Tubas, euphoniums, mouthpieces, and anything music-related.
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The Jackson (Tennessee) Symphony Orchestra...
from a concert a couple of weeks ago - absolutely determined to have a season this year…reduced strings...only one bassoon...a very difficult performing situation - with the brass w-a-y up in a balcony, with trumpets, trombones, and tuba on one side and horns way on the other side. The chorus‘ parts were covered by the pipe organ.
The tuba solo that we all enjoy playing in this piece starts just a bit before 2:00.
For the equipment geeks, It’s a first-batch M-W 5450 with a Sellmansberger Symphony cup economy/student mouthpiece with a P shank and a #2 profile Profundo rim.
This tuba collected dust (Did some of yours?) for several months…
Mrs. bloke wrote:Are you ever going to practice your tuba again?
I was still working the valves back in during the single rehearsal we had for this concert. Admittedly, I put off looking at this concert's music until – well… – the rehearsal.
Is it:
"We're playing, dammit!" (At any cost, we are playing!)
Or
"We're playing. Dammit." (We are playing, and have to make these accomodations, I didn't practice, horn was dusty, etc.)
I realize the answer is likely "both", because you are a clever fox. But still...
It's been decades since I put the guitar under the bed, and began practicing the tuba instead.
The tuba is an ensemble instrument, whereas the guitar is mechanically capable of accompanying itself.
It's not much fun practicing on the tubas, when there are no prospects for going out into the world and using them to play music.
Further, I've found other ways to entertain myself...mostly: realizing a whole bunch of talked-about-for-a-long-time epic projects (here on the property, projects which - ultimately - will make this place even more desirable to prospective buyers, someday) with only Mrs. bloke's help - while striving to spend as little money as possible to realize them, and using as many recycled materials as possible.
Now that I've actually been contracted for a few paid performances again (namely: a generous-paying graveside jazz band funeral, a string of donor-targeted neighborhood orchestra brass quintet *concerts, an actual orchestra season which is - apparently - actually happening, and - next month - a little Vaughan Williams tuba solo with a brass choir...so far), I've just begun picking these instruments back up (at home) and messing with them a bit...so the demonstrated-by-others prospects of being able to use the tubas, again, has just begun encouraging me to play them at home, again. ...' clear?
Finally...(lucky...?? I have no idea), I have never found that I really have to "sustain" abilities to play instruments. I've always been able to stow them away (sometimes, for several months), pull them back out, and find that I sound the same and can do the same...I may not (??) be able to do it for as many continuous minutes, and the skin around my lips may not be as tough, but (again) I can always still do it.
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*Last night's brass quintet concert - played on the front stoop of a mansion...overlooking other mansions - reportedly raised $20,000 for the orchestra, just fwiw...so that made me feel as though I actually accomplished something...and while obtaining a bit of income for myself, as well. I love playing music, but I've never (not even in my teens) striven to improve my musical crafts "for the love of it". I've always done it with the ultimate goal being remuneration (ie. a way to contribute to my income without factors that include dirt, perspiration, or soreness...As a teenager (c. age 15), I worked at a car wash 12 straight hours both Saturday and Sunday with no breaks - for $1.65/hr. That's when it first occurred to me that there might be more efficient and enjoyable ways - with OTHER sounds, that sounded better than loud car wash sounds - to create more income).
Last edited by bloke on Sun Sep 20, 2020 8:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Three Valves wrote: ↑Sun Sep 20, 2020 2:41 pm
That was nice, glad you recorded it!!
Thanks...
I recorded nuthin...
(The bass trombone player found it, and tagged me on fb.)
I suspect the operations manager did, and uploaded it...but there was no mic by any of the brass.
bloke wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 9:54 pm
The Jackson (Tennessee) Symphony Orchestra...
Ha. I played violin in JSO for a short while (3 mo?) back when I lived in Jackson for that same short while. 1970 or 1971. Played in Memphis after that for also a short while; my then father-in-law was the union rep.
bloke wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 9:54 pm
The Jackson (Tennessee) Symphony Orchestra...
Ha. I played violin in JSO for a short while (3 mo?) back when I lived in Jackson for that same short while. 1970 or 1971. Played in Memphis after that for also a short while; my then father-in-law was the union rep.
Right now, any playing is better than no playing.
Before I was in the union, Andy Ledbetter (trombonist) was president (not "rep", so maybe someone else...??) of the Memphis Local (71).
After that (during my early union years), it was a guy named Bob Taylor (trumpeter) who always carried a pistol, and always liked to pull it out and (not really, but - defacto) brandish it...
...but (whoops...) I believe Jackson has always been in the Nashville local, so...
When the current music director came in, he broomed all but six or seven of us, and then got the per-service pay doubled...so (whatever I may not like about him) I LIKE him.
When I was in Memphis, it was Albert Edelman who was the union rep, or so I remember, which may not be correct. That was a long time ago. Or maybe he was just the guy who found violin players.
How many paid attendees were in the audience? How many were allowed? I know its semantics, but I'm curious how much interest there was from the Jackson community.
The place (if jam-packed) probably holds 1500 tops, Typically, around 750 people have attended classical concerts.
By the time they took away rows and seats in rows, it looked at me like a few hundred could have been allowed to attend.
The first concert at 6 o’clock seem to entertain about 300 people, and the second one at 8 o’clock was disappointing - with only about 100 people. Hopefully, attendance will pick up as the year goes on.
The concerts only lasted an hour, and our rehearsal was a single extended rehearsal in the morning.
two more (per-service orchestra auspices) brass quintet concerts tomorrow (Sunday)...
5:00 P.M. - at yet another place in the highfalutin neighborhood where most of the orchestra donors live
7:00 P.M. - back to the west - about a 40 minute drive back towards blokeplace - in a town square amphitheater
We've settled in on a program, but it still (last week) overshot the budgeted "60 minutes"..so we made a few more (email communications) cuts in a few tunes (after the last show). We MUST finish the 5:00 show by 6:00...so we can get to the 7:00 place.
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Normally, "playing a few of run-of-the-mill gigs" would not be "news", but so many places are still completely shut down - as if going through the motions of reenacting the 1959 movie, "On The Beach".
