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LOL...
I worked really hard to keep the pitch down to A=440 when practicing this at home...
...but I should NOT have, because:

- very warm stage (small, close quarters, and this was most of the way through the concert)
- low range bassoons

www wrote:The low range of the bassoon—particularly notes from low D to F#—has a strong tendency to play sharp. While low notes are physically difficult to produce, they often require a loose embouchure, low air pressure, and proper voicing (e.g., using "hoo" or "who" vowel sounds) to keep pitch down and avoid sharp tones.

Hey...I was responsible for finding whatever the "average" or "most predominant tuning" was, and playing roughly in that pitch area...and (I'd wager my tuba that) my tuning with MYSELF was just as flawed as my tuning with the low-range bassoons.

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxRc_VErAReM ... wghMBwD93q

Very nice!!!

Good job. (Although I was hoping to see your Symphonie in action.) I know, it works better on euph, but I'm crazy.

A Yamaha 321 euphonium is almost as small as a French tuba.

Sounds good, no fuss, straight to the point, not making a big deal of the high G#.

i.e., you hear a lot of players play the C#-G# as:

boo-WHEEEP!

Yup bit of a pancake there but you didn't miss any notes, either. And like arpthark said, no boo-WHEEP. I kind of like a bit of boo-WHEEP, but I'm weird.

Mary Ann wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2026 11:25 am Yup bit of a pancake there but you didn't miss any notes, either. And like arpthark said, no boo-WHEEP. I kind of like a bit of boo-WHEEP, but I'm weird.

Tupelo, Mississippi is up-and-coming with a huge Toyota plant, the world's largest furniture manufacturing facilities, related industries, other manufacturing, and several community colleges, daily flights to/from Dallas and Nashville (as well as a bit of tourism, and a pretty decent climate, as well as a being a crossroads of US-45 and I-22), but the population of "Greater Tupelo" is only about 140K and the city/town itself is only about 40K.

Players drive from considerable distances, and the pay is only a few hundred dollars per concert. I believe the rehearsals scheduled in the very short time are considered to be about as many (combined with long travel time, which is more exhausting than that to which some will admit) as the players should be asked to play. I only live about 1-1/2 hours away (with no traffic issues), and don't even stay overnight (hotels - from ★ to ★★★★★ - are gross), but others (see map) come from considerable distances and the pay (unless bumped up considerably more) doesn't automatically draw the best players from the cities seen in the pictures. (Oddly, Tupelo's growth seems to have stagnated, in spite of these factors...and we all know that "interest in symphonic music" is VERY MUCH on the wane.) When there are truly remarkable players, they either just REALLY want to play OR they happen to live closer to Tupelo. I honestly have no idea how long this little orchestra will continue (??)

A post script, we all need to come to the realization that what the Fed did to our currency in the early 2020s caused most things that we regularly purchase to cost roughly double, and that includes housing in many high density population areas...so not only is the money paid these musicians worth less (worthless?), but it's more difficult for all but the wealthy to consider purchasing tickets for events and such as these, whereby most people stay home, though admittedly I still see tremendous numbers of people wasting tremendous amounts of money on things such as luxurious levels of phone service, nearly new cars, $$$ fast food as dinner on the way home every single night, incredibly expensive television subscriptions, fancy vacations, and so forth. I'm not claiming that aren't extremely large percentage of people aren't far more childish than they were in the past.


Only Ole Miss (University of Mississippi - faculty, graduate students, and perhaps some gifted undergraduate students) is "conveniently" close to Tupelo:

It’s always frustrating trying to find the pitch playing with an amateur orchestra. There’s some very flat notes in the solo, but the bassoons are playing quite sharp like you said. I noticed later on the first violins are a mile sharp too. It’s a minefield. Good on you for posting some not so flattering playing. I think this would be much easier with a better orchestra.

JC2 wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2026 6:48 pm It’s always frustrating trying to find the pitch playing with an amateur orchestra. There’s some very flat notes in the solo, but the bassoons are playing quite sharp like you said. I noticed later on the first violins are a mile sharp too. It’s a minefield. Good on you for posting some not so flattering playing. I think this would be much easier with a better orchestra.

Explaining a deficiency always sounds like making excuses...
so here goes:

I had the whole thing worked out really well at standard pitch, and I suspect that's where the flattest pictures I was playing were located. The ones that were higher were probably when I was able to hear some semblance of a tonal center (you'll notice that it mostly sounds like growling... though I believe that's actually the desired effect) and pushed the pitch up without even thinking about it.

Even with some pretty good orchestras, just for fun sometimes I turn my tuner on and it sort of gets an aggregate tuning sound particularly when an orchestra is playing a major chord... It's not unusual for some regularly working orchestras to be up around where some of the European orchestras - in the past - traditionally tuned (quite high)...particularly later on in a rehearsal.

It was luxurious playing in an orchestra called the IRIS Orchestra (which folded during covid and now it's (what do they call it, when something keeps the same name but is heavily downgraded...?? - oh yeah:) "reimagined" as the IRIS Collective (chamber music concerts with a lot of people of various identifiable backgrounds)...

... because the pitch (back when it was an orchestra) was always right around 440, and would stay there... incredible strings (the music director could get them to play through very technically challenging passages with different kinds of phrasing and volume and bowings immediately upon request - as different trials for how they were going to praise in the concert, and they could immediately do it as if he had simply dropped a quarter in a machine.) sometimes I would get distracted in my measure counting, because some of the performances sounded better than any recordings that I had referenced. Michael Stern was the music director.
I remember one concert where Joshua Bell was the guest soloist and Michael talked him into serving as concertmaster to play Scheherazade at the end of the concert (instead of being shuttled off to the airport before intermission). Michael asked Joshua for bowings for the violins. Joshua's answer - according to Michael - was "No. I'll give them to them during the first rehearsal or two."

any orchestra:
I'm glad to play. Everyone always does their best, and some of us (certainly myself in this category) are more flawed than others.




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