Pedal Notes in Community Band

[GC]

Our community band director and resident composer/arranger enjoy a good pedal occasionally and don't complain if we carefully add them. Some of our charts will occasionally have lines written down to pedal Bb.

Then again, the bass trombonist is often with us or below us.

[Three Valves]

Well that settles it, I am cutting off my 4th valve. lol.

HEY!! I'm working this side of the street!!

[opus37]

I don't do this often, but I guess I will be more careful about it in the future. Mark's suggestion about doing this only to provide depth in specific situations, is good advice.

[Worth]

If the executor sounds like the Costa Concordia or the Oasis of the Seas hitting the rocks or leaving port, definitely no. Delicately articulated and executed, and judiciously applied, then maybe yes. Careful ongoing work with some 8vb Bordogni and the Snedecor Low Etudes has helped me toward the latter. Chronic offenders, even well executed, piss some people off even in the community band setting. Make it very occasional and a thing of beauty.

[Tom]

I'll just throw this out there since it hasn't been said yet...

Pedal notes thrown in just scream, well... ..."community band" and "amateur."

I'm not a fan. Play the ink.

[Tom]

wow, Tom.
I always imagined you to be The Darling Of The Thirty-Cents-Sharp Low D♭'s.

Oh sure...I could do that, you know...to add depth.

Lol...you just made my day there, bloke.

[MaryAnn]

Well duh, if it were musical he would not be complaining about it, huh? If he's complaining, it is not musical in his mind but disruptive.

I would never do anything, in a community band or for pay, that the conductor did not want. Seems to me to be basic courteous behavior.

[Biggs]

Dude, hang up and listen.

Consider that your initial post could be rewritten as "I do something that annoys the director of a band I play in. He told me to stop, but I should ignore him and keep doing it, right?" without changing the question. The replies you've received don't seem so surprising, but your insistence on getting a pat on the back for, at best, substituting your minority-view artistic judgment for that of conductors and composers and, at worst, being deliberately disruptive and detrimental to the ensemble, is mystifying.

If you want to keep 8vb-ing, you don't need the permission or approval of anyone here, so it seems silly to try to hector everyone into going along with your decision based on some unwritten tuba-code that doesn't seem to be as universal as you'd hoped.

[timothy42b]

Well duh, if it were musical he would not be complaining about it, huh? If he's complaining, it is not musical in his mind but disruptive.

.

It's also not impossible that other members of the ensemble have complained to the conductor. It may not be just the conductor who is offended.

[TubaSteve]

Piling on here......The point that so many are trying to make is that it is about respect to the conductor. Without respect of the authority that he or she represents, then you are just a gaggle and not an ensemble.

After reading some of the replies by members who I hold in very high regard, it is with some that I will admit that we will on occasion have someone play a low G, F, or Eb, while someone stays on the main note. Anything below that is rarely anywhere near in tune, and beyond most players ability anyway. I am sure many of you have experienced when the director has asked for someone to please go low. My apologies to Dan Shultz, but we will sometimes split the note with one up, but we would never do this if the conductor asked us not to do so. In one of the bands I play in, one of our fellow tuba players is an outstanding arranger/composer and an amazing talent. (I am sure many of you know him.) I rarely would stray from his recommendations and he is one of the ones who will join or ask us to partake in these "color" moments. Even so, if I was asked by the director to not do so, I would surely play it as directed.

Steve

[Three Valves]

Before taking on Captain Queeg, make sure you have a more committed witness than Lt Keefer!!



"All things in moderation"

[GC]

Community band or not, if the director says don't and you do anyway, you're begging for ejection.

[timothy42b]

I reject your reality and I substitute my own.