Are you using your F tuba to play anything other than gypsy violin solos these days?

[bloke]

I've never honestly found anyone who wants to pay me to play Gypsy violin solos on the tuba, but it seems like a whole bunch of tuba players are doing that, so they must have found a market somewhere.

My personal F tuba might be the best one there is anywhere. I haven't found a better one and I keep looking to see if there might be a better one...

But I'm playing it less and less.

If you're not a college student, not in a regularly hired brass quintet, yet own an F tuba that is a good one and easy to play, how often are you playing it in public?
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(I've actually been asked to play a couple of short tuba solos and the F instrument is best for the ones I've chosen. I considered playing a few Bach Cello suite movements on the contrabass, but I decided to not weird out people's ears...
...just as an explanation of what prompted the thread creation.

(A really large euphonium with a really large mouthpiece is probably a better instrument to cover the rarely performed ophicleide/serpent orchestral literature than an F tuba... and players can get by playing Brahms, Bruckner 4, Meistersinger (rarely performed, because Wagner triggers people) with contrabass tubas...so I'm starting to wonder about F tuba 21st century viability, particularly as orchestras are imploding in the US, as far as how often they schedule so-called classical concerts and what they pay the musicians.)

[arpthark]

My Alex F has been getting a lot of mileage lately with a klezmer band. Punchy enough to provide a nice bassline and then also lyrical enough to take a few of those Gypsy violin solos over the changes every now and then.

To answer your question, maybe once or twice a month or so, for a couple hours a pop.

[bloke]

My Alex F has been getting a lot of mileage lately with a klezmer band. Punchy enough to provide a nice bassline and then also lyrical enough to take a few of those Gypsy violin solos over the changes every now and then.

To answer your question, maybe once or twice a month or so, for a couple hours a pop.

That's a good point. I use F - exclusively - for polka band jobs, but in this part of the country I haven't been able to find a single competent accordion player that's either not dead or not in a nursing home... and October is just as busy for other types of live music jobs as it is for Oktoberfest music, and I tend to have to turn down Oktoberfest jobs, these days.

[Sousaswag]

I use mine all the time in Brass Band and very occasionally in my big concert band. I don’t play it nearly as much as my CC but it’s second for sure.

[russiantuba]

I am finding myself on the big horn more and more teaching tubas and working on fundamentals.

However, when I play the high parts in the pro tuba quartet I sometimes play with doing polkas and popular music, I use F. I also use F in brass quintets, and have frequently used it when playing Verdi works. Last spring, I was doing a tuba conference, and the week before I played Symphonie Fantastique and Sylvia (Delibes) . My CC got a couple week break.

If I am teaching kollij kiddos who are playing great solos or a ton of trombone/euph, I will bring the F tuba to keep it going.

Exact opposite for me than 10 years ago. My DMA professor kept telling me spend more time on the big horn since I did a ton on F. I see what he means now.

@bloke, I remember when your F was your only horn. Times change for both of us.

[spirtuba]

I know you're not going to believe me and I know you're not going to care, but the term Gypsy is considered offensive these days. I'm not going to delete or even edit this thread, but please avoid it in the future

[bloke]

I don't mind avoiding it.
... and I also believe you.

Like so many other woke and PC things, the substitutes displayed to me on the internet are confusing (and I very seriously doubt not just to me), as I just learned from using a search engine.

Apparently the substitutes are "Roma" and "Romani'...but how is anyone supposed to automatically know (who hasn't kept up with woke and PC stuff) that those words refer to the Romanian region vs. the Italian region...again: without using a search engine.

Please understand that I'm not griping and I'm absolutely glad to comply, but I'm also sort of chuckling - as I remember NBC national news reporters identifying a group of Frenchman (French nationals - born in France) of the black race ( not the correct name for that race, but probably another word that others wouldn't want used) as "African-Americans".

I think it's a lot like some people particularly in academia insisting on using the circa 1970 (semi-)coined word "tubist" - which only communicates what it is to those who already know what is is - therefore it's essentially a useless word. For some reason "tuba player" and "tubaist" just won't do anymore.

re: "tuba quartets"... along with tuba solos:
That sort of reinforces what I'm noticing about F tuba use: is that its place in America is mostly within academia, and hardly out in the professional performance music world.

bike-guy triggered in 1... 2...

[bloke]

Not sure why they wouldn't use the term "Romanian" over Romano or Roma, and yes you're right, if I see Roma, I'm thinking of Rome. (I'm going to be in Rome in 3 weeks)

[UncleBeer]

I stopped playing F about 10 years ago because it sounded & felt too . . . alto to me, even with a big mouthpiece. Doesn't put the roots on chords, and sounds way too much like all the other instruments in a brass quintet. No gravitas.

Eb suits me way better for bass tuba; can fulfill many more roles successfully.

[LeMark]

I've never played F tuba outside of elephant rooms. Played an incredibly nimble piggy for decades, and when I went to a larger CC, got into Eb tuba. Now I'm strictly a BBb /Eb guy.

[tofu]

My Alex F has been getting a lot of mileage lately with a klezmer band. Punchy enough to provide a nice bassline and then also lyrical enough to take a few of those Gypsy violin solos over the changes every now and then.

To answer your question, maybe once or twice a month or so, for a couple hours a pop.

That's a good point. I use F - exclusively - for polka band jobs, but in this part of the country I haven't been able to find a single competent accordion player that's either not dead or not in a nursing home... and October is just as busy for other types of live music jobs as it is for Oktoberfest music, and I tend to have to turn down Oktoberfest jobs, these days.

Weird isn't it how the accordion was huge in the 1940’s - 1950’s - into the early 60’s and then just fell off the cliff becoming more of a joke punchline. People back in the day lined up to take lessons. My dad’s cousin was a superb accordion player in the 1950’s and in the accordion hall of fame (yeah I had no idea either that even existed until someone mentioned it to me).

One of my childhood buddies who lived on the end of the block dad had a big music shop in town. One day in the early seventies he brought maybe 8-10 accordions home and dumped them out on the front parkway for garbage pickup. I presume at that point they were unsellable and probably had been sitting unsold in his shop for years. I wanted to grab one - they were beautiful, but dad said no - something about the reeds being bad. My dad’s cousin was also a fine pianist and after the accordion hey day made most of his money from the piano until all the recording business in Chicago dried up and moved out to the west coast. Then in the 1980’s all the lounges & those music gigs disappeared. After that he basically survived by being a handyman. I did do the occasional polka gig with him back in the 1990’s - good fun. He’s been gone for 25 years. I thought the advent of interest in zydeco and cajun music along with bluegrass might spur more interest in people taking up the instrument, but haven’t seen much evidence of that.

[bloke]

Without resorting to searching St louis, I can't find an accordion player - not even without the adjectives "competent' nor "amazing" in front of the word "accordion" - who isn't in a nursing home or passed away.

I worked with an amazing one until he got really sick about a decade ago and then passed away eventually. He was very stubborn, held on, and played barely beyond when he should have.

Those who know what the Ted Mack Amateur Hour was back in the 1950s and 1960s know that you had to be really good to get on that television competition, which is the same as those reality shows today of which there are several. Back then it was the only one, and he made it to that show. ' probably played Lady of Spain or some such...
... but this same person also taught vocal lessons and he taught Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. Her parents brought her all the way to Memphis to be taught by him.
The nice thing about working Dixieland or polka jobs with him was that he played all the right bass notes and all the right passing chords.
I might as well name him: Bob Westbrook
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/co ... id=7874138

Postscript: Memphis had a completely dedicated to accordion music store called Central Academy of Music. By the mid or late 60s it was forced rent violins and sell a few guitars and drums and some school band instruments. They had a Gretsch guitar and drum franchise, and Gretsch brought in Couesnon and Lafayette brass and woodwinds from France for their combo dealers to rent to school children... inexpensive stuff. By the end of the '80s, that store was closed down because the owner passed away.

[donn]

The names are similar by coincidence.

Romania is so named because it was a province of Rome back in the day (Dacia.) Romanian is a Romance language like Spanish and Italian.

Romani comes from rom which like many people's names for themselves, just means "man" in their Indo-Aryan language.

Compounding the coincidence, there are plenty of Roma musicians in Romania, but also in Serbia and Macedonia. The music can be pretty hairy stuff. And other areas in Europe, notably Spain (flamenco.)

The UK looked into nomenclature, and found some communities that hated to be called "Gypsy" and others who insist on it.
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I had the impression the accordion is back, in the US. Not so much because zydeco or norteño or whatever that use various diatonic squeezeboxes, but regular chromatic piano accordions. I was seeing them in the hands of younger people playing small bands with some strings, a clarinet, maybe a saw, with a sort of mix of klesmer and folk music.

They never died in Europe, though it isn't a huge thing. Here they have their own kind of diatonic noise-maker, and chromatic accordions that have buttons instead of a piano keyboard.

It's kind of a stupid instrument. I can say that, because I have one and sort of know how to play it. The reeds really do go bad, in various ways, and accordions take a lot of finicky work to keep working not much worse than factory. Half of it is devoted to chords and bass notes, that many players simply don't use because they're in a band that does that stuff; others actually play the band's bass, using MIDI or other ways to make the accordion into a sort of electric organ. The sound ... whatever you think of it, there's very little the player can do to affect it. And it's heavy. Old guys with accordions laugh at you guys weeping about your heavy sousaphone (which I'm sorry does not weigh anywhere near 50 lbs.) A 24 pounder is advertised as light.

[bloke]

there are plenty of Roma musicians in Romania, but also in Serbia and Macedonia.

Thanks for reinforcing my observations.
Just as with "tuba player", I'm now going to only (do I refer to it as the G word?) use it in verbal communication, so - at least then - people will know what the hell I'm talking about...

bloke "Something tells me that the only people who aren't offended by that word - as well as the only people who have permission to use that word - are actual G's."

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I had to pull my F tuba out this week, because I was actually asked to play a little solo, or did I already mention that in the first post in the thread?

[the elephant]

I'm pretty basic. I don't own a cimbasso (though I hope to build one soon), and I don't even own a euphonium. I can play both Eb and BBb with some facility but don't own either.

I play all of my MSO quintet contract and about 20% of my MSO orchestra contract on my F tuba. I play about 80% of my MSO orchestra contract on my Holton and Yamaha CC tubas and never play CC in quintet. I play with another brass quintet with a contract, and use F there, as well. I freelance and teach almost exclusively on the 186.

So that works out to about half of my work being on the bass.

[bloke]

That makes a lot of sense.
Gigs and playing patterns probably very with me over time more than with other players.
Like I pointed out, I'd given up on the bass guitar, offered my crazy good one with an amazing neck up for sale, someone said they'd buy it, but they haven't made it here to pay for it, and suddenly I'm playing it again.

As far as the G word becoming a new bad word, I've done some more investigation on the internet and apparently if it's used to describe music it's still cool, but it's not cool to describe it as people. @LeMark, I'm not trying to stir up any trouble, but look around the web like I did (since you got me curious) and see if it looks the same way to you. ... I think it's sort of like it's okay to say "Negro spirituals", but apparently not okay to refer to someone as a Negro... All thos stuff has become really complicated.
There's actually a wiki article - though very truncated - on G music, and the article itself doesn't suggest not describing the music in that way though it does refer to those other confusing Rom... words.

[daktx2]

I will say, as an amateur in a pretty good community orchestra, I find myself picking my F tuba more than most American pros would. I'm probably 60/40 C vs F, for 2 main reasons:

1) Most amateur brass sections, especially the higher brass, cannot produce the volumes that that professionals can while maintaining sound quality. I am lucky to play with people who aren't willing to sound bad, and therefore balancing the section requires a whole lot less noise to keep up with. The trombone section also plays smaller equipment than most pros do, so sonority wise, a big C can kinda stick out (in fact I just downsized my C).

2) I am very much not in as good chops shape as I was as a college player, and it shows most in the high range. To make the point with an example, I regularly see pros use contrabass tubas for Till Eulenspegiel and Die Meistersinger and sound great. I'll admit it here, there's no way I could execute either of those consistently, cleanly, and in tune on a contrabass tuba today. The high register security and easy intonation up there that I get with my F tuba would be essential.

This is all 100% dependent on the fact that my F tuba is really, really nice.

[bloke]

@daktx2

It looks like you have a really good F tuba, as do I.

I would always play those pieces you mentioned on my F tuba, were they to be programmed... particularly since I have this instrument here and most of those parts say "BASS Tuba" at the top of page one.

I was hired for a half season with Memphis (as I have been in the past for single concerts, portions of seasons or complete seasons) a couple of years ago. They programmed the entire Midsummernight's Dream thing, including all the movements and The Wedding March and all that jazz. Of course, the Overture is the only really good piece in the set which - ironically - he wrote separately, when he was much younger.
Had it been programmed by one of my own freeway philharmonics, I would have played it on euphonium, but I don't want to create a stir when I'm standing in, so I played it on F tuba. The thing is that they recorded it and I listened to it and it sounded just about right on F tuba.

The last time I did the Berlioz Fantastic Symphony (which is programmed often, because music directors like standing ovations) I did play the first part on a euphonium. It sure made a hell of a lot more sense. I did use a really large euphonium and pushed it, because today's orchestras are so loud...BUT (sidebar) way too many tuba players ruin the potentially scary effect of the Dies Irae by playing those dotted half notes about ten times as loud as they should be played. It's supposed to be eerie...not annoying.

Addressing a post just above, I don't expect everyone to have a contrabass valve trombone ("cimbasso"). We all play what we have. I'm lucky to have one, and particularly lucky to have one that works really well and which doesn't sound like a foghorn.

I think I've gotten completely past it seeming weird to me that I no longer play tubas in C and only on B flat, E flat, and F instruments, and I think I've moved away from C instruments just enough that "thinking about playing a C instrument again" seems sort of weird.
I know this is really redundant, but there are quite a few European-composed excerpts for the contrabass tuba which are quite a bit easier on a B flat instrument, once the player becomes accustomed to it and becomes accustomed to the button mashing. Believe it or not, even B major is more manageable, as long as it's a really good instrument...

... The E flat instrument playing is sort of parenthetical, as I've explained too many times here. Yes I can read and play E flat and yes I can read changes in play E flat, it's not automatic as with the others...not at all. If I'm doing either of those with an E flat instrument, I'm thinking, and I'm usually not thinking when I'm reading and playing any of the others, but just reading/playing... autopilot-ish I'd MUCH rather just play "songs that I know" with E flat instruments, which is mostly what I do with them.

OK...
All the sudden I'm playing bass guitar again somewhat regularly (after having decided that I would never be playing it again), so after starting this thread, watch some gung ho somebody form up some brass quintet, recruit me, and round up a bunch of gigs...and - suddenly - I'll be eating my words about the diminishing use of the F tuba.

[the elephant]

… way too many tuba players ruin … the Dies Irae by playing those dotted half notes about ten times as loud as they should be played.

A lot of those Practice Room Jockeys do not study their scores enough to know that the two tubas are supposed to balance and blend with the bassoon section. To not do so is to be a bit of a Musical Dim Bulb.

These are frequently the same guys who call the Mahler 1 canon a "solo" when it is a TRIO and also must be balanced and blended with two others who can properly execute a piano indication.

These are the type of people who help keep the left hands of conductors in good shape.

[The Brute Squad]

I'm probably 95% C 5% F these days (being generous on the 5%) since I only play in a community orchestra. Most recently played it in our previous concert (for Var. XI in Enigma).

If I played in a band, I'd probably play it more.