Barnum! Redux

[Rick Denney]

A week ago, I asked for advice on what to expect from the tuba part for the Barnum! musical. I'm playing a pit orchestra for a local school production. As it turned out, the middle school drama teacher had given the music to the band at the school, and the band director apparently did not look at the parts until about two weeks ago. Most middle-school band musicians would take one look at the music (especially those cross-hatched thingies at the left), and go "Mr. So-and-so, what is THAT?"

Thus, an emergency pickup band was created to provide the necessary colorful accompaniment.

For those who might run into this in the future: By all means don't miss the opportunity to play it. The range extends from low F to Gb on the staff. As with all stage musicals, the keys change all over the place, the cuts are poorly marked, and the manuscript is dreadful, but the part is not rangy or too technical. My advisers were right: Bring a contrabass.

There is also a sousaphone part that may require playing on stage, depending on how the show is produced. Two songs in the work are included for sousaphone, with no parallel tuba part, suggesting that one player will cover both.

It's circus music, so it's fast with a lot of oompah, but it's also Broadway, which means it doesn't follow the normal march harmonies or key changes.

A good tuba solo opens the second act, with a jazzy tune that is more dixieland than circus. It's written in D, which makes no sense given that it's in the sousaphone part. Bring your four-valve sousaphone, unless you don't mind playing radically sharp B-naturals, of which there are many. If you pull the third valve slide enough to make the B's tolerable, the F#'s, which are many and highly exposed, will be intolerable.

In the end, I played the Holton, after trying out the Miraphone in a rehearsal. The Miraphone was less work, and I didn't have to hold back as much, but it didn't really have the right sound quality to emulate a sousaphone. Also, there is a tuba soli that accompanies the appearance of Jumbo, The World's Largest Pachyderm (only the legs of which were visible in the stage production for which I'm playing). I decided that it needed to be LOUD, and BIG, with just enough edge to give it some intensity. The first time the kids who were manning the legs of the beast heard me, they started giggling and the legs teetered a bit. I knew that was the right effect. The Miraphone, played that loud, would have removed the paint from the walls (at least with me at the helm), and probably damaged the hearing of the trombonist.

Bring your strong sense of pitch if you are playing this (or any other) musical with middle-school singers. The bass line doesn't always make sense without the melody, and the voice parts are a little beyond most 8th-graders, especially the boys.

The last musical I played was another school production, of The Sound of Music, in about 1975 when I was also a student at the school. The one before that was Jesus Christ Superstar, in which I played in the 9th grade. I won't wait so long to be available for the next one. This is LOADS of fun, and a nice break from typical band fare.

Rick "enoying the kids as much as the music" Denney

[Kevin Hendrick]

Sounds like you (and everyone else involved) had a great time! Glad you had the opportunity to do it.