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I accept that percussion sections and the wire choir have valid reasons for tremolo playing, but why tubas?

The use of shorthand notation, especially beamed notation, is an interesting topic to me, because I've seen so much conflicting written information. I understand the time savings and writers' cramp avoidance back in the days of quill pens, but I wonder what the utility is (especially for wind instruments) in these days of desktop music publishing.

"The slanted beam-like strokes above or below the notes (usually through the stem if the note has one) indicate that one must repeat the notes according to the rhythm designated by the partial beam. That is one stroke through a half note would mean to play 2 + 2 eighth notes. Two strokes through the stem would indicate to play 4 + 4 16th notes. Usually in proper notation, the figure will be written out the first time, and then the abbreviation used subsequently."

From rec.music.classical.guitar

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tremolo

Hmmm. In singing, tremolo is the repeated rise and fall in volume, while maintaining a continuous tone. The slash notation, on the other hand, I always thought indicates a set of repeated separated notes occupying the same total time as the slashed notes, which is not quite the same thing. It often occurs in snare drum parts, for example, where no one would think that is is a continuous tone.

Vibrato is difficult to achieve in brass parts, but not impossible. I have never seen it indicated in scores, however (in my rather limited experience).

cc_tuba_guy wrote:. . . . Anyway, it's a quicker way to write out a bunch of eighth notes or sixteenth notes. Yeah, you don't see it much, but it's there.

One of my community bands played one such piece last year.

Bizet's "L'Arlesienne," Part IV "Farandole," uses the beam shorthand. There about 60 continuous, 2/4 measures of staccato C eighth notes, starting ff and increasing to fff after 32 measures. Whoooohh!

Measured tremolo indicates the fluctuation between two given notes (not necessarily adjacent) and that fluctuation is rhythmic, i.e. 1 slash = eight, two slashes = sixteenths, etc. Both notes would be indicated. If there are slashes through a single note, that indicates that the note is to be subdivided into the given number of beams. It can also be used to indicate flutter-tongue, but the composer should also put (fl.) in there as well.