Posted by Ken Sturgeon on February 22, 2002 at 19:08:47:
In Reply to: My Experience this morning posted by Arnold on February 22, 2002 at 12:42:47:
A good tuba player friend of mine had a famous conductor tell him to play softer during a passage in which he just held one note at pp along with just the strings and woodwinds. He continued to ask him to play the note softer until finally out of exasperation, my friend just blew air through the horn when the note was to be played. The conductor then replied, "ahhhh, perfect." Then there was the conductor who asked the flutist to use a mute.
Many conductors know what kind of sound they want from the ensemble in their head, but get frustrated because they don't know how to communicate and draw that sound from them. Unfortunately, many resort to attacking the ensemble and individuals which only makes it worse. The successful ones know how to get it because they UNDERSTAND the INSTRUMENTS they are directing and they don't humiliate them. Just trust your ear and match the pitch with the other instruments playing with you the best you can. Perhaps you could get together with the basses with a tuner? Once you and the basses are in tune, the other higher pitched instruments should be able to tune to all of you. If not, they will be the ones out of tune and sticking out. Even though we take the tuning note from the oboe in an orchestra, I believe ensemble tuning should "tune down." In other words, tune to the lowest pitched instruments. This is not to say that the tuba and other bass instruments shouldn't tune and blend with the trumpets or violins, only that fundamentally the ensemble should tune to the lower voices.
KS