the elephant wrote:You should listen to a lot of jazz combo stuff with upright bass to really work on that pizz concept, and practice it a lot on things like scales and such. It is a trick to master, but the tuba can do a fine job on all the bass stuff in RCM. All breaths need to be worked out well in advance and the style must be well practiced enough for it to be second nature. The 6/4 walking bass line is *naked* as all get out and must be solid, soft, and very bouncy/light.
Most tuba players I've heard think a pizzicato is short. In my ears, this lick should never stop ringing, with the front edge of each note almost being a breath pulse rather than a tongued attack. It's easier to keep it bouncy and light without that hard tongued articulation. Of course, that makes it
essential to breathe in musically appropriate places, because the air never really stops flowing. I get into trouble on this part when I am not disciplined about where I breathe. Running low on air in the middle of this lick is the cause of much destruction.
Another flaw is in playing it like a synthesizer. There are places where the dynamics should ebb and flow, and also places where the tempo may pull a bit. In general, though, the energy has to be forward-directed. If the bass line is ever behind the clarinets, wrist-slitting (or firing squad) is in order. I'd be willing to bet that conductors who ask for silence in this part are, as much as anything, tired of not getting the tempo direction they are asking for.
Rick "who has played this string-bass lick many times" Denney
P.S. But is RCM my favorite pure band work? I like it, but I dunno. There are many great band works, and saying one is best requires value judgments that are beyond me. If Reed (as in Alfred) has a problem, it's that his scoring his thick in the middle, and many bands tend to emphasize their middle thickness already. It can get pretty dense. I once played this work in a noisy and extremely reverberant shopping mall--it was an acoustic disaster.
La Fiesta Mexicana (Reed, as in H. Owen) doesn't take me to Mexico, but it does make my pulse quicken when I see it in the folder. The Giannini Variations and Fugue was pretty exciting to play, but not exactly for the audience. Rocky Point Holiday is a remarkable pure band work, and just fun through and through. Most stuff written in the last few decades has seeminly been intended to show off skills at contest, rather than to make real music. LFM notwithstanding, one does get tired of listening to every mallet instrument known to man with a little wind-band accompaniment. I'd be impressed with a band at contest that could really play something not so virtuosic but more musically demanding, and really make music doing it. How about either of the Holst suites? I've heard them both a zillion times, but very rarely with great musicality. Or Toccata Marziale, or Linconshire Posy. I'm also a sucker for that folk-song stuff.
R "thinking Holst and RVW were two of only a tiny handful of real composers--famous in orchestral repertoire--who write high-end stuff for wind band" D
I have enjoyed Alfred Reed's music for a long time; I had the opportunity to play the west coast premier of "Armenian Dances II" (1978ish) when I was in college, and Dr. Reed conducted us. To this day that remains one of the pinnacles of musical experience for me. During that same time frame, I got to play "Incantation and Dance" which is another piece that I love.
