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ref. another just-started thread, I just flipped the page in the ancient Kopprasch book (having played c. 30 - 50 after breakfast), and found this (below).

As these scribbles were added at that time, they always remind me of my very first pass through this book, when I was probably 18 playing the "C" tuba I was told to buy, and puzzling my way through these (bass clef ) sharps. It was - well - annoying.

After a couple of scuffles through the "development" (??) section of this exercise, I realized that - if I just wrote the chord changes up above - I could play that section of the exercise, without actually having to "read" it...(as long as I could quickly locate the pitch which was the root of the chord - labeled above).
...Oh yeah...It wouldn't have done me a damn bit of good to change E-sharp to F, or change A-sharp to B-flat, because I do actually LOOK at the page, and - if the pitch-name of the chord isn't located SOMEWHERE in the grouping, I won't immediately recognize where the root is located, and - thus - won't immediately know where the hinge-point (for lack of a better word) of the arpeggio is located.

Now that I'm working through this book (for the first time) with a B-flat tuba, those long-ago jotted-down chord symbols help me just as much today as they did then.

I have to believe that there are other players who use hacks (ie. shortcuts/workarounds) like this in the same way, and don't spend time fighting their way through the individual written-down pitches...much in the same way that - when we recognize a written-out major/minor/modal scale - or a chromatic or whole-tone scale) -we simply play it, and don't really "read" it.

Yes. I earned my first $25 playing guitar at a local family grocery store 75th anniversary celebration when I was in high school. I didn't earn any money playing tuba until I was awarded a small stipend to fill out the tuba section in my undergrad concert band. Although, over time, as an avocation, I have made much more money playing bass guitar, especially from college on, since I could read, and still do. Around here, guitar, trumpet, and vocal performers are a dime a dozen, and there is not much call for tuba outside of the regional symphony or theatre, and there are at least a half-dozen folks ahead of me, so that is one gig I will probably never get. I have played tuba as the alternative to double bass when I was playing for a jazz/dance band and I took it along to play the usual repertoire for an Independence Day gig in a small town not far from here: tuba for the patriotic pieces, double bass for the swing pieces.

Jake was a working bassist and vocalist before starting his orchestral career.

Me? I am a tubist. (Not a tubaist.) I have dabbled in other instruments to make extra money, but I eventually lose interest in them and stop. Everything I learn through other instruments informs my tubaist's tubaistic tubaing, though.

Screw childish catfights over whether tuba has an "a" in it or not.

I'm a freakin' big-time actor, bub.


https://m.imdb.com/name/nm11716318

This almost has nothing to do with anything, but his family is related to some close friends of mine, so I know this gentleman, and it looks like he and I sort of do and did the same thing (solo guitar and tuba, as he played tuba in the military, and retired from there. I believe he drove a truck afterwards, which is pretty similar to repairing sousaphones.) He sticks one of these on Facebook every week or two, and most of them sound like the sort of thing that I played at cocktail parties, a long time ago.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1561737 ... tid=VhDh1V

Yes I write changes in when:
the print's too small
the part was composed by a computer
I need to know where the Music is traveling

Joe "bass player after tuba" H.

Everyone knows tubists play the tub, pianists play the pian, oboists play the obo, and flautists play the flaut.

Serious: I'm a very mediocre guitarist at best, but I taught college music theory for several years and walked away from a doctoral degree in that field. The theory things that helped me the most with my tuba playing were getting decent at playing Bach inventions on the piano, studying a ton of counterpoint in all styles, and endlessly hammering voice leading principles in SATB part-writing. Once you learn what sevenths of chords do, how certain pitches resolve, standard tropes, things pretty much fall into place and the theory itself becomes automatic.

Hacking out even just the skeletons of pieces on a keyboard (i.e., chord reduction) is a great way to see how music works and how things are moving, and this is sorta the tuba version of that.

When I was learning CC tuba, I cheated by writing things like "Eb arpeggio" over an F arpeggio in my concert band music, to remind myself to play it like an Eb on BBb tuba. I remember specifically doing this in "Parade of the Tall Ships" by Jay Chattaway as a high school junior.

I’d imagine that Wes Jacobs has/had a similar approach.

https://www.richardandkarencarpenter.co ... aphy-2.htm

Just to add on to my point above, I mentioned that I am a mediocre guitar player (self-taught hack), but around the time I really started musically developing on the tuba as a freshman in high school, that's when I really started messing around with the guitar/bass, with an electric keyboard (which showed the notes on the staff as you played them in a little LCD display), and with music notation software.

Having a mental map of how tuba valve combinations, guitar/bass frets, and piano keys relate to one another, and relate to notes, scales, intervals, and arpeggios, helped me develop solid fundamentals in reading/understanding music (not just tuba).

arpthark wrote: ↑Mon Apr 24, 2023 6:51 amHaving a mental map of how tuba valve combinations, guitar/bass frets, and piano keys relate to one another, and relate to notes, scales, intervals, and arpeggios, helped me develop solid fundamentals in reading/understanding music (not just tuba).

this.

I've spoken before about playing songs in various keys on the tuba with jazz bands or polka bands or all sorts of bands where the certain pitches played are up to the player) and just thinking of it like a capo on a guitar. Even though we don't get to duplicate the finger patterns, we still get to duplicate the interval and chord relationships. I have to believe that it works this way with flexible pianists as well. It could be that it's the easiest for them, because everything is laid out right in front of their face.

There's a huge payoff involved in regularly running through all the different types of scales and arpeggios in various keys. For classical musicians the payoff is in sight reading and the accurate execution of regularly encountered idiomatic patterns, and for all sorts of musicians - who may or may not be reading music - it transfers to and strengthens the so-called ability to "play by ear". It also strengthens the ability to remember melodies, to remember bass lines, and to remember chord progressions. Those thought to be geniuses in these regards are built, and not born.

arpthark wrote: ↑Sun Apr 23, 2023 8:50 pm Everyone knows tubists play the tub, pianists play the pian, oboists play the obo, and flautists play the flaut

Yeah, but what if you play more than one at the same time?