How to do a rip?

[Levi12345]

My band is playing Vesuvius by Frank Ticheli, and I have an octave rip from the A in the staff to the A on the top of the staff. The french horns also have the rip, and it sounds good when they play it, but when I play that rip it sounds nowhere near as good. What can I do to make it sound much better? I'm playing on a rotary BBb horn.

[Ace]

I would let the French horns alone do the rip. The audience will not miss a thing if the tubas leave it out. (Ticheli and a host of others would disagree.) If you must do it, follow Bloke's good advice.

Here's a fairly decent performance of Vesuvius being played by an ensemble in Italy. (Hey, it's their volcano.)

https://youtu.be/cJbyhBYXMxo" target="_blank

IMHO, Vesuvius is not one of Ticheli's better works.

Ace

[MaryAnn]

Push down all the valves, do it as loud as possible, and exhibit courage.

"All valves down" - on your instrument - defines a below-pitch C# overtone series, so there won't be a good lower A - with "all valves down" - and possibly/probably not a good higher A...so you'll probably have to practice starting on 2nd-valve lower A, instantly depressing the other valves through the "rip", and instantly releasing valves 1,3, and 4 (leaving lever #2 depressed) when you're arriving at the upper A.

Yes. This is likely how the horns are doing it. They just have more practice with that kind of thing and so are better at it.

[pittbassdaddy]

The advice offered above is likely best; however, if you are struggling with making that work (due to your own limitations or that of the instrument) try the following:

1) I would start with an octave slur using the second valve only. Repeat until you are solid on both the starting and ending pitches at tempo - these are the most important!
2) Slur it using 2-0-2. Repeat until comfortable.
3) Next consider available alternate fingerings. The A in the staff can be played using the normal 2nd valve, 1+3 which will likely be sharp, or 4 which may be flat depending on where you have the tuning slide. Then try 4-0-2. Again repeat until comfortable. Another alternate fingering for A is 1+4 which may or may not work better.
4) Try 4-3-2 (or any/all of the other alternate fingerings). Again repeat until comfortable.
5) Repeat above steps and record yourself - smart phone on the music stand is good enough.
6) Listen to recording and determine which sounds best to you.
7) Use that method during rehearsal while recording again. Listen to it and if it sounds good, stick with it!

[Bill Troiano]

I was with Harvey backstage before a recital watching him warm up. He didn't have much time to warm up because people kept coming through to say hello. Eventually, he said that he had to warm up. He played a pedal C and did a half valve rip up a few octaves. Then he said, "I just played every note I know." And, he got up and walked out onto the stage.

[Three Valves]

Pull my finger...

[timayer]

The horns can do it because they are starting much higher in their harmonic series, i.e., between the low note in the rip and the high note in the rip they have more tones that the instrument will produce. Between your A and A, you'll have at best three tones that the horn wants to produce. So it won't sound like a rip, and the tuba will resist it a lot more than the french horns will.

I've gotten around this in three ways:

1. Play the bottom A briefly, throw down all your valves, rip, play the top A briefly.
2. Play the bottom A slightly longer, flutter the valves while you rip from approximately the E in the staff up to the high A.
3. Don't rip at all. Make your function to be defining the rip for the horns and emphasizing their bottom and top notes. So play the bottom A solidly, and do a very nice slur up to the high A, timing it so that you get there when the horns do. The audience will hear a very well harmonically defined rip.

These, in practice, end up looking almost identical. And as long as you're sort-of-almost-approximately doing it, all anyone will hear is the horn rip. Your job is, essentially, not to muck it up for the horns, which will occur if you do anything approximating a scale or arpeggio. Any of the above will work fine.

[mikebmiller]

Pull my finger...

A couple of draft beers and a bean burrito do wonders for my ripping ability.

[Ace]

Pull my finger...

A couple of draft beers and a bean burrito do wonders for my ripping ability.

Here we go again. Those Texans are tough.

https://www.ebaumsworld.com/jokes/texas ... /80474344/" target="_blank

Ace