appropriate number of tubas for a concert band

[Wyvern]

Also, I want my tuba guys to be playing the largest horns they can lay their hands on.

To my ears, that more produces the sound. The concert bands here in the UK with just Eb's (unfortunately the majority) sound distinctly weak at the bottom end.

The other 'trick' I use is that we never play the upper notes in a split part; EVERYBODY plays the low notes. But this can be left for another discussion.

Tony, you are not going to get away with that - tell us more! What is your reasoning?

[J.c. Sherman]

Indeed - we have one tuba only (bass) on top divisi at all times. Our argument is two-fold: the composer wrote it and the conductor wants it that way. Besides pieces by Granger and Williams and others where the divisi are two different parts, it can add so much to the timbre and power of the section. 3+1 divisi can bowl over 4 at lower only.

J.c.S.

[sloan]

In many cases, though, bands accommodate whoever shows up as part of their basic structure. In those cases, the question isn't in how many, but in what those players do to accommodate the numbers who do show up. Often, the best players end up shouldering the load, and find themselves compelled to lay out altogether because the lesser players won't back off, and that lowers the quality of the whole group. I suspect that sort of thing keeps really good players out of community bands more than anything else.

Rick "thinking most tuba players believe that 'p' means 'pound it out there'" Denney

We play a lot of pieces with instructions in the parts like "1 tuba", "2 tubas", "tutti". So, I guess the composers' expectations are "1, 2, many". Often, my sections follow the rule: "When the part says '1 tuba', everyone who knows what that means lays out" This leaves the way clear for the 1 guy (alas, sometimes there are 2) who plays every note on the page, whether it's a solo, a tutti passage, or a bassoon cue (even when we have 3 bassoons). OH YEAH - he also provides automatic gain control: when everyone around him becomes unaccountably soft, he cranks it up so that the total volume remains constant. Then, when everyone else becomes loud again, he cranks it up again "to maintain the balance".

I expect that these observations are common. So, the correct answer to "appropriate number..." is "one less than we have at the moment".

[tclements]

I would (very respectfully) disagree with JC Sherman. It is my experience that there are composers that really don't know what they are doing. Just because a famous composer has his (her) name in the upper right hand of the music, does not guarantee that they know how to write for the instrument. Case in point: I was playing a music festival and a moderately well known composer wrote a piece for orchestra. The tuba part looked like Bach Cello Suite #1, but completely atonal. Alberti bass, 2 octave leaps, accidentals all over the place, no place to breathe and that's where it started; the part was 5 pages of this. Obviously, this guy never spoke with a tubist to see if the part was playable. Don't assume the composer knows what he wants. I've seen parts written in the wrong octave more times than you'd think. It's our responsibility to make the music sound good (right).

And the conductor comment, PLEASE don't get me started (read my conductor blog).

All in good nature to further discourse. Feel free to discuss further.....

Tony Clements

[sloan]

In the end, perhaps the composer agreed that he needed one fewer tuba...

[J.c. Sherman]

There could be differing sound concepts at play...

First note, most of the literature I play is OLD... and I know that means 65% of the divisi I see are accounting for an Eb bass. But they do account for it, which leave open the possibility that the composer thought it might be okay.

Britishers were/are very well acquainted with tuba voicing and that there are different "basses" in the military ensembles being scored for. And in some works the two parts are very different (Colonial Song) and this can be in present day arrangements and compositions as well, much as they are in string bass scoring (Cowboys by John Williams).

Another disclaimer which is probably obvious - I like and often prefer Bass tuba. BUT, this isn't absolute. When we've had a section of all BATs, and one was on top, it DIDN'T WORK. We got the hand... we hated it... we all played lower part as possible. I brought the Eb the next day. No hand, happy section, Damn good band (I still pinch myself that I'm as lucky as I am to perform with them).

I have enormous respect for our conductor, Loras John Schissel. He's also a tubist, so he's... difficult to please. He's a scholar of Sousa at the LOC, and listens intensely to recordings and other information regarding his works and instrumentation (and many other band masters of yore), and his editions of these marches are very interesting and enlightening. Yes, he removes some divisi because that's what he hears. And even changes things (Stars & Stripes - take the trio Eb-Bb-G-Eb lick straight down ONLY!). I sometimes add them back for volume sake if he wants more, or (get this) for clarity... it can de-muddy it (?!?). Truly. And I would be destroyed publicly if he didn't like it.

I'm a part of a whole. Sometimes I play the "one tuba" parts when we think it deserves or if it really is an Eb bass part only. And the four of us, if we're playing something more contemporary, can smell a foolish composer 40 miles away and will fix a part before anyone knows anything... we work together. That is, of course, assuming the Maestro hasn't already found those issues.

There are fools for band conductors (and don't get ME started on CHORAL conductors!!!). And they often don't have a chicken's clue for what the hell a tuba is or what it does. Everything is about adaptation. But divisi can be a great addition... voiced well... to a section.

Finally... I'm in Cleveland. And there's a "Cleveland Sound" that Maestro Szell is still an effecting factor to. Maazel and Dohnyani (sp?) continued it. It's transparency and breadth. And admittedly, playing after the ictus of the stick (pisses some of us off and makes Loras BAT$#@%!). Maestro Schissel has some finer points, but this is fundamentally the Cleveland Orchestra’s town, and literally their Band. So we have come to this voicing over 11 years of this iteration of this band. Other bands copy it locally and that’s just we all do hear 'bouts So, as always, YMMV.

J.c.S. (who knows of course that as a fan of Eb, I can hear when it's not there and miss it... and few other care ; )

[GC]

The whole "composers don't always know what they're doing" reminds me of an old Tommy Tedesco article in Guitar Player. In a recording session a composer specified classical guitar and then consistently wrote guitar chords with 7 notes. When Tedesco pointed this out to him, the composer insisted that he knew what he was doing and Tedesco should be quiet and just play the part. Tedesco edited the parts the best he could, and at the end the composer said that Tedesco had played his part perfectly.

[Rick Denney]

Composers don't always know what they are doing, of course. But that doesn't mean we discard their written instructions without careful consideration.

I have played many orchestral transcriptions that had divided and solo parts, and it seemed to me that many times the upper or solo part corresponded to the orchestral tuba role, and the section and lower parts corresponded to the string bass role. At times, a divisi part includes both. I have played an F tuba with the section for some of these (Damnation of Faust in a band transcription comes to mind, and a movement or two from Symphonie Fantastique likewise). Nearly all Hindsley transcriptions I've played benefited from this distinction.

Even some band music seems to be seeking two separate voices at times (Lincolnshire Posy comes to mind).

Generalities are a mistake, as usual. The music should dictate what should be done. As with orchestra, we in the section do what we think is best and allow the conductor to overrule us if he so chooses.

Of course, the decision should take into account the whole section, too. One player on the upper part who can't be matched by two or three players on the lower part can still cause an imbalance.

Tuba players are less likely to overuse the upper part than to manufacture a lower divisi just because they can. I have always been annoyed by those who automatically drop everything down an octave. Rarely does it enhance the sound of the group, even if the person does it well. It is a special effect, and all special effects have to be used to may a specific point that supports the artistic whole, it seems to me. On one occasion, a conductor asked me to play a portion of music down an octave, and I did, but I didn't think any good came from it. He was all smiles, however.

Rick "who plays the ink in the absence of a compelling reason not to" Denney

[iiipopes]

I also am annoyed by those who drop the octave just because they can, with no good musical reason, for the same reasons Rick Denney is annoyed. Now, that's not to say I don't do it, but usually it's on cadential notes and other carefully selected parts, and then I try it in both octaves to see which series of overtones actually supports the ensemble instead of leaving a marianas trench between the tuba and the rest of the ensemble. On stuff that is chorale-like and scalar, I've even been known to continue the line up with the upper octave rather than take an awkward leap downwards, and work down on some other note later.

But Rick and bloke are both right. Very few composers really know anything about tuba, except that it's down there. So I'll play the ink until it becomes painfully apparent that it just isn't working. Recent case in point: one community band has a Beach Boys medley. Well, everyone knows, or at least feels the bass guitar part in "I Get Around." But the written part in this particular medley was nowhere near it. I played the ink, and the band fell apart (this is after a couple of sight reading rehearsals where everybody is now getting their part). The next time, I was the only tuba there, so instead of the ink I played a part more like the bass guitar on the original recording. Instant solidarity.

I had another part that actually had the near-pedal D written in a repeating eighth note arpeggiated motif at a fairly good tempo, in an odd time signature, 11/8 or something to that effect. I left out a lot of those low D's and took a lot of it up an octave so that it 1) could be heard, and 2) could be heard in tune and in time. If the director singled us out, I played the down notes as written, but like the post above, when tutti, I played what I thought would carry the band and the director complimented us. I remember reading that same Tommy Tedesco article when I subscribed to Guitar Player as a teenager, and reading his "Studio Log" monthly column has helped me in a variety of circumstance in many ways since. Yes, most people's copies of old Guitar Player magazines are dog eared and worn pages on the feature articles, mine are worn at the back with the columns and instructive articles.

Warning: kind of like getting married, making these changes from the ink is not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men's musical lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly and in the fear of the composer and director.

[sloan]

Here's something that's difficult to do if you are the only tuba player in the band: play the final Bb in 5 octaves (from 2 below to 2 above).

Naming no names, and pointing no fingers...

[Lew]

...But Rick and bloke are both right. Very few composers really know anything about tuba, except that it's down there. ...

To elaborate on this, I have mentioned before that my brother is a professor of music composition. He got his DMA at Columbia studying with Mario Davidovsky, who is apparently well known among modern composers, but who I had never heard of until I met him at my brother's wedding. In any case, my brother has been a professor of music for over 20 years at a top university. He is a full professor with an endowed chair and has been invited to compose at the McDowell Colony, having spent at least one Summer in the cottage there that Leonard Bernstein had occupied. In spite of this, he knows next to nothing about writing music for the tuba.

He writes very modern music, meaning it is often atonal, although more accessible than much in this genre, and often includes samples of voices, or other sounds requiring a recorded component. I guess if you are writing like that you don't think about some of the instruments very much, but if you are teaching composition at a major university, including serving a number of times as chairman of the music department, you would think he would ensure that his students would understand how to write for every orchestral instrument. Yet there have been a few times when he has asked me whether something would work for tuba or not. I would hope that he would know more about this as a music graduate than I would as a engineering and business school graduate who happens to play tuba, but his questions indicate that it is still not something about which he is very knowledgeable. I guess he could just be the exception, and it might be asking too much for a composer to know all the details about writing for every instrument, but I suspect that he is more common among modern composers. The school at which he teaches offers a Ph.D. in music composition, yet I don't see any courses in their entire music program that would allow one to really understand the details of each instrument. I expect that they get this in some of the various required music theory courses, but it suspect it's not that much on any instrument, not just tuba.

[J.c. Sherman]

An minor amplification of my previous post, and in partial answer to the "should we add/drop the octave. If the top of the work says "Arrangen by ________", I take it as license to arrange it further.

J.c.S.