Give me your ideas... Here is what I am struggling with now.
Playing second baritone horn in a brass band. End of the song.. whole band plays a lovely major chord.. extended for 8 beats plus a fermata... except for the second baritone has a flat 9th.... no one else in the band just me.. it's not a dom9 because there isn't the flat 7... it's just everyone pretty and me ugly.. and yes it is deliberate from the arranger..
It is so stinking hard to maintain that semitone interval without drifting down towards the root...
Re: Things that seem easy but are actually hard
Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2025 6:52 am
by prodigal
Yikes, that looks like a "stand your ground" moment. Hear the ugliness, and lock it in, then blame the arranger when people call you out on it.
Re: Things that seem easy but are actually hard
Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2025 7:40 am
by arpthark
Putting on my music theory PhD hat for a sec as I consider this…
What piece?
Re: Things that seem easy but are actually hard
Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2025 8:23 am
by Basses88
Negotiate a note change with the person in charge of the “musical direction” of the group. Beer, chips, box of chocolates…
Re: Things that seem easy but are actually hard
Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2025 8:58 am
by bloke
repairing "stuff" (you know: "stuff").
One gathers up all the tools and hardware, and then (once the repair attempt commences) one finds that OTHER tools and OTHER hardware are required. It's bad enough when one lives in a city (and those things are ten blocks away), but - out in the country - "if you don't have it, you DON'T HAVE IT".
Re: Things that seem easy but are actually hard
Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2025 2:38 pm
by gocsick
arpthark wrote: Thu Oct 02, 2025 7:40 am
Putting on my music theory PhD hat for a sec as I consider this…
What piece?
It is an arrangement of Mary Did You Know - done by a member of the group. I didn't know the song but it is apparently a modern country Christmas classic??
The whole thing is kind of cool... and the last bit doesn't sound bad in context... it is just hard to stick such an ugly interval.
Re: Things that seem easy but are actually hard
Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2025 8:29 pm
by bloke
Quite a few Christians view that "Christmas" song's lyrics as rhetorical, because - according to them - the answer to every single question posed in the lyrics is "yes".
me...??
I'll play the tuba or bass guitar part to it - but not for free...and won't involve myself in any ecclesiastical debates neither before, during, nor after.
The chord changes...are actually easy, regardless of whether - to anyone in particular - they seem hard.