Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: BAT-Specific Playing Techniques? Rick D?


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Posted by A very long posting! on December 31, 2002 at 18:59:54:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: BAT-Specific Playing Techniques? Rick D? posted by Rick Denney on December 31, 2002 at 17:28:45:

The dp distinction between tuba and bass on basis of bell direction and marketing terms of course only has value as a rhetoric provocation to have a "ball" on new years eve.

It does not get no more value by the speed typist of the board outing:

"the whole point, it seems to me, of the fat bi-radial bell is to create wide dispersion and multipath acoustics to the listener. The forward bell pointed right at the listener creates a different effect".

No recording basses point directly at no listeners but for those in the imaginary upper galleries of most band concert halls. And the very wide and multi-radial recording bells disperse the sound even more than bi-radial upright bells.

It is very difficult to compare tubas through the description by a single player, as so much depends on the approach taken by the player.

As for the York Master BBb tuba 4 more or less regular posters have had the chance to try out 3 not exactly identical samples.

Some complain intonation quirks. Others don't.

One poster claims legato to be problematic. Another calls the legato "buttery". A third tells of the necessity to apply trombone style legato tonguing to certain low legato lines to keep definition in some ensemble passages.

One poster reports about the additional qualities over the YM he has gained from an even larger instrument. Another poster thinks, that what he reads about that BBbBAT exactly fits, what he gets from his YM.

One would believe, that players having had and still having a fairly intensive relation to the trombone should be the ones experiencing the greatest problems with intonation and lack of fullness, when broadening their field of tools to encompassing the tuba. At least compared to players concentrating on the tuba(-s).

But from the texts transmitted on this board this does not to reflect reality. It appears like a schooling on the trombone, and for that matter on the horn, teaches students, that intonation is a problem, that one can, and is obliged to, do something about. Considering a sound and well trained air application a given factor, both these instruments have their very different solutions allocated to the right hand.

It appears like these lessons are transferred to the tuba. Intonation there must be solved in different ways: adequate fingering and, for some, slide juggling.

What one should not forget is, that trombone players also need a very strong embouchure control. Trombone glissandos are not only a matter of playing pump with the slide. To have the right embouchure control is mandatory for providing a projecting gliss.

Not that I love glisses. I avoid them wherever possible. But the lesson learned is a valuable one, which even can be applied in a reverse way. I found it fun to play with so slow slide movements, that one should expect glisses and less than exact intonation. When a section mate complained that slowness, I asked him whether his ears had told him of any problems. He had to confess: "No!"

The point I am striving to get to, is this one: Where one should expect tuba players coming from the trombone to be the ones having the most problems with legato and getting roundness/fullness in their sound, the opposite situation might be the one more often found in the real world.

I very often have wondered over the relations between the sounds of my bass bones and my euph. I play them on the same mouthpiece, and I find that I play them in the exact same way, when it comes to lungs, mouth, and lips. Yet they sound very different. The King 7B is brightish, the old Sovereign compares more to a symphonic trombone ideal, and the YEP641 is outspokenly dark without being dull. All are full in their own way.

I think, that the recipe is the same as the one behind the very good MP3's recently offered to and discussed on this board: take your instrument to its outer limits no matter what dynamic you are playing in.

All good instruments can made to break up or crash at all dynamics. The optimal sound is found just below that breaking point.

When the mentioned MP3's without any foundation were criticised for bad intonation, it was because the critic most likely was not a tuba player, which prevented him/her from doing the proper analysis: that the very few less than optimal spots were caused by "running-out-of-proper-air-pressure", so that a few notes lacked in fullness of the overtone spectre.

I have worked a good deal with the Bach suites, mostly on bassbone. At least enough to make it very hard to listen to cello renditions, that do not display the outmost perfection in bow control. What I normally hear of scratchy bowing and sloppy intonation from even recognised cello pro's by far exceeds the minor problems we TubeNetters recently have been offered from one of our own.

A happy new year to all of you from one who already has entered 2003!

Klaus


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