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Did 3 hour long sets at a church Beer and Brat fest. Was an absolute blast.. they feed us well and made sure we had plenty of beer.

Was on sousa most of the night.. but took a break and played trumpet for 4 or 5 songs. Compared to punching out a bassline the trumpets don't really play a whole lot of notes..... It is really tiring hanging out at the top of the table clef staff though.

For the first time since 2016, I will be attending rehearsal with Celebration Winds, a wind ensemble in the Birmingham, AL area. I was previously a member from about 2005 - 2016. I had NO IDEA it would be 9 years before I'd be in a wind band again. I've been playing electric bass in a jazz band for the last 12 years, but this is my first time back with a concert band. My late parents would be happy.



Ohhh, this will also be my first rehearsal with my Besson 995 CC. Looking forward to hearing how I sound with it in a group setting.

First rehearsal back went well. In spite of practicing daily at home, I felt like I was sucking wind in the band room. I also felt like the guy on Eb tuba next to me, I could hear better than myself. His bell was pointed right at my head. I'll need to do some more forte volume playing at home and figure out a seating solution (if I can) where I can hear better. Over all, it felt great to be playing tuba with other humans again.



Got to play the Space Force anthem for the first time.

tubatodd wrote: Sun Aug 03, 2025 5:34 pm
Got to play the Space Force anthem for the first time.

Weird fact, my kid goes to daycare with the kid of one of the guys who composed that tune. I actually rather like it. Semper Paratus is still the best, though.

Any reason you elected the Besson over the Rudi?

Rakes of Mallow.

Fun gig with the band as part of a small town's Sunday band concert downtown. About 200 came to hear some good New Orleans "Street Band" music .. even though we were on a stage...

It was a nice setup usually I am behind everyone next to the drummer and it is hard to hear everyone... I have no idea if I am in tune.. We have a melodica, accordion, and handheld keyboard player and she had a new wireless setup with a little monitor so she could hear herself better. It was fantastic.. I had a pitch center for all the chords...

arpthark wrote: Sun Aug 03, 2025 6:19 pm Any reason you elected the Besson over the Rudi?

I found that switching between the horns had produced mixed results. They are very different animals and if I stick to one for a prolonged period of time, I have better success. Since I knew the first rehearsal was coming up, I decided to stick with the horn I've had the longest and have practiced on it exclusively for a month or so. I could have brought the Rudy and frankly, I'm curious how it will do.

In the coming weeks, the Rudy is headed to the @bloke ranch to straighten out the main slide. It's a fight to insert and the slide doesn't move very smoothly. The other slides move great. Joe is also giving the horn a once over to see if he spots any horrors that need to be addressed. I don't suspect there are, but I also know the horn has had a long 40+ years with some potential "Frankentuba-ing" in its past.

A little Mvt. 2 of RVW on the new F when it came at lunchtime between cutting down perilla mint in my pastures. It's an invasive mint from Asia, used in Japanese and Korean cuisine, and HIGHLY toxic to ruminants.

Pics to follow of the F sometime hopefully soon.

GOOD DAY!

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gocsick wrote: Fri Aug 01, 2025 9:10 pm Did 3 hour long sets at a church Beer and Brat fest. Was an absolute blast.. they feed us well and made sure we had plenty of beer.

Was on sousa most of the night.. but took a break and played trumpet for 4 or 5 songs. Compared to punching out a bassline the trumpets don't really play a whole lot of notes..... It is really tiring hanging out at the top of the table clef staff though.

When I'm doing polka gigs, I'll play trumpet melody on some easy things and trumpet harmony on a couple of other things. I don't pick up the trumpet all that much. Truth be told, I don't mess around playing the trumpet in my repair shop as much as I used to, I'm aware of that, and (knowing better) I don't try to stretch out when playing it...
... but I always play trumpet on the "Chicken Dance". It's easy to make the trumpet sound chickenish, and - on the last super-fast chorus - I hold the bell end up to the microphone with the mouthpiece removed from the instrument and go up and down in pitch with the mouthpiece buzzing into the bell right next to the microphone and make an old fashioned siren sound.

Ha. I am not currently tuba-ing because everything tuba-ish is on hiatus.
So I am oboe-ing, and subbing in a WW5tet for a couple of get-togethers. So the wood shed is hearing ducky sounds.
Very shortly I will be Cor Anglais-ing when that trio gets going again.

Prairie Music Residency-Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
July 31st-August 3, 2025.
Guest Conductor-Helen Harrelson
Guest Soloist-Isobel Daws-Trombone
Final Concert Program- 1 pm-Sunday, August 3rd
Fanfare: She Dares, She Leaps - Erika Svanoe
March: Death or Glory - Robert B.Hall
Trombone Solo: Love Eternal - Cooper, arr.Lamplough
Both Sides Now - Joni Mitchell, arr. Andrew Wainwright
Ex Terra Lucem - Jonathan Bates
Interval
The Wellerman - Sea Shanty Medley - Taylor
Trombone Solo: Thoughts of Love - Arthur Pryor
Jump, Jive & Wail arr. Harrelson
Trombone Solo - Brasilia - Robin Dewhurst
Brass Machine - Mark Taylor, Arr. L.Harrelson
The Prairie Music Residency has just completed its 11th year of existence. It is a Brass Band Summer Course, featuring rehearsals, inservices, a Faculty Recital and our final concert. Musicians come from Western and Eastern Canada as well as the United States. The leader of our Bass Section was Mark Preece. Mark is the principal tuba of the Regina Symphony Orchestra and a Besson Artist. He is a tremendous teacher and was wonderful to work with. I think I might be ready to play by Friday of this week. My face is still recovering.

prairieboy1 wrote: Tue Aug 05, 2025 9:28 pm Prairie Music Residency-Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
July 31st-August 3, 2025.
Guest Conductor-Helen Harrelson
Guest Soloist-Isobel Daws-Trombone
Final Concert Program- 1 pm-Sunday, August 3rd
Fanfare: She Dares, She Leaps - Erika Svanoe
March: Death or Glory - Robert B.Hall
Trombone Solo: Love Eternal - Cooper, arr.Lamplough
Both Sides Now - Joni Mitchell, arr. Andrew Wainwright
Ex Terra Lucem - Jonathan Bates
Interval
The Wellerman - Sea Shanty Medley - Taylor
Trombone Solo: Thoughts of Love - Arthur Pryor
Jump, Jive & Wail arr. Harrelson
Trombone Solo - Brasilia - Robin Dewhurst
Brass Machine - Mark Taylor, Arr. L.Harrelson
The Prairie Music Residency has just completed its 11th year of existence. It is a Brass Band Summer Course, featuring rehearsals, inservices, a Faculty Recital and our final concert. Musicians come from Western and Eastern Canada as well as the United States. The leader of our Bass Section was Mark Preece. Mark is the principal tuba of the Regina Symphony Orchestra and a Besson Artist. He is a tremendous teacher and was wonderful to work with. I think I might be ready to play by Friday of this week. My face is still recovering.

Sounds really cool! Which of the tubas in your signature did you use?

The tuba used during this year's PMR was the Yamaha 321BBb. It is a practice horn for me and I decided to give it a try this time. It did very well. Those smaller bells really focus and punch out the sound. I will be using it in more concert situations this year.

Last night -- ringer for a community band's summer concert as the only tuba, playing on a Rudi Meinl 6/4 BBb (a story for another post).

Tonight -- subbing in a New Orleans funk brass band on my flower-power fiberglass sousaphone. 2 hours, 68+ charts, scribbled chord changes on some crib sheets. Wish me luck!

arpthark wrote: Wed Aug 06, 2025 8:42 am Last night -- ringer for a community band's summer concert as the only tuba, playing on a Rudi Meinl 6/4 BBb (a story for another post).

Tonight -- subbing in a New Orleans funk brass band on my flower-power fiberglass sousaphone. 2 hours, 68+ charts, scribbled chord changes on some crib sheets. Wish me luck!

That's a lot of tunes.
Most of them have specific funky bass lines which are even more important than the changes.
I'm sure they'll be glad to have something that fits, even if it's not what they expect.

We only played about 20 or so charts and I hung in there. It was a success, tons of fun. The most fun I've had playing sousaphone in a really long time.

RVW #2 on the new F. I've got to figure out how to post pics.

Tyrell 1-4 on the 186CC. Working on intonation and trying to figure out what kind of mouthpiece she needs. Not there yet, but I'm feeling about 33mmxdeep or VERY deep with a small shank.

I met with John Mueller and the other fellows again today, and we read some more charts out of his thick tuba quartet book.

I'm definitely convinced that the really large euphonium with the Elliott contrabass trombone mouthpiece (that's smaller than any tuba mouthpiece but larger than any bass trombone mouthpiece) is probably the best instrument to play the next to bottom (3rd/1st tuba) part.

I just realized the guy who's playing the bottom part is playing a Yamaha YFB-621, and not a contrabass tuba.

Playing this instrument in this quartet, I'm getting better at popping out C and B natural and D and such below the staff on it... as well as remembering which buttons to mash down there.
I played the sound file for you that he's going to hand out to potential gig locations. Today we took a picture. I can only imagine how horrible it looks.

When we sight-read charts with fists full of notes and a whole bunch of tricky jazz rhythms, we slow down, but at least we don't grind to a halt.

John accidentally handed me a first part today, and it wasn't just a tuba quartet, but it was a trombone quartet... so voiced quite high... I wasn't really paying attention to the fact that I had the top part, until a few bars into the piece. I was actually handling it. ...but that's not my job. Of course, we stopped and switched parts.

I will call this "today" because it was about twelve to thirteen hours ago as I type this. Yesterday evening I played an Honor Flight. You can look that up. One organization I belong to sponsors a community-style band made up of us, regional community band volunteers, hobbyist volunteers, a few college students, and even a couple of off-duty Nat Guard band members who come and sit in. (Yes, the metropolis where I live actually has a Nat Guard band unit, which my Dad and many family friends played in, and the younger friends do play in.) I arranged for a tuba player and a couple of extra trumpets, because not only do we play a full hour concert for those who attend the reception before the plane lands, but then we play the national anthem and then the service anthems in turn with a short cadence and rolloff between each one until all the veterans and their helpers have deplaned and cleared the receiving line. Quite a workout! I usually play principal cornet for this ensemble with two co-principals to help with the load.

BUT...the tuba player texted me at the last minute that his car broke down and couldn't make it. Fortunately, I was already taking my tuba, because he doesn't own a good one, and his school was closed for the summer. (He is a small-town band director.) Even though he has a mouthpiece, the little voice said take a spare tuba mouthpiece. Well, of course I'm glad I did. But that's not the best part: even though some (cough!) years ago I had played some of these tuba parts, I had not practiced them, focusing on cornet, and the current conductor had added more and different selections to the concert repertoire. So I essentially sight-read the concert. Yes, I cracked a few notes and I flubbed a couple of technical transition or "turn-around" two-measure passages. But I performed the concert and the conductor was at least relieved, if not actually pleased.

And it gets even better: in the regional community band where I play tuba, our rehearsals may be an hour and a half, including break for announcements, but concerts are rarely more than an hour, especially since we play many small town regional festivals on a time schedule of performers, usually about an hour including set-up. Thanks be to adrenaline, because I lasted the entire hour-and-a-half-plus (with a couple of fifteen minute breaks) as the only tuba. And we all know what that means to the responsibility to support the band.

And that's what I played today. I encourage everyone to play an Honor Flight. Not all of us were called to wear a uniform, but we are all called to honor those that do/did.
National Organization link: https://www.honorflight.org/
Regional Chapter link: https://www.honorflightoftheozarks.org/