He´s been teaching tuba at the Mannheim University, AFAIK, and has recently taken the position as Tuba professor at Cologne university.
Quite a few of his videos are aimed to guide potential future students of music on their way to audition for university studios (not only his own), as well as insights into every-day life of orchestral musicians and how to stay fresh and prepared.
As in: You SURE this is for you and you want to to this for a living? Then let´s go!
Re: I follow this guy's videos on facebook, because he and his low brass section are the sh!t.
Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2025 10:47 am
by bloke
Orchestral music is a European cultural tradition as well as opera.
My feeling is that - in the United States - those things are sort of Charlie the Tuna things - which are there for patrons to be able to demonstrate that they have good taste.
Do European orchestras play along with ten and twenty year old movies that have had the orchestra scores removed from their soundtracks?
...but I've watched enough of the news to understand that European culture is dissolving as well...
... but - as long as people like this are around - we can enjoy them.
Do I like the B-flat tuba and the B&S F tuba?
damn right I do.
Re: I follow this guy's videos on facebook, because he and his low brass section are the sh!t.
Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2025 12:46 pm
by tubanh84
What an absolutely magnificent player. It's weird. As I get older, the more I appreciate how physically calm he stays while producing such a full, consistent tone. Could teach a masterclass just watching him.
Re: I follow this guy's videos on facebook, because he and his low brass section are the sh!t.
Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2025 2:43 pm
by bloke
tubanh84 wrote: Thu Nov 13, 2025 12:46 pm
What an absolutely magnificent player. It's weird. As I get older, the more I appreciate how physically calm he stays while producing such a full, consistent tone. Could teach a masterclass just watching him.
One of the regionals needs to bring him over (or - the international - when it's back in the US).
Does he need a translator?
Does "temporary immigrant" meet the diversity goals?
...so VERY much that American players need to see/hear...
Re: I follow this guy's videos on facebook, because he and his low brass section are the sh!t.
Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2025 6:43 pm
by bloke
a man after my own heart...R. Strauss played on bass tuba (and actually a good bass tuba)...
and played perfectly.
Re: I follow this guy's videos on facebook, because he and his low brass section are the sh!t.
Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2025 8:22 pm
by bort2.0
I'm not exactly sure "how," but the German trombone sections seem a lot different than the American sections. And not necessarily because of different instruments (maybe sometimes), but it seems like a darker and thicker kind of sound.
I have always believed that the "tuba sound" only really "works" when it works with the trombone section. Especially the bass trombone. For example, a 6/4 BAT needs a pretty abrasive bass trombone, and a kaiser BBb needs a bass trombone with more fullness and depth (because we can't both be farting our way through the loud parts).
Plus... If you transplanted this section into an American orchestra, it's not going to work so well there either.
Or, the music they play might sound funny, too.
Years back, I heard a German orchestra (or perhaps Austrian) play American music by Gershwin, Copland, and Bernstein (West Side Story). The playing was technically very fine, but for lack of a better way to describe it, the style and the sound was "efficient" and "official," and wasn't nearly the kind of New York-style playing that I'm used to hearing. The section sounds were just bigger and darker. It was amusing, but I don't think it was supposed to be amusing.
i would imagine same way that Wagner or Strauss performed by an American orchestra must appear to Germans as "our version of" their pieces.
Re: I follow this guy's videos on facebook, because he and his low brass section are the sh!t.
Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2025 8:33 pm
by bort2.0
Which is basically to say, this section playing sounds great on its own. But it sounds great in the orchestra because everyone else is playing similarly-different, and in a complementary way.
"I was a good driver in England, but now everyone is driving on the wrong side of the street."
Re: I follow this guy's videos on facebook, because he and his low brass section are the sh!t.
Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2025 9:22 pm
by bloke
I think they sound different because they're better.
Re: I follow this guy's videos on facebook, because he and his low brass section are the sh!t.
Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2025 10:20 pm
by Bob Kolada
6:38 here is fantastic. I've been on a giant German Bb binge lately and have been watching a lot of videos where I don't understand what the guy is saying.
Re: I follow this guy's videos on facebook, because he and his low brass section are the sh!t.
Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2025 10:42 pm
by bloke
Notice that he doesn't cock his head sideways nor make any other weird unnecessary movements when taking in air.
Re: I follow this guy's videos on facebook, because he and his low brass section are the sh!t.
Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2025 11:15 pm
by Bob Kolada
bloke wrote: Sun Nov 16, 2025 10:42 pm
Notice that he doesn't cock his head sideways nor mark any other weird unnecessary movements when taking in air.
They're all very efficient in breathing and staggering breaths during longer notes. The whole video is an excellent watch even if you don't speak German, by following his body language and sentence structure I was able to FF through a lot of the talking.
Re: I follow this guy's videos on facebook, because he and his low brass section are the sh!t.
Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2025 11:20 pm
by bloke
I learn about 99.99% from listening to great playing, and about .01% from rhetoric...even less from rhetoric I've not been taught to understand.
Re: I follow this guy's videos on facebook, because he and his low brass section are the sh!t.
Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2025 4:13 pm
by Casca Grossa
bloke wrote: Wed Nov 12, 2025 7:51 pm
Yeah. I like things that are in tune and resonant.
Life is short. When I listen to people playing excerpts, I try to listen to playing that is really worth listening to.
I have been listening to him for a while now. Absolutely fantastic.
Re: I follow this guy's videos on facebook, because he and his low brass section are the sh!t.
Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2025 2:51 am
by Tubeast
You might be interested in the horn he´s playing in these videos.
Yes, that´s a genuine carbon fiber Alex prototype F-tuba. And he says he used it on stage for a while.
Re: I follow this guy's videos on facebook, because he and his low brass section are the sh!t.
Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2025 8:18 am
by bloke
It's visually interesting, but - as with so many other similar videos - it's 99% chit chat and less than 1% playing, and the speakers that we generally use for listening to such videos don't offer us any ability to ascertain a difference between how tubas actually sound.
Alexander F tubas... They're fun to play, but - in order to reliably play them in tune - it's probably best to play them every day for hours. B&S doesn't fight the player so much.
