jazz tuba

[peter birch]

I usually play in a brass band and an orchestra, but in a couple of weeks I am joining in a jazz study day, it really loks like fun and I am looking forward to it,
any suggestions on how to prepare for this would be welcome, especially since this is something I have never done before.

[rocksanddirt]

arppeggios'

[David Richoux]

If you have access to a piston valve horn it will help (in the long term - if you are just checking jazz out, use what you have.) As rocksanddirt mentions - doing arpeggios on the notes in major and minor chords helps, also learn the various blues chord progressions in various keys.

There are quite a few different styles of jazz - the tuba is commonly used in some Traditional Jazz (Dixieland,) New Orleans Brass Band (Jazz and Street Funk) and in some (rare) Post-Bop groups, but I have noticed many Stage Band (Modern Big Band) arrangers still treat the tuba as a sort of "Fifth Trombone Voice" instead of a unique instrument.

If you can listen to recordings by players like Howard Johnson, Bob Stewart, Red Callendar (and some more adventuresome players - Marcus Rojas, Matt Perrine or Nat McIntosh are just a few) as well as some tuba driven Trad and Brass Funk before the event you will probably be miles ahead of your teachers.

[Allen]

If you have access to a piston valve horn it will help ...
...

How does a piston valve horn help? Inquiring minds want to know.

[Tuba Guy]

Yeah, I'm with you on that one...My horns are almost all piston, but I don't really see how that would affect anything...unless you're going for a more uniform sound with the trumpets who only have pistons, but the conical nature of our horns would make that less likely to be a factor...
Personally, when I play jazz, I lean toward a bass tuba. It's smaller and (theoretically) more agile, and has a lighter and brighter sound that blends more easily with the ensemble.

[eupher61]

scales and arpeggios, yep. Buzz along with the radio (while songs are playing...) and TV adverts and anything else you can, and force yourself to play things by ear that you have never played before. F'rinstance, if you play a folk song, eg "Mary Had A Little Lamb" play it in every key, too. Get your fingers and lips used to doing what your ear wants you to do.

[David Richoux]

If you have access to a piston valve horn it will help ...
...

How does a piston valve horn help? Inquiring minds want to know.

I have both kinds, and have used them in my gigs - using a piston valve horn helps a bit with slurring effects and such. Not a big deal, just a few times it seems like the rotary valve "shuts off" too quickly for making the sounds I want to do. I suppose that a player with a lot of time on rotary horns could get the same effect, but a piston valve makes it easier (for me.)

Having watched many hundreds of other Trad/Dixie bands over the last 30 years, and looking at photos of many hundreds more, it sure seems clearly like the tuba of choice is piston - not a scientific survey by any means...

[MartyNeilan]

Learn the following scales in ALL keys:
Dorian
Mixolydian
Blues

[Donn]

Just show up and have fun...
...or (as the direction of the posts above seem to be leading)

- memorize every jazz solo ever transcribed or recorded
- acquire one of each type of tuba ever used to play jazz

Things can sure take a weird direction, in your head! The notion of memorizing solos, which you introduce here in the quote above, will be familiar to saxophone players etc., whose improvisatory playing does feature extended solo breaks.

Since you bring it up, it isn't obvious to me that the tuba is coming from the same place - not that a tuba has never been heard to take an extended solo break, but where it has a meaningful role in a jazz ensemble, it's the bass and might accordingly play an improvised bass line more or less the whole time, where it's a whole lot more important to the band than during whatever solo it might take for comical effect.

I'd be listening to jazz tuba players for that, for how they make the changes and feed the rhythm. Maybe the goal for the first day is just to get through the changes, but it doesn't hurt to have some sense of what it's about.

[Tuba Guy]

Well, it may not be asked often to do extended solo breaks. But, if you can play the full Giant Steps (the main track off Coltrane's album), then more power to you.
Actually, I think I am going to start shedding that a bit. Never know when you'll have to show up a sax player

[David Richoux]

Going back to my first reply: "Jazz" really encompasses a wide variety of styles, so without a better idea of what will be done during this particular event I still think listening to a sampling of a variety of jazz tuba players (not to memorize any particular flashy solo) and working on the common walking bass lines, chord progressions and rhythms. Knowing a bit of history and what the role of the tuba in jazz can be is also important.

Take whatever horn you are comfortable with and as someone else mentioned - Have Fun! Jazz is not always supposed to be "Serious Music..."

[Tuba Guy]

My "Giant Steps" comment was intended as more of a poke at sax players than too much of a serious suggestion (although I talked to the music director for my Phi Mu probationary recital, and he said that if I learn it, we can put it on the program!!)
So, Mr. Richoux, as you seem to have a lot of experience, there is something that I have been wanting to learn for a while. How does one play a walking bass line? What should be emphasized in it, how should it be constructed, etc?

[David Richoux]

snip
So, Mr. Richoux, as you seem to have a lot of experience, there is something that I have been wanting to learn for a while. How does one play a walking bass line? What should be emphasized in it, how should it be constructed, etc?

There is an old book by Joe Tarto that really goes into the heart of the Walking Bass line http://charlescolin.com/descript.htm#CC3907 Some songs have a very standardized pattern that many bass or tuba players just do (because they work well) - others are left up to the player's choice. The bass lines in many 19th and 20th Century marches can be adapted into walking lines (the connections of jazz and military marches are very direct.)

If the song is 2 Beat or 4 Beat traditional dixie jazz, "old school" blues, swing, even early Rock or R&B what I usually do is play the chord changes and play sequences of notes (on the beats) that make up the chord, my choice of notes off the root may vary by what the melody or harmony/counterpoint is doing, whether the chord is major, minor or whatever.

I don't try to get too tricky with my choice of notes - most of the time my job is to keep the tempo right (the piano, banjo or rhythm guitar can fill in the more complicated parts of the chords, but we do all have to mostly agree on the chords! I also add quicker runs or arpeggios that help the rest of the band lead up to significant structure features of the song (breaks, verse to chorus, first & second endings, key changes, things like that.)

It is probably harder to describe in text how to do it (I hope this made some logical sense,) but lots of listening to other bands (recordings or live) and picking out what is happening on the bass line sure helps!
edit: A song like Fats Domino's version of "Blueberry Hill" has a very clear example of walking bass line. There is a bit of syncopation on the beat rather than straight quarter or eighth notes, but that is showing a taste of New Orleans style...

[rocksanddirt]

another thing to check for when learning bass lines is in many 'fake books' that have just the melody and chords written out, there will be notations such as "fancy chord name/a note". They are indicating that the 'note' is a good one for the bass note.

[peter birch]

I usually play in a brass band and an orchestra, but in a couple of weeks I am joining in a jazz study day, it really loks like fun and I am looking forward to it,
any suggestions on how to prepare for this would be welcome, especially since this is something I have never done before.

Did I read this correctly... "day"...

Just show up and have fun...

...or (as the direction of the posts above seem to be leading)

- memorize every jazz solo ever transcribed or recorded
- acquire one of each type of tuba ever used to play jazz

Yes, it is a day (or at least severla hours), and is part of the educational outreach program at the Sage cocert hall in Gateshead in the Northeast of the UK. Unfortunately I only have 1 tuba (and I want to keep my wife so it will only ever be one tuba), it is, well you can see at the bottom of the post. I fully intend to have some fun and to learn another facet of playing what is the best instrument ever invented. I have been listening again to the "Tuba Tuba" disc from Bargeron and Goddard, so have a few ideas form that, I'll let you know how it goes.

[David Richoux]

There is a very interesting (short) article about Ragtime and Jazz, written in 1968 by David A. Jasen that may be of interest to this thread. Not specific to Tuba, but it does lay out some great ideas about the structure and style of the music. http://www.doctorjazz.co.uk/page31.html

Here is a bit of it:

Unlike ragtime, jazz is not a form of music. Jazz is defined not by what is played but by how it is played. Jazz music is that which is played by a jazz musician. It only exists by virtue of the musician or group of musicians creating it. The main elements contain either solo or collective improvisation on a theme to make variations combining a manner of phrasing which expresses individuality through timing. The piece can be any kind of tune or in any style. Rags, marches, dances, classical compositions, popular tunes — all can be and are played by jazz bands and soloists. Since jazz is not a form but an interpretation based on some type of form, this accounts for the endless different sounds of jazz, whether it be Muskrat Ramble or Groovin’ High. It is nonsense to say that these tunes played by jazzmen bear any resemblance to each other. When played by jazz musicians, these tunes become jazz. When they are played as written, they are no longer jazz but straight compositions.

[ken k]

here is all you need to know....


The only problem may be that being from the UK, or if you are under 40 years old, you may not know who Yogi Berra is.

ken k



Yogi Berra's Explanation of Jazz

Interviewer: Can you explain jazz?

Yogi: I can't, but I will. 90% of all jazz is half improvisation

The other half is the part people play while others are playing

something they never played with anyone who played that part. So if you play the

wrong part, its right. If you play the right part, it might be right if

you play it wrong enough. But if you play it too right, it's

wrong.


Interviewer: I don't understand.

Yogi: Anyone who understands jazz knows that you can't understand

it. It's too complicated. That's what's so simple about it.


Interviewer: Do you understand it?

Yogi: No. That's why I can explain it. If I understood it, I wouldn't

know anything about it.

Interviewer: Are there any great jazz player alive today?

Yogi: No. All the great jazz players alive today are dead. Except for

the ones that are still alive. But so many of them are dead, that

the ones that are still alive are dying to be like the ones that are dead.

Interviewer: What is syncopation?

Yogi: That's when the note that you should hear now happens either

before or after you hear it. In jazz, you don't hear notes when

they happen because that would be some other type of music. Other

types of music can be jazz, but only if they're the same as something

different from those other kinds.

Interviewer: Now I really don't understand.

Yogi: I haven't taught you enough for you to not understand jazz

that well.

[David Richoux]

Great Yogi quotes! - I had forgotten about that interview...

Another way to look at jazz: (no tubas, as I recall
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TebUMhJAKSM

[tubeast]

I have the impression that the artistry of great names in jazz is based on spending LOTS of time just fooling around on an instrument. That is, try out riffs you picked up from th radio, try and imitate the rhythm generated by a train passing a railroad crossing... Anything that´ll enable You to put things You´d like to play into muscle memory.
That´ll be a process of creating tools You can make use of whenever You might need them.

Maybe a similar amount of time has been spent listening to OTHER musicians of whatever genre.
As Jon Sass puts it nicely in one of his articles: Find musicians You don´t like and don´t do as they do. Then find musicians You actually like and don´t do as they do, neither.

An easy entrance into the kind of ensemble playing and listening skills required here is playing simple folk songs or any music you like, with other people, taking turns in making up 2nd or 3rd melodic voices as well as accompanying bass lines.
This helped me, at least, and it builds up an ability of anticipation which direction a song will be going.
(Although I must confess I haven´t gone very much beyond that point yet, but I´m trying.)

[Liberty Mo]

I don't know if anyone mentioned this previously, but you may wish to email Eli Newberger. He is a regular poster on the forums and is largerly regarded as one of the best jazz tubists around. He has shared a lot of good insight on this subject over the years.

http://www.elinewberger.com/music.html