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I might have mentioned this before. But I have always been interested in the pep bands that we saw during the NCAA basketball tournament or other indoor events. That was the kind of setting I've always wanted to be in since everyone seems to have so much fun.

My question is to anyone who is currently or was in a pep band in college. What kind of music do you mostly play and how are the tuba parts for this music? I know pep band music is more upbeat compared to a regular marching band, with songs like "YMCA" and "The Hey Song". But would the tubas mostly play quarters, half and whole notes or do they have some eighths and 16ths from time to time?

Send me a pm or a e-mail if you wish.


Hank74

In my experience tubas generally double the bass. It depends on the song what we play sometimes it's only quarters notes other times there are lots of eigth notes or even a few 16th notes.

Amy

In my experience tuba parts for pep band music are pretty easy, and usually are quarter notes with some eights thrown in there. Its still fun to get a big bass line going though.

The worst part of playing stand music is trying to read the tiny notes. You should make sure you memorize the ones that come up most often.

I agree w/ chris, "Land" rocks.

jaredsan wrote:The worst part of playing stand music is trying to read the tiny notes.

I got around that by holding up the music with my left hand. We had music books with maybe 50 songs in them, two to a page. Everyone else used music stands, but us tubas couldn't see those dots past two feet while playing -- our eyes vibrated too much.

Tennessee Waltz, Godzilla, Scream Machine, Johnny's Mambo, and Sweet Child O' Mine (yes, the Guns N' Roses tune) are some of ours that come to mind.

Hey, it's been seven years -- I forgot some of the specifics.. lol

In our pep-band we play a few of the songs from marching band and a few b-ball pep-band specific songs. My favorite is one arranged by one of our trombonists. He arranged "Brooklyn" by the Youngblood Brass Band (amazing tuba part...mainly 16ths and a few 8ths). In high school pep-band (which I liked better) we played almost all rap songs like "Get Crunk", "Never Scared", "Mr. Pooky", "Chopper Style" and a funk song "Atomic Dog" (great tuba part to that).

Arkietuba wrote:In our pep-band we play a few of the songs from marching band and a few b-ball pep-band specific songs. My favorite is one arranged by one of our trombonists. He arranged "Brooklyn" by the Youngblood Brass Band (amazing tuba part...mainly 16ths and a few 8ths). In high school pep-band (which I liked better) we played almost all rap songs like "Get Crunk", "Never Scared", "Mr. Pooky", "Chopper Style" and a funk song "Atomic Dog" (great tuba part to that).

'Course it's an amazing tuba part, it's the Warrior!

At Virginia Tech, we pretty much play "oldies", I guess cause thats what our arranger likes to write... We usually just play what the bass played in the original recordings. Fun stuff all around. He does add cool little thing for us to do. For instance, we play "jungle boogie" but have this mad tuba entrance. It's awesome.

A quick comment: Playing what a bass once played is ok. Putting an electric bass in pep band is something TOTALLY different. Pardon me, but if your college used a bass/uses a bass STOP. Using an electric bass is like putting a huge muffler on a Civic. You're just trying to compensate for something you don't have. In the Civic, you're trying to give the illusion that you have power. In a pep band, you're trying to add bass. Anyone can plug something in and turn it up. Man up, get more tuba players and BLOW! I can understand using a bass at a smaller school where tuba players may be hard to round up, but schools that are in BCS conferences (and the larger mid-majors, MAC, CUSA, Mountain West, etc.) are marching AT LEAST 10 tubas I would imagine, and could easily round up 4-5 for basketball. For god's sake, I go to Virginia Tech, and we still ended up with 7! And we march 20! I know the ACC has said that it's against conference rules to have mic's near your band, or have amped instruments. I just wish they'd enforce it... It may sound good to you at the time (if you use a bass) but wait till you hear a real pep band... I got a TON of comments about this at the ACC tourney up in DC. Fans seem to like tubas better anyway...

And this is coming from a tuba/bass player, so don't think that I'm not all about electric bass. But like tuba, it has its place. At a football stadium or in a gym, it's all about the tubas. Rock concert, that's a different story...

The music is just stand tunes, though some tunes aren't common outside BB.

The real fun I had was dancing. BB pep-band ment more room. And with fewer people it was easier to work up dances. Nearly every peice had it's on bit.

My favorite, "I Go to Rio", mostly because of the dance, but some whole notes in the range that were great for Blastissimo volumes. "The Horse" was fun as well.

The whole point is to play loud and get the crow going. Dancing sousaphones, with light flashing off the bells, at high volume tends to do it well.

Thats exactly right! We do some cool stuff in the stands for football, but getting 7 people together on something is a lot easier than 20...

my high school band always played classics. We had things like "Louie Louie", "Hey Baby", "Sing, Sing, Sing", "Pink Panther", James Bond theme song, "Tubthumping" and a bunch of others. I was almost always the only tuba player at a 40 person pep band so the director let me use a mike and just rattle the roof with it. Ever played pep band without drums, gives the tuba a whole lot more to do.

Ben Dennis