Bugler's Holiday: Wrong Notes?

[Art Hovey]

The main theme of Leroy Anderson's Bugler's Holiday starts with two bars of Bb chord, then one bar of Eb and one bar of F7. But in the tuba part we see four straight bars of Bb-F oompah. That has always bothered me. Did LeRoy just want to make the tuba players sound stupid, or what? I am trying to get my tuba section to play a couple of E-flats and a couple of Fs on the second and third bars, every time it comes around. Am I alone in this quest?

Is there a fancy name for this effect in Music Theory?
(How do you say "make the tubas sound stupid" in latin?)

[Todd S. Malicoate]

It's correct, Art.

The "fancy theory name" would be a pedal point, a la Eb/Bb at that point. Sounds fine to my ears.

[iiipopes]

Funny you should post this. I just played this piece two weeks ago with a nearby community band. Because of the pace of the piece, I think of this bass line more in ostinato terms, or with the points in question being treated more like passing tones rather than separate chords in their own right.

[Chadtuba]

We played this in June with the Colorado Brass Band and it all seemed to fit together, but all I had to look at was my tuba part so I didn't do any sort of analysis or such.

The fun thing about playing it this past summer was that the "trumpet" trio was done by 3 of the tuba players on an Eb, F, and C tubas. They read off of the original Bb cornet parts and simply had a blast showing that they could do it too

[Tom Holtz]

They're right. Say what you will about Leroy Anderson's music, the man knew how to write a catchy tune, he knew his scoring and orchestration, and he knew how to make it fit together seamlessly. That guy could flat-out write. I don't know if I'd want to listen to a whole concert of his stuff, but I respect and covet the skills.

[tuba72]

I tried doing the "horse whinny" bit from Sleigh Ride on my tuba a couple of years ago during a practice session. The director(also a tuba player) said it sounded "Like a horse that had too much fiber!"

[Art Hovey]

It's the third and fourth bars after letter "A" in the piano reduction that Todd kindly posted.

Bloke is right about the Cm7 where I thought I saw an Eb chord in the score, in the 3rd bar. The tubas are assigned to play the 7th and the 13th of that chord, i.e. Bb and F. The 4th bar is still an F7, with the tubas playing the 13th and then the root, if I understand correctly. (Bb and F again.) I shouldn't say those notes are "wrong", because as Tom Holtz pointed out, LeRoy was a good composer and I am not. I am just a dumb tuba/bass player most at home in a dixieland band.

But to my ears those notes are not satisfying. I like my bass lines to be more closely related to the chords. Leroy was a marvelous tunesmith, but his music tells me he was not a bass player. Some composers (Gershwin, for example) could write a wonderful tune and think up better chords and bass lines for it than I could in a million years. But other composers think up a wonderful tune and just don't bother to match it with wonderful chords and/or bass line. Jazz men often make improvements that last.

If you listen to Wild Bill Davison's "Blue Again" and then look at the sheet music as it was originally published, you'll see what I mean. When a certain Tin-Pan-Alley songwriter objected to what Billie Holiday was doing to his song at a recording session, saying "that's not how I wrote it, Billie" she replied, "Well that's how I sing it, so get the f... out of here!" Her instincts were correct, and her way is now the standard way.

[sloan]

Leroy was a marvelous tunesmith, but his music tells me he was not a bass player.

I agree on both counts. Fun pieces, but at bottom boring tuba parts. They just beg for ornamentation (the sort guaranteed to induce smiles in the tuba section and frowns from the guy with the stick).

[Eupher6]

Leroy was a marvelous tunesmith, but his music tells me he was not a bass player.

I thought I read somewhere that Mr. Anderson WAS a tuba player.

Yep, there it is, in his bio.

But it could be argued, I suppose, that he wasn't such a swift tuba player or that his skills on tuba were reflective of the tuba part that he wound up writing.

Seems to me that Mr. Anderson was trying to keep things simple, knowing that in all likelihood, his music would be performed by ensembles of various abilities and that it would be best to keep the pyrotechnics to the soloists.

http://leroyanderson.com/leroy-anderson ... bridge.htm