Is this published proof...

[bloke]

...that no one (and not even people shopping for sheet music) know what the heck a "tubist" is?



I'm sure they are excellent etudes...(Come on...My topic - brought up yet again - is NOT this composer's music. I'm SURE it's excellent.)

What I'm referring to is the fact that the composer viewed it as necessary to include "(Tuba)" after putting "Tubist" in the title.

...but "tubaist" is too hard to say, because it has a diphthong in it.

You wanna know what does NOT have a diphthong in it?

"tuba player"

Once and for all, let's drop this early 1970's poor attempt to coin/re-spell a word.
Since we dropped "T.U.B.A." (which was a GREAT idea), can we ALSO drop this BAD idea...??


tubists:



repair forum...??
yeah; this word needs to be repaired.

[arpthark]

I agree with your point about that word, but the reason (Tuba) is in parentheses on that piece of music is because there is both a tuba part and a piano/full score part. The piano part is marked "(Full Score)".

[windshieldbug]

Is there a part for the audience?

[arpthark]

Is there a part for the audience?

No, but most every other tuba solo has an audience part, especially those played on a university senior recital:

Mvt. I: reading the program over and over,

Mvt. II: zoning out, and finally

Mvt. III: tepid applause

[Mark]

...that no one (and not even people shopping for sheet music) know what the heck a "tubist" is?

A conductor recently asked me if I say "tubist" or "tubaist". I told him: "tuba player".

[DonO.]

To me, having to write “tuba player” just seems clunky. I mean, you’re a college student doing your senior recital, and your program has to read “(insert name), tuba player? Many other instrumental musician gets to be an “ist”, why not us? I mean aren’t we all ”instrumentalists” , (like the old magazine I loved) as opposed to vocalists? You have “flutists”, or is it “flautist”?, oboist (drop the e), saxophonist (drop the e), clarinetist, trombonist. These are all commonly used terms. Some of the other instruments become clumsy when you try to make them into “ists”- French hornist? Euphoniumist? Or is it euphonist? It seems to me that, in my experience, the player of such instruments giving a solo recital simply puts the name of the instrument after their name, as in “(insert name), euphonium. No “ist”. But “tuba” is not a particularly clumsy instrument name. As for me, when I presented my senior recital, in the 1970’s, I used the style of the time and called myself a “tubist”. Nowadays though, just like you guys, I call myself a tuba player. If I told people I was a tubist, I’m not sure they would know what to make of that.

You say “po tay toh”, I say “po tah toh”, let’s call the whole thing off!

[arpthark]

Indeed:

http://wwwtemp.rogerbobo.com/photos/his ... ecital.jpg

[arpthark]

"Tubist" is bad. "Tubaist" is worse (imo just an unpleasant word to get around your mouth). "Tuba player" is the best we got.

If we played the tube and not the tuba, tubist would make more sense.

Some instruments that end in a syllabated vowel:
Tuba
Piano
Banjo
Dobro
Viola

So, we have pianists and violists, but not banjists or dobrists. And we definitely don't have tubaists.

[DonO.]

Correction to previous post: found my senior recital program. I listed myself as “(my name), tuba”. Did not use “tubist” or “tubaist”.

Interesting thing I did discover: spell check recognizes “tubist” but not “tubaist”.

[arpthark]

Correction to previous post: found my senior recital program. I listed myself as “(my name), tuba”. Did not use “tubist” or “tubaist”.

Interesting thing I did discover: spell check recognizes “tubist” but not “tubaist”.

Would love to see the program!

[bloke]

@arpthark

Yes...
I NEVER heard "tubist" until my 12th-grade-into-kolij teacher took me to an early (1974) regional T.U.B.A. conference, and I heard an older guy from tubademia (probably one of the three of four who coined the word, and no one there was anyone with full-time symphony orchestra employment - only people from academia and their students) using the word "TEWbist". As a 17-1/2 year old, it struck me (a sometimes tuba player - having just begun being called for some tuba gigs) as bizarre, and I was too inexperienced to be able to judge it - at that point in my life - as ridiculous.

Even so, I've NEVER referred to myself as either a tubist or a tubaist.
I did look up "tubist" in an old OED (larger than an encyclopaedia) in my neighborhood's branch library.
Only "tubaist" was there at that time.
When the internet was around, I found both of them, but "tubaist" had not been excluded.

The thing about today is that (as information has been reduced to narratives, rather than facts) we really cannot expect there to not be biases in dictionaries, yes?

One more thing about that 1974 event (and I DO remember who used "TEWbist" over-and-over), was that the same person kept talking about possible jobs for tuba players...and that - combined with the awful tuba solo recitals through which I sat - brought forth internal depression and disheartenment, rather than encouragement - to be quite honest...ie. "It's a good thing that I'm mostly a guitar and bass player"...etc.

bloke "tuba player, unless I'm being self-deprecating, and thinking of a humorous way of expressing it to someone"

[DonO.]

Correction to previous post: found my senior recital program. I listed myself as “(my name), tuba”. Did not use “tubist” or “tubaist”.

Interesting thing I did discover: spell check recognizes “tubist” but not “tubaist”.

Would love to see the program!

Here ya go! Names obscured to protect the innocent. Some things to note: 1. I did NOT do the third movement of the Hindemith although we rehearsed it. My accompanist just could not cut it and we couldn’t get it together in time. I decided to leave it out instead of doing it half-assed. Lost points for that. 2. Hated the Stevens! But my professor (a one year temporary) insisted! It’s really for bass trombone but playable by tuba. 3. Putting Jazz on a formal recital had never been done at my school before and we were considered “cutting edge” for doing it. One thing I did not lack is chutzpah! 4. Everything was performed on my BBb Meinl Weston model 25 (!)

7707E06A-6F18-4066-9A7C-7B953E2447F8.jpeg (84.24 KiB) Viewed 940 times

[arpthark]

Correction to previous post: found my senior recital program. I listed myself as “(my name), tuba”. Did not use “tubist” or “tubaist”.

Interesting thing I did discover: spell check recognizes “tubist” but not “tubaist”.

Would love to see the program!

Here ya go! Names obscured to protect the innocent. Some things to note: 1. I did NOT do the third movement of the Hindemith although we rehearsed it. My accompanist just could not cut it and we couldn’t get it together in time. I decided to leave it out instead of doing it half-assed. Lost points for that. 2. Hated the Stevens! But my professor (a one year temporary) insisted! It’s really for bass trombone but playable by tuba. 3. Putting Jazz on a formal recital had never been done at my school before and we were considered “cutting edge” for doing it. One thing I did not lack is chutzpah! 4. Everything was performed on my BBb Meinl Weston model 25 (!)

7707E06A-6F18-4066-9A7C-7B953E2447F8.jpeg

Great program!

Our opinions differ on the Halsey Stevens; I think it's (as far as tuba pieces go) fairly tuneful, but I think Mr. Stevens erred in:

1. Being afraid of using odd time signatures in the first movement and keeping everything in 3/4, which is confusing (and he did it in the 3rd movement, so why not here?), and
2. Writing a very dense and busy piano part that often clashed with the tuba.

The tuba tune itself is actually rather pretty, especially for 1968 -- when bloops, blats, and brays were becoming more and more popular in the "serious" tuba literature scene (and I am not hating on that, as a fan of the occasional bloop, blat and bray).

Here's a great recording of Tucker Jolly:

I love that you included some jazz charts.

[bloke]

I played that piece when I was 20, but I rewrote both the tuba and the piano part in shifting meters with the best manuscript I could manage. Back then, did anyone else spray their pencil manuscripts with clear lacquer after having checked for errors? (It kept stuff from smearing.) I don't remember it saying "tuba" on the part. I think I remember it saying bass trombone or something like that.
I'd never heard of it before I found the sheet music, and never heard a recording of it before I played it. The more I worked on it the less impressed I was with it, but I went ahead and included it on the recital. I had to work really hard to make the slow movement sound like something worth listening to.

I might agree with Blake that the trombone sonority would have been more easily distinguished from all of that busy piano playing.

[Three Valves]

"Tubist" is bad. "Tubaist" is worse (imo just an unpleasant word to get around your mouth). "Tuba player" is the best we got.

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, how often do you recommend I baist my tuba?

[arpthark]

"Tubist" is bad. "Tubaist" is worse (imo just an unpleasant word to get around your mouth). "Tuba player" is the best we got.

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, how often do you recommend I baist my tuba?

The more you baist your tubaist, the more waist you create.