Experiences playing new music for tuba quartet

[tubafatness]

Hello, one and all.

As I've written here before, my name is Aaron Hynds, and I'm a student at the University of Northern Iowa. I am looking for input from anyone who has past experience performing "new" music, specifically as part of a tuba quartet. By "new" music, I mean music which has been written in the last 4 or 5 decades, and which is decidedly modern in style, (besides the term 'new', you could also substitute "avant-garde" or "contemporary" and still retain the original meaning.) Also, I am interested to know if anyone here has had the experience of playing music which involves extra multimedia material, i.e., an accompanying movie, CD or even other non-musician performers.

I may be traveling to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research, held this April on the campus of the University of Wisconsin, La-Crosse. My thesis for the conference, (if it gets accepted,) is "Combining multimedia composition and the tuba quartet," which basically means that I am writing a new piece of music for the resident student tuba quartet here at UNI that puts together the standard tuba-euphonium quartet and multimedia musical materials, (say that three time fast!) Because of this, I am asking for anyone with personal experiences playing this type of music to please let me know of their experiences. I hope to make as effective a piece of music as I can, and I want to also consider of the performer's views on the music, as well as the audience.

Thanks for your time, and if anyone can help me out on this, I would greatly appreciate it!

Aaron Hynds

[Rick Denney]

I am looking for input from anyone who has past experience performing "new" music, specifically as part of a tuba quartet.

You should seek out and talk with Jay Rozen. He has explored the avante garde genre pretty thoroughly, and though I don't know how much he currently keeps up with it, what he knows sure covers a big piece of the "modern" era. He was (still is?) a member of the European Tuba Quartet, which had decided avant garde tendencies. He's also one of the few who knows how to perform it without taking it too seriously, such that even those of us who don't particularly like the modernist style can have a good time.

Rick "who might have an email contact somewhere" Denney

[eupher61]

Two words, with which Dr Funderburk will be familiar, too...

"Celluloid Tubas"

[Rick Denney]

By "new" music, I mean music which has been written in the last 4 or 5 decades, and which is decidedly modern in style, (besides the term 'new', you could also substitute "avant-garde" or "contemporary" and still retain the original meaning.

An offline conversation brought this back to my mind. Can we be a little more careful about terms? "Contemporary" means "at the same time". "New" means "recently created". "Modern" is a little more specific, but still references a period of time rather than a style. For those composers who are new, contemporary, modern, but not modernist or avant garde (which does imply experimental innovation), it would be useful not to shut them out of the vocabulary. These words are always likely to trip us up, but it doesn't help when we narrow the definitions of all the words we might need to use in the more general sense.

After all, of all the music that has been created in the last 50 years, only a tiny fraction of it is avant garde. Much of it is a logical extension of traditional techniques--still wholly new and creative, but not experimental and innovative for the sake of innovation.

Rick "back to your regularly scheduled programming" Denney

[tubafatness]

Yes, I am aware of "Celluloid Tubas," and I hope to some day pull of something like that. You can't beat a good silent film and tuba music!

And, the reason why I used multiple terms to describe the same basic thing was that so many people use each term interchangeably. What is modern for one person is avant-garde for the next, and so on. I'm really trying to get as many replies as possible, so I tried not to limit the type of music I was looking for. But yes, I do see the merit in limiting the terminology when referring to something as nebulous as "new music".

Thanks for the replies so far!
Aaron Hynds