Shall tubas have their own scale systems


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Posted by Klaus on March 11, 2003 at 21:18:10:

?

Is the consensus of TubeNetters, that amateur tubists shall develop their own scale systems independent of the musical culture to which all other western types of instruments adhere?

When I challenged a nice and good humoured poster, whose main contribution to the TubeNet after all is his speed of typing, on his suggestion, that amateur band tuba sections best are served with having instruments of the same pitch, in this case in BBb, I was opposed by several posters from a very competent pro over a serious amateur to a confirmed nutcase, who all declared Rick's nonsense being well thought out.

It actually is possible to agree with Rick in his all-BBb-thesis, but only if one limits ones perspective to the 3, 4, or 5 members of a tuba section, where at least one has inadequate playing abilities and or an inadequate instrument.

Joe S maintains, that it is better to be commonly out of tune, than to expose inadequacies in pitch. Joe will not be able to bring this argument home on his own terms as a highly skilled pro. Lets take a sample from one of Joes other instruments, the classical guitar. This instrument has tuning problems of its own, but no ones worse than this instrument still is a valid musical vehicle.

Let's say, that Joe has crashed his favourite guitar on the stair to the recital stage. He is handed a random guitar. He tunes the strings and starts playing just to discover, that one of the frets is badly placed. He uses all of his technical skills to bend the odd notes or their supposedly concording notes into a true concord. Swallowing the compromises involved. (In the same way, that we all, even I, will strive to make performances as less embarrassing as possible).

Will Joe accept the off-standard-scale notes for the rest of his recital tour? No way!

If he can get another guitar sufficing his demands, then all is well. But that is not likely in the area west of Nome, where Joe does most of his guitar recitals. So he loans a saw and some synthetic wood and moves the offending fret, so that he again feels safe within his idiom of western scales.

Another fictive story:

A community band has a tuba section, which comprises

a section leading CC tubist educated at a pro level with a top rate tuba, the slides of which he handles like a skilled trombonist, so that his intonation is very, very true.

2, 3, or 4 BBb tubists with 4 valve instruments of a fair quality, on which they play with a very reasonable level of intonation, which allows them to follow their section leader in his pedagogically, cunning, and inspiring hints and advises towards a true vertical and horizontal practise of intonation, which creates a wonderful foundation for the rest of the band, so that all enjoy making music and everybody enjoys listening to the music made.

1 nice guy thinking that playing tuba might be a fun pastime in between golf, poker, beers, cars, horses, dogs, and his wife, or rather after his wife in this carefully listed sequence. He faithfully brings his 3 pistons French made 3/4 BBb excuse for a tuba to the 1 out of 4 or 8 rehearsals, that he can manage to attend. What he lacks in playing skills, he has in in "personality". So he can produce a cutting edge envied by any bassboner. And he insist on contributing this skill during concerts, musical events which somehow never happen to conflict with his tight schedule compressed with appointments concerning golf, poker, beers, cars, horses, dogs, and his wife.

The clever, kind, and cunning section leader tells his faithful proselytes in the section: We don't want this concert ending up as an embarrassment for our tuba section, so all of you please play all of your in-staff D's, Db's, C's, and B naturals way flat compared to our usual ideals. And please make sure, that the same notes an octave down are played way sharp. I want to read in our local "The Outback Center City Sentinel", that our section sets a sample for the whole band by its being together in all aspects of playing.

The band concert consists entirely of well known music, by Sousa, Sousa, and the third Sousa brother. Everything looking very tonal in the score.

However the newspaper guy actually understands something of music, so the 256 points headline on the front page of "The Outback Center City Sentinel" yells:

"Musical avantgarde has come down on our beloved Outback Center City.

We all went to the concert of one of the main vehicles of social coherence in Outback Center City, our seasoned Outback Center City Community band, to listen to the announced traditional and national programme.

However we were met by a sample of the most outrageous musical avantgardism, which we thought we only would ever learn about from magazine reports from the concerts of L'ensemble Intercomptorain de Paris.

Formally we were presented to the announced traditional and national compositions, but the sections of flutes, oboes, clarinets, saxophones, cornets, trumpets, horns, baritones, trombones, tympanies, and malletted percussion instruments presented levels of pitch, which appeared to fluctuate wildly between being way sharp and being way flat.

However no retuning of these instruments was to be observed during the concert. The reason for the aural experience seems to be some truly original tuning and pitch principles applied by the tuba section. The key to the understanding of this phenomenon sounded like some octaves in the core tessitura of the tuba parts were redefined to come out like major sevenths."

What Rick advocates is, that tubas should adhere to pitch and tuning standards, that would never make it within any other instrumental context. Does Rick's attitude help removing the tuba from its stigma of being the instrument mostly played by the big fat guy with not much brain and even less ear?

Among us we have seasoned pros like Joe, who however always is up for a lapsus to provoke, Jay, who advocates carefully worked out fingerings to avoid the traps of our instrument, and many other high grade player posting less frequently, but doing so with weight, when they put their fingers to the keyboard.

I do not agree with Joe, when he advocates rotary valves in tubas. I am entirely into pistons in this matter. I do not agree with Jay, when he advocates fingerings as the main vehicle for remedying tuning shortcomings.
My remedy is the use of a huge Helleberg type mouthpiece, which allows for a strong embouchure to influence all aspects of playing. But these differences do not diminish my respect for Jay. And Joe still sermons enough of sensible advice to let me accept his frequent slips of sense at the computer keyboard.

I once was the conductor of an amazing choir on the Faroe Islands: 12 sopranos, 13 altos, 8 tenors, and 12 basses taken out of two small communities of combined 2000 persons. I happened to weed out their traditional church singing glissandos. We sang Wagner and backwards to Gabrieli, plus my arrangements of their national song treasure, so that big and competent audiences were stupefied. This was a very happy symbiosis between a person schooled in the continental European tradition and a pool of unbelievable natural talents.

However the process was not easy, as my employer dictated a no-audition approach. But as I distilled my own approach with my local mental sparring partner, the priest: anybody being there, who enjoyed singing with an ever so limited voice was welcome, if no harm was applied to the overall result.

One certain lady was infamous for appearing only at the last 3 rehearsals before concerts, and she had no chance to learn the huge new repertory, that I had introduced. So my advice to her was: You can do anything with your tongue, as long as you keep your teeth together in a firm bite.

Translated to the tuba world this would say: please come and join any community band with your $30 garage sale find. Please just be aware, that you have not bought yourself the right to yell out the confirmedly bad notes of your horn and thereby acting as an aggressive lowest common denominator of the overall sectional intonation level.

Anybody can play any note in tune on any tuba. Resonance phenomenons might let some truly pitched notes be limited to pppp dynamics. Accept this, and you will be welcome anywhere.

Klaus


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