Tuba-euphonium ensemble rep

[arpthark]

Exciting news in this little corner of Connecticut -- after a few months of planning and working closely with the leadership of my local community band (who knew liability insurance is such a hurdle?), I have been given the go-ahead to start a community tuba-euphonium ensemble as an offshoot of the broader band. As I begin to plan rehearsals, one of my main focuses (along with recruitment and outreach) is getting rep to play and building the ensemble's library.

I have a lot of my own arrangements and things I played in college, and my fellow UK alum (35 years removed) @Jperry1466 very generously provided a lot of popular tunes, as well. But I wanted to pick the brain of this forum -- do you have any favorites? Old chestnuts I may be forgetting? Crowd-pleasers? Nothing too acrobatic or atonal, but we have some strong players in the band and locally, and we could handle some more difficult rep.

Any recommedations or favorites, please let me know below and I will check them out. My instict is to build a mix of traditional tuba/euph ensemble repertoire and popular music/light classical arrangements. Thanks!

[Mary Ann]

Ditto here! I have managed to put together a TE quartet for this summer, and am also looking for TE4tet music. Any references, especially if not expensive, quite welcome. Digitized and emailed especially welcome.

We had one quite a few years ago, and the guy who had all the music moved to Florida and took it with him, including expensive pieces others had paid for. I just popped close to $100 buying some to play, but I can't afford to build an entire library.

Edit: Other tuba, who has lived in his large house for decades, said he finally looked in the right place and the guy who absconded did so with only his own arrangements, and the rest is still around. So we think we now (thanks, Jim) have enough to occupy us for quite a while. The remaining fly in the ointment is that person has a truly wonderful space to play in, but his wife does not like to have to listen to it. My house has "a" room but it would quite loud with tile floors. The euphs, I haven't asked them yet. At least we are all on the same general side of town and nobody will have to drive an hour.

[rollo]

The Clarinet Institue of Los Angeles has a Tuba music archive that is focused on solo lit, but has quite a few tuba/euph quartets included as well:

https://www.clarinetinstitute.com/store ... hives.html

They also have a brass quintet archive that includes quite a few quartets if someone was willing to rearrange those. Maybe not what you're looking for, but for the price you get a lot to choose from!

[graybach]

Norlan Bewley’s “Runabout”

Jon Oliver’s arrangement of Michael Kamen’s “Robin Hood Fanfare”

Wabash Cannonball

Baby Elephant Walk

All fun pieces for players and audience

If you like jazz, there are arrangements of “Chameleon,” “Shaft,” “Take Five,” “Boogie Down,” “Mack the Knife,” and a lot more

[Jperry1466]

Ditto here! I have managed to put together a TE quartet for this summer, and am also looking for TE4tet music. Any references, especially if not expensive, quite welcome. Digitized and emailed especially welcome.

@Mary Ann If you will private message me, I can send a list of our library that we use for our Tuba-Euphonium 4tet/5tet. We have purchased some stuff in the past, but the local university tuba teacher and I found that the stuff we write works and fits our group a little better. And we don't charge for our own arrangements.

[tofu]

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[bloke]

I'm probably willing to hear most tuba quartet music whereby the harmonies are widely-spaced, the harmonies are not written as if they they are treble-clef voiced, and - when played - the top volume levels are conservative. (Strum a G-major chord on an electric bass as hard as you can, and you'll immediate grasp what I would prefer to not hear - which, sadly, is heard all to frequently in tuba quartet music.)

grinding harmonies.png (34.06 KiB) Viewed 1570 times

[Jim Williams]

Norlan Bewley has a wonderful collection of quartets. www.bewleymusic.com

[Jperry1466]

I'm probably willing to hear most tuba quartet music whereby the harmonies are widely-spaced, the harmonies are not written as if they they are treble-clef voiced, and - when played - the top volume levels are conservative. (Strum a G-major chord on an electric bass as hard as you can, and you'll immediate grasp what I would prefer to not hear - which, sadly, is heard all to frequently in tuba quartet music.)

I learned about wide spacing when doing some arranging at Kentucky, and even more so from singing with and writing for our church men's choir. As far as TE ensemble, low thirds do NOT work. The lowest third between Tuba 2 and 1 that might work is Bb2-D3, and even that can be a little iffy. Best practice is to keep tuba 2 below F2 and tuba 1 above C3. Tuba parts work best at least a 5th apart. Euphoniums are not as critical; they can even do the occasional dissonance as long as they are above the staff. Just my take on it, but I do agree with you.

[arpthark]

Norlan Bewley’s “Runabout”

Jon Oliver’s arrangement of Michael Kamen’s “Robin Hood Fanfare”

Wabash Cannonball

Baby Elephant Walk

All fun pieces for players and audience

If you like jazz, there are arrangements of “Chameleon,” “Shaft,” “Take Five,” “Boogie Down,” “Mack the Knife,” and a lot more

I believe I was an eighth grader or freshman in high school at Stephen Foster Music Camp at Eastern Kentucky University and played Wabash Cannonball for my first-ever tuba ensemble experience. It was a lot of fun then, and even now listening to it, that piece is actually pretty fun now.

The jazz stuff is actually a decent possibility as the band has a very fine jazz percussionist and it would be neat to put together a collaboration with a rhythm section, even if it is just the drumset. I don't know if the arrangements you mentioned are available commercially, but the TTU recordings are definitely an inspiration when searching for good tuba ensemble rep.

[arpthark]

I'm probably willing to hear most tuba quartet music whereby the harmonies are widely-spaced, the harmonies are not written as if they they are treble-clef voiced, and - when played - the top volume levels are conservative. (Strum a G-major chord on an electric bass as hard as you can, and you'll immediate grasp what I would prefer to not hear - which, sadly, is heard all to frequently in tuba quartet music.)

I learned about wide spacing when doing some arranging at Kentucky, and even more so from singing with and writing for our church men's choir. As far as TE ensemble, low thirds do NOT work. The lowest third between Tuba 2 and 1 that might work is Bb2-D3, and even that can be a little iffy. Best practice is to keep tuba 2 below F2 and tuba 1 above C3. Tuba parts work best at least a 5th apart. Euphoniums are not as critical; they can even do the occasional dissonance as long as they are above the staff. Just my take on it, but I do agree with you.

Agree 100%. The best teacher is experience, and my early attempts at writing for tuba-euph informed my later attempts.

If you've studied (or, like me, taught belligerent college students) SATB chorale-style part-writing, voice leading, and species counterpoint, a lot of the same principles apply. But we can get a bit more leeway with parallel fifths and things like that. I don't think Bach will rise out of his grave and smite us.

[tokuno]

British Tuba Quartet plays fun charts. Pop Suite is commercially available. Maybe others, too.

[arpthark]

bump

[bone-a-phone]

I run a trombone 4tet, and we borrow some TE stuff. There's no reason you can't borrow some bone stuff. 1st tuba may need good upper range.

Some recommendations:

- Elkjer has a lot of stuff, but not free. Not simple.
- Tuba Peter has an online site with a lot of free stuff.
-Musescore has a lot of stuff, and allows you to use other pieces as a starting point for your own arrangements. Buy a membership for best results. I've made extensive use of this for quartet and quintet.

[scottw]

Dave Werden has some really terrific T-E arrangements. Highly recommended.

Here is what he has from just the Cimmaron site: https://www.cimarronmusic.com/catalogse ... vid+werden

[Rick Denney]

Get in touch with Ray Grim (@TubaRay). He has built a substantial library of music for the TubaMeisters in San Antonio, including polkas but also with stuff from all genres. All of it is designed for pleasing crowds and none of it (specifically) for pleasing college composition majors or their professors. It is also designed to sound good with decent players who are standing, moving around, and dealing with crowd interactions, not to show off technical prowess in a recital. Meaning: It's easier to play than it sounds.

Some of it is published by Cimarron--I think specifically a book of polkas--but most of it is not.

Ray fully understands the avoidance of mud, and doesn't write thirds below about the middle of the staff. Ideal instrumentation from my perspective is two euphs, bass tuba, and contrabass tuba. But the bass tuba can be a contrabass if the player has strong high chops and a tuba that has a lot of clarity. A lot of sits near the top of the staff in the upper tuba part.

Rick "https://thetubameisters.com/" Denney

[graybach]

Gail Robertson’s arrangements for tuba/euphonium ensemble are very fun and very doable. They are not too hard, and not too easy.
You should be able to find them at Cimarron Music if you’re interested.

https://www.cimarronmusic.com/brass/tub ... anger=1700