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A couple of years ago my quintet did a recital on which the Phillips Tocatta was the highlight. I was really dissapointed in the sound I was getting out of the 184. In fact that is what started me on a quest for a different horn. To get the power I felt I needed to balance a huge organ pedal I though the quality of my sound was compromised. I only listened to the recording, no control room magic, a couple of times. I went back this morning afte reading this post and listened very critically to my sound and was simply amazed at how much better it was than I remember while playing. I do wish I had had the 3301 in my hands that day to compare the two, but the recorded sound is very much different than I remember from my side of the bell on performance, fuller, richer and more focused.

I have had the pleasure of sitting next to Michael Moore, Atlanta Symphony principal, a dozen or so times. He gets a lot of criticism because he is not a huge player, physically or sound wise. He is wonderful to play with because everything is so under control. The sound is so very refined, the correctness of pitch is unquestioned and his playing and interpretation in general is impeccible. He just doesn't ever make a mistake. I don't mean a missed note, I mean nothing more than 5 cents or so out, never a wrong dynamic, an unprepared entrance, a dropped phrase. I know we are supposed to be talking about sound but it all goes together. He always sounds like it is the result of a recording session. I like blending with that. It is very reassuring. He make my bass trombone sound better.

Good topic. This is something that I have had drilled into my brain by Dave Fedderly on many occasions. Many of his students will tell you that he has you 'stand in the corner' a lot during lessons. The sound that you are making for yourself is not the sound that is heard by the audience. He often referred to the concept as STAGE MAKEUP. What one sounds like under the bell to the player should not be focussed, centered, pretty, etc. The point of him having me stand in the corner was to have me realize the difference between what he sounded like sitting next to him as opposed to 10 or 12 feet away and further. Up close, one might describe his sound as 'fuzzy', lacking clarity, lacking core, etc. When heard from a greater distance, (what the audience
hears) his sound is anything but fuzzy or unclear or lacking core. Many have called it the 'iron fist in a velvet glove' sound, that for a good while in the previous century, mainly Chicago trained brass players were famous for. This has changed dramatically in the past decades with other teachers spreading this sound concept far and wide. This influence comes of course from players/teachers like Bud Herseth, Arnold Jacobs, Frank Crisafulli, Dale Clevenger, etc. So to answer the last question, no, I do not play to my ear anymore, I play to the audience.

Sound the player hears != sound the audience hears.

In general, players should "borrow" auditoriums on occasion to keep things in check. Whether it be a trusted pair of ears or a good small recording setup, someone should be out in the hall. Furthermore, the reference point should move around a little. This is an important aspect to developing a sound. Lessons are not the best places for your teachers to hear you. Mainly because they are often in a small room and far too close.

In regards to the OP's specific questions:

1-Room acoustics are extremely important. Overall, a larger room lets the high-end frequencies dissipate and the lower frequencies propagate.

2-Most surprises have been pleasant. In fact conductors have been surprised, because when they were getting close to "giving the hand" the sound was just about right out in the hall.

3-Mean? I don't know about that descriptor. However, a good sound concept that worked for me, at the bell, was a lot of "core" with a ring of "edge".

4-Sitting next to a couple of guys who "made it", I can tell you that you do have to have some edge to the sound to get out.

5-Always to the audience. No one cares about your "world class sound" within 3 feet of your chair. The guy/gal 300 feet away is the one who needs to hear it. Good section mates even understand this concept.

You play to the audience, not the conductor, and certainly not yourself.

I'm convinced, for example, that many of the fads that run through the tuba world have very real effects to the person playing, and maybe within 3 feet.

But not in the hall.

The best player plays to the hall, not to themselves, or even to the edge of the stage. TO THE HALL.

The concept of sound, of course, is inside your head. The hall sounds different empty, half-full, full. The people playing with you diffuse your sound, both highs AND lows.

Having the right concept for a performance is only gained by experience performing, and listen, listen, listen!

you play to the audience. nothing else matters.

our chior director at church as a number of little exsercises she does with us to get the sound out of the choir and to the congregation. The observation being that if it sounds beautiful to your ear, no one else can here it. In vocal music, generally the sound is much more nasally and overblown at your ear than it is in the hall.

and I agree with windshield, you only learn how to to that by playing to an audience. it is not something that is easy (or even really possible) to learn in a practice room.

Sound the player hears != sound the audience hears.

No.

you play to the audience. nothing else matters.

You play to the audience, not the conductor, and certainly not yourself.

Yes. And yes.

Lessons are not the best places for your teachers to hear you. Mainly because they are often in a small room and far too close.

Oh, boy. Well, it is a good enough gauge for a teacher that knows what he/she is doing for them to know what you will sound like in a performance setting.

Mojo,
!= means "not equal." Not sure you caught that, since I almost didn't.
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I ran into this concept first as a horn player; if it sounds good to you coming out the bell, it is going to sound muffy to the audience. It has to have an edge, even a harshness, for the sound in the hall to be what you want it to be. Heard next-to-bell from a couple of teachers, and from out in the audience with those same two playing.

I haven't sat right next to the bell of a "great" but certainly a "very good" tuba player. I was surprised, although I shouldn't have been, at the roughness of the tone up close. Especially since I was very accustomed to hearing this player from the audience, with no roughness audible at all. And his sound carries too; I've heard it *over* the entire orchestra in a rendition of a Sousa march; you wouldn't have thought a 2155 could be heard that amazingly well over an entire full-size orchestra at FF. Maybe it was where I was sitting and maybe it wasn't. I was impressed.

MA

Mojo workin' wrote:

Sound the player hears != sound the audience hears.

No.

Use computers? Learn a little code. It doesn't hurt.

I think that's part of what makes the "back row" more fun -- that we get to hear the sound as a little edgier and tougher. I've been lucky to play alongside some great players (professional, military, and just good amateurs), and the playing styles described here so far are definitely true.

I did find that this can backfire is during recordings, if the microphone is placed too close the tuba's bell, the "audience" (i.e., the mic) gets all of the edginess. I have a great recording of a concert from last year where the microphone was (unbeknownst to me) nearly right above my bell. It is quite clearly me playing the tuba part, with a background accompaniment of a wind ensemble. Fun for me, but not a very balanced recording. The funny part is that it didn't sound bad in the hall, but the next week, after hearing the recording, the director told me "too much tuba." I wanted to say "don't put the mic in my bell," but I just grinned and said "okay."

rocksanddirt wrote:you play to the audience. nothing else matters.

I think I know what you mean but is that totally true?
If I play a gig, first time with a group, and the audience all leave thinking what a great tuba player I must be (most unlikely) that's great but if the troms & basses all had a problem with my playing that'll be the last time I play with that group...

Having said that, is it possible to sound crap to your stage-mates but great out-front? Probably not...

Mojo,
!= means "not equal." Not sure you caught that, since I almost didn't.

I did not know that. Thank you, Mary Ann.

Use computers? Learn a little code. It doesn't hurt

I am behind the times technologically, I will admit.

The sound in the hall is affected by several processes. One is that the resonances in the hall are not equal to the air right around the instrument. They are subject to propagation effects. Radio people call this "near field" versus "far field". The two main effects are variations in frequency absorption by the environment, and variation in path length.

High frequencies are more easily absorbed than low frequencies. When we hear distant thunder, it's a low rumble, but when the lightning strike is in the neighbor's yard, the sound of the crash has a lot more of those upper harmonics.

So, if we want our sound to include a lot of harmonic color, we have to exaggerate that color at the instrument.

Secondly, the sound propagates from the instrument in all directions, but with more energy in some directions. The guy in the back of the hall is hearing some of it directly from the instrument, some of it bouncing off the left wall, some off the right wall, some off the ceiling, and some off the back wall. Each one of these paths requires a different amount of time to reach the listener. Those different arrival times affect the shape of the waveform in the listener's ear. High frequencies may be canceled out, for example.

For example, let's consider an audience member 100 feet from the tuba player, in a hall with a back wall 150 feet from the tuba player. The time required for the primary sound to reach the listener is 88 milliseconds. The time required for the sound to reach the back wall, and then reflect back to the listener is twice as much at 177 milliseconds (which stands to reason--the sound travels twice the distance). The difference is 88 milliseconds. Any frequency at the multiple of 11.4 Hz (the reciprocal of 88 milliseconds) will therefore be affected by that path difference. Of course, there will be a similar multi-path error at a whole range of distances in a live hall. Those multi-path errors cause all kinds of cancellation and reinforcement effects, but the effect is more pronounced at higher frequencies.

The growls, grunts, and edge mentioned here sound such because they include some high-frequency transients and overtones. Thus, those tend to get smeared out in a large, live hall. But the sort of playing that produces those effects might be what it takes to get the rest of the sound to the listener.

With that bit of simplistic science in mind, I'll relate two stories. One was from an oboist colleague in a community orchestra back in Austin, who was studying with the symphony professional. His teacher complained that his tone was too pretty, stating that a sound carries throughout the hall has to be almost ugly at the source. The other story was from Mike Sanders, who told me in a lesson that tuba sound needed a lot of complexity and color to survive the effects of a large, live hall.

As I have listened to high-end performers up close, I have discovered that their sound in the near field often has a lot of stuff we normally say we don't want. I never hear that stuff from them out in the hall. Listen to recordings of Jacobs playing at a master class, where he was closely miked, and compare those with recordings of the CSO.

My final story comes from a master class conducted by Chuck Daellenbach back around 1990 or so. He structured the class so that 10 folks with a variety of playing skills had tubas, and a couple of dozen others were looking on. He talked about mouthpiece buzzing, and he had us buzz a Bb in turn. One of those folks, who is a first-rate performer, had a buzz that actually sounded pretty. Daellenbach complained about it, and demonstrated a buzz that sounded to me more airy and noisy. But it was also clearly more energetic.

As a result of that, I don't worry as much about overstating the sound of the instrument. If the loud bits get a little edgy, I don't mind as long as the edginess is supported by the sound rather than reflecting a lack of support (and we all know what that means). It helps the sound reach the back row.

Rick "thinking multi-path effects are one of the reasons big tubas have their own characteristic voice in orchestral settings" Denney

I think you are playing to the audience, but at the same time you should make as good sound as possible at the bell. Some of the audience may be at a fair distance, but at the same time, particularly if the hall has choir seats, some may be close. And in any case the rest of the orchestra is also your audience. However one may well play 'harsher' in a big hall than a practice room in order to project.

I think it is very instructive to record ones playing in a large hall at every opportunity and learn from the results. I have generally been pleasantly surprised at my recorded sound out in the hall with blemishes apparent to me at the time, often inaudible on the recording.

I think particularly in the case of big tubas, the sound is highly enhanced by spacious acoustics. My Neptune recorded in my practice room sounds rather dull, but in a large hall, or church its tone is magic. The bigger the tuba, the more space it needs to sound its best.

One of the "perks" I enjoy playing with the local college faculty quintet is that most of our concerts are recorded, and I always try to get a copy ASAP. The feedback from those recordings is often as informative as a lesson with a very expensive teacher. Neptune's comment on recording yourself is dead-on, particularly in ensemble.

Of course this thread applies equally as well to bass trombone, doesn't it? heh, heh, heh,

The chainsaw always gets the hand, doesn't it Bob? Sometimes before we play a note. I was having some equipment trouble at the beginning of a piece several years ago and the conductor stopped and called me out. I thought it was to ask me why I wasn't playing, but all he said was, "too much bass trombone". He was probably right though.

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I have had the great pleasure of sitting right next to the bell of Matt Good and Gene Pokorny during performances, and I feel like "edgy" might be a taken the wrong way here. I would say that players of this caliber, when playing loud (and low) are really "buzzing" the notes they are playing. This may seem odd, but this is my observation/explanation:

Notes can be played in the low to upper-middle register of the tuba, the player can pull the tuba away from my face (or the mouthpiece out of the lead-pipe) and not have a sustained buzz, even though it was a supported, full sound. The added resistance of the horn makes this resonance, which is why some people use a tube while mouthpiece buzzing, or cover the end of the mouthpiece with their finger to get it to buzz. The great players seem to play as though it would sound the same with or without the tuba there....that they would still be actually buzzing each note. I think this focused buzz supplies the core, and the "buzz" to the sound, if you will. In loud dynamics, especially the low register, this comes across even more.

Pros buzz notes out, others "let" notes come out. Maybe this is off the mark, or too simplistic, but that's what it seems to boil down to in my experience

Jarrod makes one of the best arguments for buzzing practice.

I find that I usually drool at the sound of a bell. The audience usually applauds when I'm playing and a bell sounds, that means they have to leave due to a fire.

tofu wrote: When I attend concerts as an audience member I now always try for seats in the middle of the front of the lower balcony.

Bingo! Except that I like to be just a bit stage left for those piano soloists.

In my hall, that's the Front Mezzanine, Row B (Row A is for the show-offs), seats 123-4 - our seats at every ASO concert (ask Andy - I'm in his direct line of sight). In fact, the tuba, trombones, and trumpets all seem to point directly at those seats.

I mean...you can't even SEE the tuba from the first floor seats.

But, we do have choir seating behind the stage - I really should move around to be right above the low brass some night. That wouldn't have worked last Saturday - Carmina Burana fills the entire hall with performers and there's no room left for spectators!

Bob1062 wrote:I completely agree with the playing a bit edgier to sound better at the audience. And actually, I have sort of a power sound concept I guess it goes a step further. I absolutely cannot stand a tubby sound.

One warning to some of the young'uns out there, before they start to get the wrong idea and celebrate this thread with a blatfest at next band rehearsal...
The horn will usually add all the edge necessary to the sound, especially depending on the model and the volume. Some tuba designs have gone to great length to tame this edge (aka 1st gen 2165).
When the player intentionally tries to put too much edge on the sound, what they are usually doing is playing with too much tension, choking something off, overblowing, not using enough air, using too much pressure, etc. Think of moving large quantities of air as a broad gust of wind.
Let the tuba make the edge, not the player.