Re: Re: Re: BAT Brass Quintet Test


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Posted by Rick Denney on April 24, 2003 at 13:40:49:

In Reply to: Re: Re: BAT Brass Quintet Test posted by C(G) on April 24, 2003 at 13:21:09:

If there is a lesson in my recent experience, it is that the tuba's role in a brass quintet is not static, with contrast being important at times and blend being important at other times.

In music where the tuba has a unique voice (as with a bass line in a jazz arrangement), the large contrast is useful. After all, a trumpet and a string bass don't sound anything alike, but they coexist happily in jazz settings.

In music where the structure of the music is more important than the tonality (i.e. Baroque), then blend and the subjugation of individual voices becomes much more important. After all, much of it is organ music. For that, two trombones or a large trombone and a small tuba work pretty well.

But there's more to it than just the raw timbre, and that was also part of my lesson learned. The warmth and resonance (those two words are becoming much more important to me lately) of the big tuba added a friendly, open sound to the ensemble that was more appropriate for the loose and informal jazz setting, but too undisciplined for the tightly formal Baroque setting.

We usually play Baroque works with two trumpets, trombone (a large Shires), horn (our player uses a Conn 8D, I think), and me on a 621 F tuba. We played an arragement of the Holst second suite with a cornet, a fleugelhorn, F horn, euphonium, and me on the 621 (but with a different sound concept in my head). In that setting, the big horn would have still not been appropriate, even with the greater use of conical instruments. The Britishness of the Holst was just too formal for a BAT.

Rick "who sometimes thinks the lone voice is the whole point" Denney


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