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[tubatodd]

One really good tuba player can balance a wind band.
Fortissimos sound more focused/bravura, and - of course - pianissimos are easier to control. Just as with other sections, technical passages are going to sound no better than the least capable player. If only one player understands how to phrase, the phrasing that one player does will not be heard.

I brought my Besson 995 and it did a nice job. Since I was the only one, a bigger horn would have been nice. (This seems like the early stage excuse for considering purchasing that 5/4 Rudy that I have no business purchasing.)

Yeah, there are a few pieces we are playing that have very obvious tuba solos. We've been playing them as a section, mainly because the conductor hasn't said otherwise. But they really should be true 1 person solos. As a section they have sounded horrendous.

I am not perfect and I made a few mistakes (that I corrected) yesterday, but your points are 1000000% accurate.

[BramJ]

I always kinda like it when I am alone in the section, don't tell the others

[prodigal]

Welp....I was the only tuba who showed up yesterday for rehearsal....and it was glorious.



I don't mean for that sound as negative as it implies. I just enjoyed getting to play all of the solos and actually hear myself for once. After rehearsal I got quite a few compliments. Apparently I still know how to play.

Great shirt! I can relate. I think I could use a French drain under my chair...

[tubatodd]

Welp....I was the only tuba who showed up yesterday for rehearsal....and it was glorious.



I don't mean for that sound as negative as it implies. I just enjoyed getting to play all of the solos and actually hear myself for once. After rehearsal I got quite a few compliments. Apparently I still know how to play.

Great shirt! I can relate. I think I could use a French drain under my chair...

With my Besson 995, I am pulling slides (top and bottom) to get all of the spit out..........all the time. I feel like the spit keys are useless.

[Heavy_Metal]

One really good tuba player can balance a wind band.
Fortissimos sound more focused/bravura, and - of course - pianissimos are easier to control. Just as with other sections, technical passages are going to sound no better than the least capable player. If only one player understands how to phrase, the phrasing that one player does will not be heard.

This is true. Not long ago, I was out of town, and circumstances were such that my third player was the only one at rehearsal that Monday evening. She's quite capable and was able to carry the band by herself, never getting below about mezzo-forte the whole evening. Any one of my Section members would be able to do that. Our director was quite pleased.

The same thing happened to me at the very first Maryland All-State Community Band. I was playing my Sonora (didn't have the Alex yet) and we were supposed to have three tubas. One had to drop out a few weeks prior due to a family situation- OK, we'll just drag knuckles a little harder. I got there for rehearsal weekend and found out I was now solo. When we finished the concert, I had only enough energy to drive home and go to bed. But we proved the All-State Community Band concept that weekend, which has led to many fine concerts and other experiences.

[prodigal]

One really good tuba player can balance a wind band.
Fortissimos sound more focused/bravura, and - of course - pianissimos are easier to control. Just as with other sections, technical passages are going to sound no better than the least capable player. If only one player understands how to phrase, the phrasing that one player does will not be heard.

This is true. Not long ago, I was out of town, and circumstances were such that my third player was the only one at rehearsal that Monday evening. She's quite capable and was able to carry the band by herself, never getting below about mezzo-forte the whole evening. Any one of my Section members would be able to do that. Our director was quite pleased.

This statement is absolute truth. I've been practicing breath control and volume just to keep up with the two of them!

[Heavy_Metal]

@prodigal , you're doing fine.

[TxTx]

Me with my world music group Sombati and some of our instruments around 2015. Tuba is a pre-1890 A Lecomte & Sons three valve Eb made in Paris and imported by Root Music in Chicago. Bottom two Ebs wanted to play about 1/2 step flat compared to the rest of the horn. Included a home-built plywood case that smelt of dog pee and which has never been inside my house in the 30-odd years I’ve had it. Time flies.

[bloke]

I've experienced (pictures and in-person) large German bands (mostly: Texas and Wisconsin) playing Oktoberfest celebrations and other events.
Typically, everyone is reading sheet music.

I've played a few gigs like that (only 5 or 6 pieces), but - over the decades - most Oktoberfest gigs I've played involved three other specific gents and myself. There is a huge stack of lead sheets, but mostly they are there to help is think of something to play (or play next). We don't have music stands. Nor do we look at the lead sheets.

You see there's a drummer with a boom mike (nice singing voice), me with (mostly) the tuba, but I pick up the others to harmonize or to offer an alternate melody or harmony color (chorus, bridge, or both).

There's the multi-horn guy (mostly flute/clarinet/saxes, but also trumpet/bass trumpet/baritone) and then there's the accordionist (now deceased) who knew all the correct changes and all the passing chords and (if ballads) the "cool" chords. He also had a boom mike, a gruff voice, and "ran" the party (got everyone up dancing, drinking, doing the chicken dance, the schnitzelbank, and all that mess).

Had we - otherwise - 5-to-6 or 12-to-15 people up there reading sheet music, it would have been pretty hard to go home with $350 each.
(I liked this set-up, particularly since the other three fellows are/were remarkably talented...This dates back starting c. 1979 - when I quit my kolij teachin' job and went back to - very busy, at that time - freelancing, and went on for decades.)

For a year or so, we did a 6-nights-a-week job, and - instead of all of those auxiliary horns for me - I just played sousaphone and bass guitar, because we mixed in a bunch of oldies, top 40, C&W, and R&B (which the accordion player handled with ease)...We also had a very statuesque singer lady who was German. She could do all the German stuff, but really nice ballads, and also (believe or not) some INCREDIBLE Janis Joplin. (She was the trophy wife of a FedEx pilot - at that time, called "Federal Express".)






(no accordion pic)

INTERMISSION:
- bratwurst
- sauerkraut
- red cabbage
- German potato salad
- pretzel
- Black Forest cake

[prodigal]

It's lunchtime, and I didn't bring one, so the bratwurst looks pretty delicious, but not as appealing as that six valve Symphonie ya got there!

[bloke]

It's lunchtime, and I didn't bring one, so the bratwurst looks pretty delicious, but not as appealing as that six valve Symphonie ya got there!

The best bratwurst in the United States are thought to be from Sheboygan, but even people from Sheboygan are sort of brainwashed and ignorant for the most part and believe that that big place that distributes nationally are the best brats.
Far better are some just northwest of Sheboygan in Howards Grove. There's a meat market there in an ancient converted house with a smokehouse behind it that has been there for well over a century and passed from its original owner through some of my relatives and then to a father and now to his son. Their seasonings are exquisite, and the quality of the pork is at the top.
Their pricing is no higher than anyone's else. I've never had better summer sausage nor liver sausage then what they make there as well. And at a dairy about 10 miles north on the same side of the interstate, that place makes the very best cook cheese (look it up if you're not familiar) that I've ever tasted. The cook cheese sold in those tourist trap cheese stores up there is something weird and unrecognizable.. and bad.

The tuba was bought new in 1982. Richard Nahatski (Berlin Radio Orchestra) brought it over to me when he went to see his aging and ailing parents in Baltimore (I think there might have been an international T.U.B.A. shindig at the University of Maryland that summer...??) and left it at their house for me. I'm thinking I paid $2,400. Who knows if he only paid $500. If so, good for him.
He obviously marked it up enough above his cost to finance his trip home, some walking around money and of course his return trip, and maybe a some to give to his parents, because to me it appeared as though they were just getting by. When I asked him to get me an instrument, he was very strongly politicking for Alexander, but I knew what I wanted. Just as with the way I lucked out on building the cimbasso, I've never played a better one of this model of F tuba and - truth be told - I've never played a better F tuba. I've played just about every model that has ever been offered and in the past, and - in previous times - had a good bit of disposable income. I could have bought anything I wanted at most any time if I had found something I thought was better.
(Actually I still could, but it would be a larger percentage of available funds today. ) Some people tell me that I'm probably just used to it.. until they possibly end up here getting their instrument repaired and actually play it

[hbcrandy]

Below is a photo of my section for the 45 years I performed. I am not meaning to be egotistical. As one who was symphonically trained for orchestral playing, I expected to be the only player of my instrument.

In the orchestra, part of playing the tuba as it is with playing all other instruments, one must listen, blend with and support others no matter where the music travels through a composition. The tuba is an instrument of diverse possibilities in the color palette available to the great symphonic composers of past, present and future. Throughout my years of playing, I have found the tuba included in many diverse sonic instrumental combinations, some of which that my feeble, 75-year-old brain can remember are listed below:

- With the low strings stating the main theme in the first movement of Prokofiev's 5th Symphony
- Playing with the trombones in the chorale at the end of the last movement of Tchaikowsky' 6th Symphony
- Sounding the Dies Irae with the second tuba, low woodwinds and low strings in the Symphony Fantastique, by Berlioz
- Playing a melodic soli, many octaves apart, with the piccolo in Charles Ives' "Variations on America"
- Solo passages for tuba in Gershwin's "An American in Paris", Stravinsky's "Petrushka" as well as solo passages in Gustav Mahler's Symphonies 1 and 5.

I did much free-lance playing as well. When I am introduced to new people and they find out that I played the tuba and horn (yes, I also studied and played horn as a secondary instrument), I am always asked, "For whom did you play?" My answer to that is, "...for whoever was on the other end of the phone call at the time." In addition to holding a position in a minor symphony orchestra for a while, over the years I also played with other symphony orchestras as a substitute or extra, a circus band, show pits, ethnic bands, Dixieland (which is far from my strong suit), summer park concert bands, as well as a tuba quartet, brass quintets and large brass ensembles.

My point of this dissertation is to say that, as a tuba player, expect to be the only player of your instrument. But also know that a MAJOR part of playing is to fit in and blend with others sonically and stylistically no matter what diverse musical performance situation faces you in any given day. The tuba is your tool. Once you fully master your tool's use, you can then use it for everything. As I have told many private students over the years, "Just go prepared to play the tuba!"/u]

My Section.jpg (124.99 KiB) Viewed 872 times

Randy with horn Color Cropped - 177 x 140.jpg (15.08 KiB) Viewed 872 times

[Heavy_Metal]

.............My point of this dissertation is to say that, as a tuba player, expect to be the only player of your instrument. But also know that a MAJOR part of playing is to fit in and blend with others sonically and stylistically no matter what diverse musical performance situation faces you in any given day. The tuba is your tool. Once you fully master your tool's use, you can then use it for everything. As I have told many private students over the years, "Just go prepared to play the tuba!"/u]

Having studied with @hbcrandy for a while, I can attest to this.

[MiBrassFS]

.

[Heavy_Metal]

Bel Air Community Band Tuba Section, Fall 2025

Bel Air Community Band Tuba Section, Fall 2025

tubas fall 2025 PXL_20251019_184611846small.jpg (170.07 KiB) Viewed 670 times

From left: Brook Wolfe (Miraphone 186 CC) Stephanie Bartholomew (Yamaha YBB-641 BBb) and me (Alexander!)

Photo credit- Phyllis Fowler (flute/piccolo)

[prodigal]

I don't know about that guy on the left....looks like a trouble maker bringing a CC to band.

[tubatodd]

Welp....I was the only tuba who showed up yesterday for rehearsal....and it was glorious.

Yesterday was our next rehearsal. We have a pair of concerts next week. It's a monthly band. Guess what!!! All of the tuba players showed up. It was less fun, but it is what it is. I'm just glad to have a group to play with.

At one point we asked the conductor whether solos should be a group thing or a single player. The conductor chickened out with his answer and said "I don't care. Y'all figure it out."

Oh and I meant to take a section picture but forgot. :(

[Bandmaster]

These two photos are from a few years ago (March 2019) from the Pomona Concert Band's Winter Concert (California). We played a special custom arrangement that required the Tubas to be muted. It was a struggle to find enough mutes to go around for seven Tubas.



Later in the same concert, the Tuba section was featured playing "Them Basses" with the band.

[Heavy_Metal]

That is some serious firepower!

[tubatodd]

First concert back with this ensemble in 9 years. It was in a church gym. Those are notoriously awful for acoustics. This gym was actually quite good acoustically. I had a fun time. Busting out the Rudy 4/4 CC for Thursday's gig.

Me


My seat with Besson 995 and candid shot of fellow tubists


Wider shot with our bass player.


Tubas in use:

Greg: Wessex Eb
David: Willson Eb
Ray: Mackbrass BBb
John: B&S GR51 BBb
Todd: Besson 995 CC