Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra

[Mark]

What is the tuba part like on Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra?

[jon112780]

If memory serves me correctly, I believe the first note is a pedal D.

[Tom]

Fun piece to play, IMHO.

LOTS of really low playing!

Several great tuba licks (especially in the fugue section).

[DaTubaKid]

It does start on a pedal D, then proceeds jump up the octave. Fun stuff.

It includes a nice little tuba clarinet trio in the middle, then the violin section leaves the tuba revealed for a few bars with the downbeats. Don't miss the muted Dflat in the harp solo. Darn song made me drag a mute halfway across Europe for that ONE note. The tuba solo in the trombone/tuba section is a little lame, but when the tuba and trombones go into a canon, it's a fun little thing to play. The fugue section is fun to listen to, easy to get a little lost in if you aren't paying attention since the sections don't change where you'd think they would. The tuba part that comes in during the fugue is definetly fun and challenging to play. And depending on how the conductor conducts it, the ending may also be an interesting closure...

If you have any other questions, I'm still very familiar with this piece, having played it on a tour to Europe just this last summer.

[DaTubaKid]

"A real professional would have left his mute at home!"

-Except not in this case. The brass are the only people to play the downbeat on this particular bar. Every single one of them is muted. Tuba, trombone, and the trumpets. If the tuba players decides to leave his mute at home, he ruins the timbre of the chord completely. It's a wierd chord to start with, no sense in messing with it as wierd.

"When in doubt the conductor will always follow the brass section!"

-I'd agree that a lot of the time, that's the best thing for the conductor to do. But when the low brass are sustaining chords and the high brass are moving in a wierd duple feel while the strings and woodwinds are playing fast, metered parts, I'd follow the people with the smallest subdivision.