What did you play today?

[Yadent]

Golden State British Brass Band-----Glendale, Calif, Seventh Day Adventist Church---2 weeks ago. I'm the non-silver tuba (Besson 983)

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[tclements]

"Nutcracker." As of Sunday (12/21), 5 more.

[bloke]

"Nutcracker." As of Sunday (12/21), 5 more.

glad to see that someone is playing the Tchaik instrumentation (rather than that horrible "tin pan alley" instrumentation that's out there).

[1 Ton Tommy]

I miss nutcracker so much! Op. 71 was standard fare we played for years and I'd never seen the ballet. So my wife bought us expensive orchestra seats one year on a visit to SFO and it was delightful and captivating -- The whole story; mice in battle, Clara weeping over the broken nutcracker and on. San Francisco Ballet did a superb job and it was on YouTube for a while then disappeared. I miss that too.

Today we played standard Christmas carols with a twist... I said a few words introducing the history of each one and that really perked the audience up. Who knew the green of Lady Green Sleeves' dress was grass stains on the back from frolicking on the lawn? Apparently I scooped Terry Gross as history of carols is the subject to today's Fresh Air on NPR.

[the elephant]

Packed house at both services. Great stuff, very well played. I survived that dang "Christmas Fantasy" arranged by Dan Goeller on my F tuba.

WHAT. A. BLOW. (Next year I'll use the Yamaha.)

Lots of other loud, low stuff, but mostly it was parts that worked out well on the F. The greatly improved low register of the Kurath worked very nicely on the big CC stuff, but I fairly *lived* in the 5th/6th valve register. Nothing played itself.

An excellent choir at this church…


Those Presbyterians stack 'em to the rafters every year.

[SunnyD]

Tuba Christmas Wichita Falls. Had a fun time with the 34J. Had to stand to see the conductor. Definitely getting a harness for next time.

The big Conn got a lot of attention, even heard one kid say it was a giant baritone

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[the elephant]

Today I played a lot of quintet stuff at two church services as loudly as I could while maintaining solid pitch and a "WorldClassSound®" while amped up on about a pot of coffee. (The coffee was tasty.)

I will not be playing my tubas again this year. I start up again with four brass quintet "Informances" on Monday, January 12. My face shall not see a mouthpiece until that morning.

Amen. I'm out.

[bloke]

You would have giggled at how loudly I played the melody notes in the Willcocks fanfare into Hark the Herald Angels Sing on Fat Bastard last night in those two services.

Up in the back of that huge Episcopal cathedral like sanctuary, my bell was only about fifteen feet below it's barrel shaped ceiling. The entire sanctuary became a tuba...and - in that range on that huge tuba with that huge bore - there's no getting any teeth in the sound, it just sounds like some sort of nuclear organ.

Willcocks is all about a lot of big breaths and big playing... nothing about fancy. If someone can play really loudly with a really full sound and in tune (in tune with the organ, whether or not the organ is actually "in tune"), the congregants are going to feel it in their shoes.

As far as playing the tuba again in 2025 - which was part of your post, I'm still trying to pull everything back together from being away from practicing for four months with these continuous mountains of school repairs... but with this bass guitar stuff suddenly happening again in my life, I'm adapting the Segovia scales to the bass guitar, because it seems like the next important thing that I need to regain in my technique - from forty years ago - is very smooth shifts. (I've got my own versions of those scales, truth be told. If available, I use an open string while shifting, and cheat a little bit.)

[the elephant]

The Cathedral of Saint Andrew in Jackson was a tuba-filled chamber of horrors yesterday… okay, that was a lie. But yes, Willcocks in such a setting lends itself to super-loud tuba sounds, and it feels great to flex that muscle at the age of sixty.

I laid that Shirt DOWN, baby…

HAHAHA!!!

[shovelingtom]

Had my first quintet yesterday at the Army era Chapel at Mammoth in Yellowstone (which I can coincidentally see from my living room window, so getting there was easy). Hoping to make it a tradition. Played the Canadian Brass Easy Christmas Quintet book in a non-traditional way with whatever players we could dredge up to include flugel/trumpet, baritone, trombone, tenor sax, and me on the tuba, but it worked!

Weird Christmas this year. In the high 40s and raining every day.

[gocsick]

It was a very happy Christmas for me. A Free months ago I was going to buy a mouthpiece from @bloke when he graciously did a gratis repair for me but I held off my wife strongly hinted that it would make a good Christmas gift from the family. Well they came through and Uber the tree this morning was a shiny Sellmansberger Solo #0 with the 32.9mm #2 rim... they even sprung for the gold titanium coating.

Well after we got home from Christmas dinner.. I sat down to play as few long tones and see how it felt... and ended working scales, arpeggios, and lip slurs for about an hour and as half.. and it felt great.

I've been using a C4 style/Bobo symphonic on the MW20 and the Conn 20J for a while now... and loved the sound and clarity.. but never really loved the rim style.. I think I am going to be happy as a clam with this for a while. I will see how it does on the Eefer.. It has me wondering how much Giddings would charge to get the Jon Gross I use for sousa cut to accept this style rim.

[bloke]

It sounds like you don't think it sucks, and that's pretty good.

[MikeS]

Yesterday afternoon I played at a Klezmer jam session at the local Jewish Community Center. I played trombone as part of the “house” band and we had at least twenty people, many of them high school players, show up with instruments. For some it was their first exposure to playing this kind of music. We tried to get in a good mix of playing and teaching. There was also a fiddle player in his 80’s who showed up and taught us a few tricks. We played for about two and a half hours and had a great time.

[tclements]

Not yet, but later today: Low brass trios (0111), Horn, Trombone, Tuba

[gocsick]

Absolutely nothing... On "Holiday" with my wife's friends and family.. I really wish I was at home tooting away.

[humBell]

I left late.

And went to the wrong place.

So i guess i don't play with the band today...

But i am eating somewhere i have been meaning to come to for a while.

[gocsick]

Bordogni-Rochut out of the trumpet book to get limber on the baritone horn for the start of brass band rehearsals this week.

It was more challenging than it should have been ... because the version I have for trumpet is in the wrong key. It says Bb trumpet on the sheets.. but nothing was actually transposed just the clef changed (meaning C in the trombone book were also written as C in the Bb trumpet book). I kept getting finger tied because my brain kept defaulting to muscle memory from tuba instead of what was on the page. It took a little while to reset myself and focus on what was actual on front of me.

[the elephant]

I played four elementary school quintet shows, then played on my homemade 186 for about three hours, figuring it out using lots of mouthpieces. I am down to three "best-case" candidates.

I have a "Lord High Muckity-Muck" quintet gig tomorrow at lunchtime. We will be the first group to play on our concert hall stage since it was closed for (get this) mold and asbestos abatement, roof reconstruction, all new plumbing/sewerage/HVAC, a new stage floor, a new pit lift, and some acoustical work. It has been closed for TWO YEARS! A highlight: when the mayor takes the podium, we are to play the "Imperial March" from Star Wars. Yep, Darth Vader's theme. I don't know what brave soul decided this was to bring in the mayor, but I think I like them.

[bloke]

I played a garbage Chinese knockoff of a King 1140 (smallish but not tiny) tuba, after I finished repairing it. I used a generic 24AW to make sure that it would actually play, because - if it will play with that - it will play with anything.

I then played an old worn out upright bell Olds baritone horn that the school had put in a brand new aftermarket very heavy euphonium case. It's still plays after sixty years, even with a bunch of past dubious repairs.

Today, we are delivering instruments to about seven schools spread out over probably a 70 mi X 200 mi area, so I ain't gonna be playin' nuffin.

[the elephant]

After more than two years living life as musical gypsies the MSO once again has a home! Thalia Mara Hall has reopened, and in a lunchtime ceremony, the MSO Brass Quintet rechristened the stage. We were the first performance of any sort in our hall since it closed up mid-season in 2023.

It has been a difficult road paved with many disappointments, but the City and contractors finally got it together, and the old venue is back.

And so are we.

Longtime MSO patron Scott Crawford took this shot.


I took this one before we rehearsed this morning, before a note had been sounded. Clean. Pristine. I had just set up the chairs and stands. Too bad I did not square things up a bit better. This is a cool photo, but I could have really nailed it with a little more effort.


Anyway, this is what I played today.