Cello Suites

[tbn.al]

Until a recent post I was not aware that tuba players regularly worked on the Bach Suites. Being an elitist trombone player it's easy to overlook something like that. I decided to atempt them on my BBb. I now have some questions that should have been obvious to me from the start.

1. Do tuba players take them down the octave or play them as written?

2. If playing them loco is a bass tuba a requisite?

3. Are those partials really as close as I think they are?

This is really just one question and two smart aleck remarks because I want some comments not just poll numbers.

[Quicksilvertuba]

Neither...you can transpose them into any key you like. You shouldn't have to be stuck with the original key.

[Chuck Jackson]

don't do it in public...unless you're Roger Bobo back in the 1960's - 1980's.

Saw Don Harry do the 5th Suite at Pitch on a Mirafone 186 at the Army Conference in 1987. He had the circular breathing thing down to an art and made the piece work. Must have been hell on the chops, but damn, was it nice.

Chuck

P.S.- Also on that day saw a young SSG named Dave Zerkel play the Telemann C Minor(trombone edition by Alan Raph) Solo Flute Sonata at trombone pitch on an Alex CC. It was that day that I had my first inkling that it was all over for me. It was the single best live performance I have heard on tuba in 35 years. Sorry Don.

[Chuck Jackson]

I was there, too. I have the tapes from the conference still. (cassette, with plenty of age-induced hiss). Tommy Johnson playing Broughton and the massed ensemble playing Them Basses with TUSAB. I played in the massed ensemble, as did one of our euphers: Tony Bortone. 1987 was a very good year in my life for many reasons. In fact, my entire three year enlistment was a great time to be a young musician with a job. Heady days, Chuck. Heady days.

True, very true.

Tommy Johnson's Master Class was a revelation. He made such beautiful music out of the Haddad Suite, played excerpts from film scores while showing the music, talked about his battle with Bels-Palsy. Totally inspirational.

Don Harry saying to the audience before his performance "I find it very ironic that I am playing at an event sponsored by the same people my ancestors tried to scalp" and proceeding to play the hell out of the Bach.

A guy from the Air Force Band playing some outrageous Be-Bop on a Baritone Horn.

Jan Duga. Who knew?

Don, Tommy, and Marty Erickson playing on the final concert.

It was great to be young, invincible, and totally ignorant of what life was going to hand us. I wouldn't trade it for the world.

I have the tape, but it is beyond saving. I guess I hold onto it for sentimental reasons.

Chuck

[tbn.al]

O don't do it in public...unless you're Roger Bobo back in the 1960's - 1980's.

I won't even let someone hear me practicing them on trombone. Bruce Nelson, my old teacher, made everyone play at least a movement or two for recital in college. That's the most fightened I have ever been in my life. Wonderful music though, in a very personal way. Like Wade, I settled in on the first suite to practice for my lifetime. I don't bother with the rest. I'll never get the first where I want it, but I love it just the same.

[J.c. Sherman]

The survey question isn't complete. I play mine transposed down a fourth, which seems to me to lie very well on all tubas. The low "open string" becomes F, and everything sits in the money range. Gordon Cherry publishes these down a 4th, but I found those keys timbrally unsatisfying and not a good fit for the instrument, so I'm creating my own set. Taking a while, but they're the best warm-up material on the face of this earth!

J.c.S.

[brianggilbert]

In college I did them down the octave first semester, then up during the second half of the year...

Nothing smart-aleck to offer...

[Tom Holtz]

...there is so much music in that first one that that I have never felt the need to move on. I will never be finished with the first suite.

...don't do it in public...unless you're Roger Bobo back in the 1960's - 1980's

Gospel, back-to-back. Can we get an Amen? Seriously, is there any other piece of music that is more dependent on the performer being a bad-*** musician? You have to play the bejeezus out of your axe, whatever it may be, and have a helluva lot of soul to not suck on a Bach cello suite. It is spectacular music to learn and explore, but man, I'm getting discouraged just thinking about how that piece used to smack me down. Trying to work that up for a college recital--I must have been delusional.

Put it in a comfy key, bring your comfy mouthpiece, enjoy the ride, and don't forget to turn off the tape recorder and close the door.

[windshieldbug]

Do what you have to, to make music. The music is there. This isn't a contest, unless you're doing this to get yourself prepared to make a living playing tuba. Either way, ENJOY!