Boring music...

[Rick Denney]

Ah, you guys.

The next time your community band director programs Symphony of Sitcoms, you tell me that music can't be boring.

It can surely be bad.

I'd rather play musical whole notes than bad music (and have made that choice on many occasions). I'm in my current band because the conductor puts together programs of great music.

Nothing is more difficult than playing dreadful music. And it's out there.

Now, if I'm paid to sit and play in the pit orchestra for the Chicago roadshow, I'll do what it takes to avoid boredom. That's professionalism. Furthermore, nobody will EVER know that I had to take extra steps to avoid boredom. But if the music wasn't boring, the notion of doing what it takes to avoid boredom would have never occurred to me.

So, Wade, I would modify your statement, and say: If we can't make ourselves interested in how musically and perfectly we play boring music, then maybe we are pursuing the wrong line.

Rick "who is never bored by great music, even during the tacets" Denney

[sloan]

Ever notice that - the better the music, the more tacet measures there are in the tuba part? Now...why is that?

[tofu]

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[Wyvern]

Ever notice that - the better the music, the more tacet measures there are in the tuba part? Now...why is that?

It's a bit like "absence makes the heart grow stronger". If the tuba is used sparingly, then the impact when we do eventually enter is all the greater.

The better composers know that the tuba is quite a potent sound, so use it only when required, thus the tacet measures in the better music.

[TubaRay]

I have to agree with Rick in his above post. My comments on this topic have been made from the standpoint of a less than interesting tuba part. The quality of the music itself is another issue. Notice that I say the quality of the music and not the difficulty. We all often play very easy parts. We may, or may not, play them well, but we play them all the same. It is when the music is itself inferior that it is very difficult to stay interested.

Rick's reference to Symphony of Sitcoms(which I have not had the a pleasure of having performed) is a good point in that it reminds us of music that in musical terms is equivalent to a boring topic of conversation. One can participate in such a conversation and contribute intelligently to it, but that doesn't mean that it will be an interesting time in that person's life. I have been part of a concert band where the selection of music has often been made where the choices were considered almost entirely on whether or not the audience would enjoy it. I agree that the audience should be considered, but I don't believe the ensemble members can be ignored completely. It is possible to satisfy both the audience and the player.

Wade has pointed out how the player has an obligation to himself that needs to be brought to the rehearsal or performance. That obligation is to keep himself interested. If the player fails at this, he will lose some or all of his interest. I don't believe that to be a good thing. He also passes up perfectly good practice time.

This is a good time to bring up a distinction which should help to explain what I am attempting to communicate. There is practice time and there is rehearsal time. Practice time is the time spent on developing one's skills to perform. Rehearsal time is time spent preparing the music. I will admit that these are my own definitions. It is my belief that rehearsal time can contain some practice. When I am playing oopah parts which are generally not that hard, that is a time I can also practice my attacks, works on improving my sound, etc. This is where this all relates back to the original topic.
If the music is either so not challenging or so musically uninteresting, this is an excellent time for me to emphasis that practice technique in the middle of a rehearsal. Once again, I hope I have been able to succesfully articulate what I am trying to say. There are some excellent points being brought out in this topic. I tend to agree with what has been said.

[tubatooter1940]

Is it possible that, like movies, some music is so bad that it's good?

[Chuck(G)]

(Old Philip Glass joke)

I had a recording of Philip Glass that lasted 4 hours before I noticed that the needle was stuck...

[tubaguy9]

Heck, if something is just plain-ol' bad-boring (to which R.D. refers), there is one sure-fire rehearsal technique:

Start coughing. Don't stop. Get worse. Set your instrument down and leave the rehearsal area until the conductor/music director moves on to the next piece.

Sadly, in the piece I was sort of complaining about, that's the only song we're playing...

[tubaguy9]

Ever notice that - the better the music, the more tacet measures there are in the tuba part? Now...why is that?

It's a bit like "absence makes the heart grow stronger". If the tuba is used sparingly, then the impact when we do eventually enter is all the greater.

The better composers know that the tuba is quite a potent sound, so use it only when required, thus the tacet measures in the better music.

But the ones who truly know the tuba entertains them a bit more...



cough, cough, Richard Wagner

[MartyNeilan]

Heck, if something is just plain-ol' bad-boring (to which R.D. refers), there is one sure-fire rehearsal technique:

Start coughing. Don't stop. Get worse. Set your instrument down and leave the rehearsal area until the conductor/music director moves on to the next piece.

Here's one for Bob1062 and any other trombone doublers:
Take your entire spray bottle (preferably a large one) and pour it down your mouthpiece inconspicuously, filling up the slide. Then, when the director is looking in your general area, proceed to empty your spitvalve, just as you always would. Should gather a little attention when a lake forms around you. Of course, you may be made to clean it up, but the looks will well be worth it.
Not that I ever did that in high school.

Of course, you should really be focusing on playing your boring part with the best sound and pitch possible.

[thedeep42]

i do find one of the things i struggle with the most is 'playing the rests' as some people say.. its almost like yoga trying to keep my mind from wandering when i'm counting 15000 measures of rest before playing a few notes. it's been an interesting experience to learn to deal with that...

one of the worst feelings... 1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, oh hell.. he's beating in one!!!

i have played the canadian brass red book P's Canon for 16 mintues for a wedding processional. i felt like the snare drummer in Bolero. However, there was still quite a bit to think about (though no one was REALLY listening while the flower girl ran up and down the aisle)

also.. as far as pieces sucking... i really can say there is only one piece that i really passionately dislike and that's Chester by William Schuman for wind ensemble. no offence to willy if he's reading this... i so appreciate taht there's quite a lot for me to play... but if someone can explain to me what is the true merrit of this piece other than a musical joke that lasts too long. why is it such a classic? i'd really like to know!

[thedeep42]

so, i decided to attempt to remedy my ignorance and answer my own question. I guess Schuman did quite a lot of writing. i suppose we can only really assume where he was going after the gorgeous opening chorale but it seems to be a part of american wind ensemble musical heritage and therefore worthy of playing. I guess the moral that i've learned as this piece comes up is that even though I don't get anything out of it and can't imagine an audience being edified by it, it is still my job to play it the best I can and even if i don't get it. i suppose i used to think the same about primus. Maybe like kalamata olives, seaweed, and saurkraut, i'll learn to love it.

[eupher61]

For those who don't like rests, maybe orchestral playing is not for you. No "Fantastique", no "Bolero". No Liszt Piano Concerti. (ok the Eb I'll almost agree with you, same for Dvorak 9...) No "Nutcracker". No Tchaikovsky. No Wagner (too many rests in The Ride.)
Tell your BDs to avoid anything which doesn't feature the tuba prominently throughout. Anything less than running 8th notes 27 bars at a time is verboten. If they should choose to play a simple Sousa march, you'll quit, or file a union grievance.

Believe me, the snare drummer playing "Bolero" is anything but bored.

[KevinMadden]

i do find one of the things i struggle with the most is 'playing the rests' as some people say.. its almost like yoga trying to keep my mind from wandering when i'm counting 15000 measures of rest before playing a few notes. it's been an interesting experience to learn to deal with that...

one of the worst feelings... 1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, oh hell.. he's beating in one!!!

I know that feeling, The IC Orchestra played Scherazade (Rimsky-Korsakov) this past semester, I subbed for the tuba player there for a rehearsal, I'd a been soooooo screwed if it weren't for the bassbone, "Kevin, its in one here, okay, now its in three, ok there are schezuras (spelling? the railroad track things) around this phrase, okay back into one etc. etc."

[windshieldbug]

one piece that i really passionately dislike and that's Chester by William Schuman for wind ensemble

Listen it in it's place in the New England Tryptich, which was originally written for orchestra, and listen to the work as a whole, with it's tunes from William Billings, and the beautiful solo euphonium part in When Jesus Wept.

[tubaguy9]

I can never understand when people say the music they are playing is boring, or too simple.

Concentrate on your technique! Take one simple crotchet - you need to consider;

1) tone (make the best you can)
2) attack (as written, or to suit music?)
3) length (not too short, or long)
4) ending (how many people end notes perfect?)
5) pitch (are you spot in tune with the ensemble?)
6) style (is it suitable for the music?)
7) dynamics (as written and balanced with ensemble)
8 ) Timing (spot on the beat)

I may even have missed something. Concentrating on all of these should keep you alert and motivated. However well you play, there is always room for improvement.

Take pleasure, from playing your very best!

Well, I'll have to say (almost) because of the way one of the movements go, the tone is almost supposed to be awful...the rest of the low brass is doing flutter tonguing.
Also, with number 5 for this song, is also almost non-applicable, since everyone else except for low brass, plays alietoric stuff.
That's sort of the way the piece is...

[windshieldbug]

It is aleatoric.

And if it is aleatoric, there certainly is a valid chance that you will make a choice NOT to follow the score, but leave the room.

[thedeep42]

Wow... even as a stand-alone piece, I absolutely LOVE Chester. The opening chorale with the huge timpani swells is gorgeous, and the long push to the end with snare drum and cymbal is thrilling. It gives me goosebumps every time.

Pray tell, what makes you not like the piece?

i love the chorale section... but then after the fermata it hits in with the clanging fff chords that seem to me to serve no other purpose than to waken the dead and slay the living... i've performed this several times and watched the looks of shock and horror as people are suddenly wrenched from their brass chorale induced spiritual bliss and plunged into a bitonal cacophony. While I find it a clever academic joke, i would rather just hear the chorale. however, it gives me an insight into how the congregation must have felt in charles ives' church when he'd play organ interludes and fugues in multiple keys. I love ives, but Chester is no ives. It has some good moments yes, but i guess it doesn't really float my boat! We're playing it currently as well as "Chester Leaps In' which is basically a witty, shorter, slightly more schizoid look at what schuman did but without all the pretty bits. basically it's a wind ensemble inside joke. ah well. to each his own really. but it's all good i can't think of anything else (other than some really crummy medley arrangements) that have left me scratching my head. I like Ligeti for crying out loud... you'd think i'd buy an ipod so i could listen to chester while i jog!

I would like to hear the piece in it's original symphonic context and i might well like it a bit more.

[Leland]

Having played some "notationally-basic" stuff probably several hundred times each over the past several years...

Eh, just play it, and play it exceptionally well. If the notes are easy, then surely it must be easy to play perfectly... correct?

We got an arrangement last week for Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, and a half-joking apology from the arranger, who said, "I tried to give you guys something interesting, but most of the time it's just quarter notes."

Well, ya know, it's the bass line that "drives the bus", as they say (sometimes it's the short bus!). It's the link between the rhythm section and the chord structure underlying all the notes that everyone else plays. Use it to lead from one phrase to another, picking up the intensity or drawing to the background as needed. It's the base -- the foundation -- of the ensemble, even if it's 12-bar blues over and over again.

There's a reason why the words "base" and "bass" sound the same.


PS -- loved the Philip Glass jokes...

[tubatooter1940]

Having played some "notationally-basic" stuff probably several hundred times each over the past several years...

Eh, just play it, and play it exceptionally well. If the notes are easy, then surely it must be easy to play perfectly... correct?

We got an arrangement last week for Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, and a half-joking apology from the arranger, who said, "I tried to give you guys something interesting, but most of the time it's just quarter notes."

Well, ya know, it's the bass line that "drives the bus", as they say (sometimes it's the short bus!). It's the link between the rhythm section and the chord structure underlying all the notes that everyone else plays. Use it to lead from one phrase to another, picking up the intensity or drawing to the background as needed. It's the base -- the foundation -- of the ensemble, even if it's 12-bar blues over and over again.

There's a reason why the words "base" and "bass" sound the same.


PS -- loved the Philip Glass jokes...

And getting a section to play a 4 beat walking bass with the correct sound and style and keep rock solid time is a cast iron b!t¢#!!! You can spend a lot of time trying to get that "simple" foundation to function as it is supposed to in the score.

These two posts hit me where I live. Playing bass with a tuba is often more expensive and difficult than with strung basses but if you can pull it off, the results can be spectacular.