TubeNet

In my experience there is usually an audition for any group that pays even a small amount.you win,you're in....of course conductors can just appoint someone in many smaller orchestras.Either way,keep practicing and listening to every orchestral piece with a tuba part.

DFW is Mecca for community bands. Check out this list.
http://www.boerger.org/c-m/groups.shtml#top

I don't know what it's like down there, but around here paper will (at most) only help you get invited to an audition. Tapes or word-of-mouth will get you in. The committees I've been a member of only ever looked at the music (and that's if they needed to).

The best community group in the area is "Metropolitan Winds". I think it's www.metropolitanwinds.org

The rehearse in Irving. You should be able to find it on the web if that site isn't correct.

Jarrod wrote:The best community group in the area is "Metropolitan Winds". I think it's www.metropolitanwinds.org

The rehearse in Irving. You should be able to find it on the web if that site isn't correct.

Isn't that Randy Bass's group? I played under him in Austin, and he is a great band director, especially if you get him to play his own oustanding arrangements.

I was invited to join his new band when I lived in Dallas (and his band was new). My job prevented further commitments and I had to decline.

I played in the Town North Concert Band, which at the time was a performance-oriented group of good quality. It might still be.

I also was the alternate for the Mesquite Symphony and once subbed in the Irving Youth Orchestra. Mesquite later turned semi-pro, and the guys who serve that group now are not from Planet Rick. I can assure you that if an orchestra pays even a little bit, there will be a pro-quality player or 12 trying to get that gig. My (current) local symphony group is semi-pro with mostly amateur string players, and the last time I heard them Alex Lapins was playing tuba. Again, not from Planet Rick. Not even the same solar system. Anybody with lesser skills should look for a purely amateur orchestra, but those are not common it would seem, and even those are hotly contested.

I considered trying to use local connections to get me an audition for the #2 tuba part when the Loudoun Symphony played Symphonie Fantastique, but I was just being silly. They hired a pro ringer, of course. Most orchestra groups exist for the pleasure of the string players, and those guys may not be able to play Come to Jesus in whole notes but they will be annoyed if the servant musicians on winds, brass and percussion get in their way at all.

Rick "who can't really play even the second part of the Berlioz" Denney

Tuck, in Southlake, we play our share of the standard marches, show tunes, etc. But our director likes to find challenging new arrangements. The Carroll ISD is very fortunate to have an instructor on staff, David Pearce, who is an excellent composer/arranger and he also conducts the Southlake Swing Band. He writes or arranges a couple of pieces a year for the community band. Come hear us play at the Fair Park Bandshell on May 13. We're playing along with Arlington and Irving at the Starlight series.

Well, Tuck, here's how I see it after a decade in the amateur scene, experienced after a lengthy break following a decade in the pro scene on a different instrument.

Amateur orchestras, at least in my part of the country (SW) ... are always short of decent string players. So, the string sections basically suck, and there is no pitch center. The wind sections tend to be difficult to get into. Once someone is in, they may literally be there for decades.

Now, if you're talking band instead of orchestra....I see the same thing. Even the best amateur band around here does not have a good pitch center, although it is hard to get into. People stay in these groups until they can't play any more, and then they stay longer, until they can't keep their place in the music, and then they stay longer because no one has the heart to kick them out. Meanwhile their seat doesn't open up. Often when a seat does open up, the person who gets that seat is a friend of the first chair player or the conductor.

While amateur groups may have an "official" goal of improving, there are generally a fairly large number of people in them who don't play their instrument except at rehearsal, and who are not interested in putting in time to improve their technique. And, for the reasons above, they don't get kicked out.

A band here in town that I used to play in had its conductor retire; they found a new guy who was extremely qualified to come do the job. He made a very bad assumption that the people wanted to improve, and the first rehearsal he tried to get them to play something in 5/8 or 3+2+3/8 or something like that. One third of the players did not come to subsequent rehearsals, that is, they quit. But some of the old guard stayed on and played loud wrong notes and wrong time on purpose during rehearsals, and in three months they drove him out.

I have never seen an amateur group that didn't have the less competent musicians as part of the core that did all the work for the group. The star players usually aren't the ones who do all the volunteering.

So... start your own group! How about starting a brass band and learning to arrange that Wagner you like so much? But be very, very careful who your initial musicians are, because you will be stuck with them forever unless they quit. I think if I started a group, it would be "pay to join" and then there would be paid positions for librarian etc, to avoid the problem of having the best volunteer be the worst musician.

MA

You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a community band in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area. There are bands in Plano, Richardson, Mesquite, Irving, Southlake (takes in Grapevine and Colleyville) Arlington, Mansfield and Fort Worth to name a few. Some suburbs have more than one band. A little bit of research on the web will lead you to the websites for many of these groups.


Happy hunting!