Tuba Ensemble Arranging

[ufoneum]

This is just my opinion - but, I would rather see a mixture of tunes (snippets and original material). It has been awhile since I have performed the Children's March, but I recall the same tune being passed around the ensemble. The different instruments providing the timbre change and coloring - with only 2 (baritones, 3) colors, that is going to get real old, real fast.

Just my opinion. Please let us know how it turns out!

Best,

Pat Stuckemeyer

[timdicarlo]

My opinion has always been that an arrangement is meant to be considered as the arranger's personal "take" on a piece. It shouldn't follow the original score to the letter, because that wouldn't say anything creative or original. Playing Grainger tunes straight up with a tuba ensemble, to me, would be considered "transcribing," not "arranging."

[BVD Press]

Like Pat says above, Grainger tends to be quite repetitive and with a Tuba Ensemble you immediately limit the colors that Grainger was working with originally. Maybe a medley would work well for Grainger?

Although I prefer to arrange a whole chart, I did do a short version of Shepherd's Hey over the summer because it is quite repetitive.

BTW, why all Grainger?

[Alex C]

I'm sorry to be the stick in the mud here but if I were going to arrange music which is under copyright protection, I wouldn't advertise it on a BBS. Ethics aside, this just isn't the best idea.

[BVD Press]

I'm sorry to be the stick in the mud here but if I were going to arrange music which is under copyright protection, I wouldn't advertise it on a BBS. Ethics aside, this just isn't the best idea.

Not sure on the other two, but Molly and Shepherd's are well out of copyright. As mentioned somewhere in the thread, they are folk songs so one could do their own arrangements and not worry about copyrights as long as there are no Grainger references in your own version and the folk songs are out of copyright.

[pierso20]

My opinion has always been that an arrangement is meant to be considered as the arranger's personal "take" on a piece. It shouldn't follow the original score to the letter, because that wouldn't say anything creative or original. Playing Grainger tunes straight up with a tuba ensemble, to me, would be considered "transcribing," not "arranging."

transcribing or re-orchestrating. So I happen to agree as well.

[sloan]

If the content of the original is largely in the color changes and variations - if you can't do it with TTEE, then whatever you do isn't "arranging" either - perhaps it's "sampling", or "composing based on a theme from..."

I agree that this is a big problem with TTEE arranging - some pieces of music simply don't translate to an ensemble with such a limited pallette - unless, of course, you can find a way to tease more colors out of those 4 highly-similar voices.

[pierso20]

Grainger's harmonies are, to me, on another level. His resolutions and chord colors are very interesting to me.

Thanks for the advice everyone. Keep it coming.

I think this may be where you run into a problem. Grainger does use some very awesome harmonies, but they also rely on a very wide score. That is, the displacement of the octaves are at the extremes. With TTEE, you may notice that these harmonies only come out as clutter. For example, if a 13th with an added note is used in a part of the piece, to have it for TTEE you would end up with, basically, a cluster chord since you can't displace the close tones through different octaves.

I think it's worth a try. Maybe do a short 1 minute sample write of some Grainger. Include these "crazy" chords and see how they actually do work. It'd be much better than spending a month arranging something and then finding out it sounds muddy as Michigan in the middle of April.

[Todd S. Malicoate]

I think this may be where you run into a problem. Grainger does use some very awesome harmonies, but they also rely on a very wide score. That is, the displacement of the octaves are at the extremes. With TTEE, you may notice that these harmonies only come out as clutter. For example, if a 13th with an added note is used in a part of the piece, to have it for TTEE you would end up with, basically, a cluster chord since you can't displace the close tones through different octaves.

I think it's worth a try. Maybe do a short 1 minute sample write of some Grainger. Include these "crazy" chords and see how they actually do work. It'd be much better than spending a month arranging something and then finding out it sounds muddy as Michigan in the middle of April.

This is a really good point, and great advice. While at the University of Kansas, I arranged the first two movements of Lincolnshire Posy for the tuba/euphonium group there (I intended to eventually do the entire piece). I used 6 euphonium parts and 6 tuba parts, and that still was barely enough. The texture problem and lack of variety is extremely difficult to overcome, and I wasn't particularly pleased with the results...just too darn muddy to really convey the piece, and I REALLY stretched the upper and lower limits of the tuba and euphonium.

[Z-Tuba Dude]

It really does depend on the piece. Another consideration is chops. As I recall, the Children's March is not very brief, and may be hard for 4 people to play without a break.

I think that there are tunes that don't translate into our medium, but don't feel bad, every kind of ensemble has it's limitations. I have heard some string orchestra (an ensemble, which I greatly admire) arrangements of popular music that really were not good!

[BVD Press]

I meant to ask a while back, but is this your first time arranging for Tuba Ensemble?

The reason I ask is that if it is the first, you might want to start with Mozart, Bach etc. to see how the group works together, etc. Or study a pile of scores and see how others arrange before tackling Grainger.