What did you play today?

[arpthark]

Woodshedding Ives on the borrowed 5/4 Rudi CC:

[humBell]

About time i finally sort out octaves and string bass fingerings for the fast tuba parts of Hammersmith (and also the other pieces in the concert, too)

Oh, played final (dress?) rehearsal tonight before concert, so really i shoulda done this when we first got the music...

I'm as amateur as they come.

ps. I busked a smidge, too, which means the eclectic amalgamation of camp songs, folk songs, excerpts and hymns what have wormed their way into my ear, and i've taken the time to sound out fingerings.

[tadawson]

One of the more odd things I've played . . . we did a first read of "Symphony #1 in Memoriam Dresden 1945" last night . . .

[arpthark]

Thanks to @MG I've been reunited with the Bobo "Mastering the Tuba" book (autographed copy to boot!) which has some really demanding exercises in it and is sort of a tour-de-force of things on the tuba that I've been neglecting since college. I've been using selected excerpts as a daily routine the past week or so, and I've noticed a definite improvement in my playing. Trying to smooth out the entire range between G below the staff and G above the staff on CC tuba, and the same thing transferred to F tuba (C below the staff to "double C" above the bass clef). Things are speaking easier and it's working to iron out some quirks and bad habits that I've developed.

[MG]

Well that makes my day. I’ll let Vince know that it’s going to good use. Someday I’ll tell you the story of how we got autograph copies and my Roger Bobo “first sushi” experience. Glad you are enjoying.

[jtm]

the West Side Story dance suite, wind band arrangement, on trombone. Performance will be Sunday.

18 months of recreational dilettante trombone playing did not prepare me for this.

[Bassboner]

Yesterday was trombone quartet playing bass bone. That's a workout. I never practice the bass bone, but some of the quartet charts are fairly difficult, especially if I don't practice.

I am an "adult mentor" for a local college band, and we played a commencement rehearsal today. Lots of std commencement fare. Playing lead bone. There are no students playing any low brass at all.

And then tonight I practiced the tuba a little. Just playing tunes out of the Real Book, trying to refine my reading down an octave and finger technique (which as a bone player, I have none). I find tuba really just relaxes my chops. I'll be ready to play tuba instead of euph this year at Tuba Christmas, and my annual tuba gig (because someone in this area has me listed as a tuba player ?!?!?!?) will probably be on a real tuba instead of a "tenor tuba" euph.

Tomorrow is a quintet rehearsal on small bone. Trying to pull together 20-30 cheesy love songs for a wedding in a couple of weeks.

This weekend will be back on lead bone for the commencement ceremony. Stomp and Circumcise endurance fest...

[bloke]

I'll need to run through several pop tunes tomorrow before the gig tomorrow night (electric bass) which feature fast notes and repetitive licks. Repetitivism in pop music is challenging to me. It's hard to remember how many times to play this lick and how many times to play that lick (over the same chord changes, and only barely altered).

I've got the band director band concert coming up on Monday, so I had better look at those pieces. I'm covering some contrabassoon cues in an eastern European/yiddish-sounding multi-movement piece which are runs of 32nd notes. I just want them to be nice and clean. There's also some multi-movement band symphony called "The Blue Marble" (obviously about the creation of the earth and the formation of life). The last movement of it has places where someone (like me) can step in holes and look stupid. With those added to the other pieces, it's sort of an endurance test (as was the recent John Williams orchestra concert I played out of town) (As always - prior to the Monday band concert, I'll be combining tasks. On the way to the 'sound check' next Monday, I'll be returning a repaired sousaphone to one school and a repaired tuba to another.)

bloke "Band concerts have these things called 'sound checks', because the dress rehearsals always seem to feature too many clams and misfires, so they have yet another dress rehearsal just before their concerts, which they call a 'sound check'."

[prodigal]

One of the more odd things I've played . . . we did a first read of "Symphony #1 in Memoriam Dresden 1945" last night . . .

I played bass trombone on this. The low D was fun.

[tubatodd]

I had a performance with Celebration Winds. We played several pieces including Porgy and Bess, Mil Estrellas (Spanish march), Hands Across the Sea, ConnectUS and Emperata Overture, among others. I got to play the 4 bar exposed solo in Emperata. Overall the concert was decent.

[arpthark]

I don't expect to ever play it in public, but I've been revisiting the Bozza Concertino lately as an exercise for improving F tuba flexibility. There are some really byzantine/finger-bending passages in it that require not only good dexterity/lip-training but some demanding ear-training as well.

[bort2.0]

I had a performance with Celebration Winds. We played several pieces including Porgy and Bess, Mil Estrellas (Spanish march), Hands Across the Sea, ConnectUS and Emperata Overture, among others. I got to play the 4 bar exposed solo in Emperata. Overall the concert was decent.

I haven't played (and probably haven't heard) Emperata Overture since college 25 years ago, but I can still hear it in my head and could probably play it right now with no music.

Never particularly liked it, it was one of those old dusty classic wind ensemble pieces from the 60s, that brings about all the good times of endless rehearsals in hot rooms with angry conductors.

[prairieboy1]

Yesterday's playing was spent polishing the music for my Monday night Community Concert Band. Our part of a three band performance will be held on Sunday, May 10th at 2 pm in the theatre of Holy Cross High School here in Saskatoon. The program will include an intermediate band, a beginner band and our band to close out the performance. Our selections are:
Baba Yetu-Christopher Tin
Blue Tango-Leroy Anderson
The Lion King-Arranged by John Higgins
Poeme-Todd Stalter
Semper Fidelis-Sousa, arranged by Andrew Balent
The rehearsing is just on several little spots. The woodshedding was done much earlier and this program is now ready to go. My Holton "Mammoth" is the tuba of choice for my rehearsing of all my band music at home. If it is played well and sounds good on the Holton it will be terrific on the King 2341!

[bloke]

I got through that spring band director band concert on Monday night that I've talked about from time to time.
It's directed by a major university head band director, and I think it's sort of 50% for his own fun and gratification and 50% to keep a whole bunch of band directors close, which is clever. (Not everyone in the ensemble is a band director, but a considerable percentage are.)

I posted this spring concert repertoire list somewhere else on this site. Nothing was easy (okay, we played Sousa's "Hands Across the Sea" to open up the second half, which is easy). It was music that featured quite a few solos in most of the pieces - two of which were multi-movement, and one of which had a 12-page long tuba part, with another having an 8-page tuba part). I step back in this three-person tuba section and just be "the guy who sits at the end". There was actually an extended muted section (mostly bass lines) that featured a little solo and I didn't even bother to bring a mute to the rehearsals or the concert, because I figured with the other two of them muted, me taceting that entire section, and one of them playing the solo would be just fine.

That said, that music required a tremendous amount of concentration and the range (I'm thinking in one piece alone) was from B flat at the top of the staff to the rarely written double low B flat. That really low B flat was written in octaves, and - as far as written octaves in the various pieces were concerned - The other two fellas were delighted for me to be responsible for the lower octave pitches, seemingly, and I was delighted to take them.

The Miraphone 98 loves the double-low B flat, does NOT have that tendency to ride sharp -:as with so many instruments, and I can play it with ease/control and do the seven beat diminuendo from fortissimo to pianissimo which was written under that pitch in that piece. It was fun to do that - particularly when given specific permission to do so.

These concerts feature four Monday rehearsals followed up by a Monday evening concert. They're only in November and April/May.
Each concert seems to attract more patrons, even though there is an (albeit fairly modest) ticket price. It's held in a pretty large concert hall, whereby 250 or 300 people don't look like very many.

The summer (as with most of you, correct?) the gigs will be less, which gives me more uninterrupted time to deal with summer repairs. That oldies/jazz/country/pop combo I've been working with (mostly electric bass) will have a few jobs, I'm sure I'll get a few random church jobs. I don't do 4th of July if it's outdoors (which most of those are, there is a church that does it in their huge sanctuary, and I might hope to get called for that one. If they do it, it will be me that they call). As far as the outdoor ones are concerned it's too far to walk - regardless of where and whom, and the temperatures are always in the 90s. Also, the only instrument I have that really gets the sound out to the patrons outdoors is the recording bell 3-valve compensating Besson B flat, and that one is sort of top heavy as well as side heavy. It sounds wonderful, but I really can't hear the wonderful sound (being behind the bell), and I'm continuously having to hold the thing up.

[Baltic_Vintage_Vault]

Played my BBb Orpheus today. Love the low register on these instruments!

[Mary Ann]

Yesterday I played the cello on the English Horn part in a woodwind quartet. We had a clarinet playing the 1st oboe part (he can transpose,) a flute on the 2nd oboe part, and a real live bassoonist.
Since I read F transposition as a clef, it doesn't matter what instrument I play it on.

[gocsick]

It's the start of street band season! Played a gig at a local art gallery open house. Had an absolutely stinker of a 32 bar solo . it started bad and quickly went downhill. Super frustrating because I usually nail that one... Nothing wierd either.. just diatonic chords in F .... F, Bb, Dm, A7, C ... On the upside the audience was all of about 5 people.

Youngblood Brass Band... I hope

[prairieboy1]

Last polish of the above mentioned pieces for tomorrow's concert. This will conclude our season for this particular band. A great group of enthusiastic folks and a very talented conductor make this an easy choice to participate in!

[prairieboy1]

Last polish of the above mentioned pieces for tomorrow's concert. This will conclude our season for this particular band. A great group of enthusiastic folks and a very talented conductor make this band an easy choice to participate in!

[prairieboy1]

A terrific concert this afternoon. Our band played last on the program and certainly rose to the occasion! Excellent dynamics and paying attention to all the little details really made things go extremely smoothly. A full house with a very appreciative audience and a very pleased conductor at the conclusion of our portion of the program. A very positive ending to our concert season for 2025-2026.