba player. Anybody else feel this way?

Sure do! It's a wonderful experience -- not to be missed.

Charlie Goodman wrote:getting to play at a big, resonant church under a really great choir with an organ along with is one of the coolest experiences I get to have as a tuba player. Anybody else feel this way?

Absolutely.

(we're playing John Rutter's Gloria, by the way.)

Fun and satisfying piece to play.

I have played the Rutter many times, including one where my son was the conductor. I would be happy to have the opportunity to play it again. It is a well-written piece. I also enjoy singing compositions he has written.

bloke wrote:Yeah...I think most of us would admit to liking playing the tuba more than we actually like music.

I'm surprised no one picked up on this! This is certainly the reason why I play instruments....I took up horn because I loved the sound of it and wanted to learn to produce that sound. It took me a really long time but I finally did get there, with horn. I also enjoy playing my instruments in the same way that I enjoy driving a bike (motorcycle) or a nice car. Just doing it.

I like music too, but I practice because I like playing the instrument. We're doing Tchaik Symph #5 this concert series....and WOW is the last movement an experience! I get such a charge out of being in the middle of all that is going on! So the music is cool too, but it wouldn't be AS cool if I weren't playing my instrument in the middle of it.

MA

MaryAnn wrote:

bloke wrote:Yeah...I think most of us would admit to liking playing the tuba more than we actually like music.

I'm surprised no one picked up on this! This is certainly the reason why I play instruments....I took up horn because I loved the sound of it and wanted to learn to produce that sound. It took me a really long time but I finally did get there, with horn. I also enjoy playing my instruments in the same way that I enjoy driving a bike (motorcycle) or a nice car. Just doing it.

I like music too, but I practice because I like playing the instrument. We're doing Tchaik Symph #5 this concert series....and WOW is the last movement an experience! I get such a charge out of being in the middle of all that is going on! So the music is cool too, but it wouldn't be AS cool if I weren't playing my instrument in the middle of it.

MA

Exactly! "Observation vs. immersion" ... life really isn't a spectator sport, is it?

Charlie Goodman wrote:I just got back from a rehearsal for my church's cantata service this Sunday, and it made me remember why I play tuba.
I like brass quintet and solo stuff and orchestra a lot, but getting to play at a big, resonant church under a really great choir with an organ along with is one of the coolest experiences I get to have as a tuba player. Anybody else feel this way?

You are preaching to the (tuba) choir. I fully agree!

best,
Mark

Maybe that's the difference--I'm sort of lukewarm toward performance. I mostly do it to get the experience of playing--being stuck with an instrument in the middle of an ensemble is absolutely the worst possible place to actually hear the music.

The biggest kick for me is scribbing something down and hearing other folks perform it. It really doesn't matter much to me if I'm in the performance or not.

I have to disagree, Chuck. I always found that being on stage was the BEST place to listen... and the best thing I could think of was being on stage at a concert and participating in the art.

After trying EVERY other brass instrument, I finally found my voice with the tuba. And, with respect, to people who refer to the tuba as "this unweildy beast" and are suprised it sounds good may not have the right attitude to be playing this noble instrument...

windshieldbug wrote:I have to disagree, Chuck. I always found that being on stage was the BEST place to listen... and the best thing I could think of was being on stage at a concert and participating in the art.

After trying EVERY other brass instrument, I finally found my voice with the tuba. And, with respect, to people who refer to the tuba as "this unweildy beast" and are suprised it sounds good may not have the right attitude to be playing this noble instrument...

Hey, I'm just saying it's a little large.

windshieldbug wrote:I have to disagree, Chuck. I always found that being on stage was the BEST place to listen... and the best thing I could think of was being on stage at a concert and participating in the art.

Now, how could you possibly say that? Sitting next to the guy who plays the sonically closest relative to a chainsaw with the first violins clear across the stage from you? I suppose it could be worse--you could be sitting next to the tympani.

Nope, stick me out in the house any day. That's where the best sound is. Playing onstage to me is more like getting a view of a bowling tournament by being a pinsetter.

Charlie Goodman wrote:Hey, I'm just saying it's a little large.

's why I said it with a smile...

Chuck(G) wrote:Now, how could you possibly say that? Sitting next to the guy who plays the sonically closest relative to a chainsaw with the first violins clear across the stage from you? I suppose it could be worse--you could be sitting next to the tympani.

Nope, stick me out in the house any day. That's where the best sound is. Playing onstage to me is more like getting a view of a bowling tournament by being a pinsetter.

Well, you do get to sit behind the violas, and not anywhere in front of the bass trombone's bell...

And since it's the orchestra you're referring to, I've always found that since the strings aren't very directional instruments it doesn't really matter if you're sitting on the stage OR in the first row. You've got to LISTEN either way...

But I'm just yankin' your chain... the rewarding part is being part of the musical process, writing or performing. Being part of the art, solo, quintet, orchestra, writing or playing sure beats sitting behind someone snoring any day (well, I guess you ARE behind the violas, so never mind... )

I played trumpet in a 9-trumpet choir in a chapel where the six keyboard organ had pipes thru the roof and 250 monks sang gregorian chant from the pews below. The acoustics of this chapel were perfect. Everybody sounded perfect. I got to do this twice and I will never forget.
Bloke, you have nailed it. Much as I like a good tuba, I like hearing me do it better-no matter what the outcome.
My first toot on a tuba LIT UP A large band room and made me smile. My first time playing with a large band made my vow to do this always. Gotta be right in the middle of all that great sound!
I tried some writing, ChuckG, but I felt I lacked a message.
SplatterTone, please take it easy on yourself. A tuba adds a lot and you know they're better off with you in there tooting away.
tubatooter1940
www.johnreno.com/

tubatooter1940 wrote:My first toot on a tuba LIT UP A large band room and made me smile.

Good for you! I've never heard an oboist say the same thing...and probably a good thing too. I mean, why would someone be playing an oboe if they liked tuba so much?

On the other hand, a good magnesium flare will light up a large stadium...

bloke wrote:As the oboe has been mentioned more than once above...

Inspite of their total (necessary) neuroses with reeds, etc., it is easy to see how it would be mighty easy to develop the "big head" as a principal oboist...The majority of the stuff the rest of us play (including the violins!) is in place in order to build up to just the right settings that function as...

...accompaniments for oboe solos.

I always thought that the big oboe heads were due to backpressure

Charlie Goodman wrote:... but getting to play at a big, resonant church under a really great choir with an organ along with is one of the coolest experiences I get to have as a tuba player. Anybody else feel this way?

That's how I spent most of my tuba time during my first few years on the horn. It was a decent-sized church, and the singing was usually the congregation, but at least the pipe organ was a real live pipe organ, with half of the pipes about three feet behind and ten feet above me.

Yeah, it rocks. Great sound to emulate and to blend with. Later on in college people told me that I sounded organ-like.

About being heard in Gloria recordings -- dude, just play louder.

How about stupid oboe heads instead of (or in addition to) big oboe heads:
I got to hear, once again, the idiot oboe player in the orchestra "tune" the group before the first half of Sunday's program, which was the Grieg piano concerto. So, we had to tune to the piano A.

The A was hit on the piano; the oboeidiot then sounded HER A, which was clearly a quarter tone (or more) sharp to the piano A. She did her "usual" which was to BEND the tone down to the piano A. Pull the reed? What are you thinking? This player, BTW, in general has no concept of pitch; every once in a while her meanderings across the sound spectrum produce a few notes that are in tune with what is going on around her, and you think, "Oh gosh, she's finally got it..." and then they meander off again into never-never-pitch-land. I swear, some people should be de-handed at an early age so that they cannot be allowed to play instruments. At least if she were a singer I wouldn't have to listen to it.

MA