This thread could have some heavy quoting, so please forgive me just replying to the general thread.
The players, which were referred to as ringers in the reports coming to me, were college students or good amateurs called in to fill empty chairs with down to one rehearsal before concerts. The regular tuba row was one small CC on the Eb part and a larger CC on the BBb part, whereas the ringers with their generally large tubas steered directly for the Eb part, because that was what they could read. Maybe a heretic, I am not insanely attracted to all of the modern brass band literature, as I find much of it is kind of artificial music with lots of effects and no real core. I have liked some of the classical transcriptions better. And from there I will take a sample: the bass lines from Berlioz’s Hungarian March, which I have played on baritone, bass trombone, Eb tuba, and BBb tuba over a period of maybe 30 years. The original is in A, whereas the band transcription according to my memory is in Bb or maybe Ab, at any rate only a semitone offset, so that the octaves pretty much are the original ones. The euphonium, baritone, and trombones play the original cello, bassoon, and trombone lines. The BBb basses play the original double bass lines. All very satisfying. The Eb basses cannot play any of these lines without leaving the mainstream band range, so they have a lot of odd line breaks where they jump from the cello line to the double bass line and vice versa. And when they double the cello line their sound tends being on the fat side, at least clarity is not their main contribution. Especially not if the Eb played on a large 19" Eb tuba, or even worse, on CC or BBb tubas. I read Denis Wright’s book on band scoring about 40 years ago. And I remember his warning against writing especially the second baritone below the Eb basses, as that would not promote clarity. I rather would turn the perspective around and warn again writing the tubas too high, when they carry a bass line. For more soloist purposes high tuba playing may work very well. Some reports on human hearing say that the ability to discern intervals smaller than a fourth diminished considerably, when both notes are below F3 (the lowest F of a tenor singer). I often break that rule, if a melody has middle C or the Bb just below as the final note. Then I put a full triad below it. But one way of promoting clarity, in my opinion, is about emphasizing the contrabass octave over the bass octave. If a view back in brass band history may be allowed: The brass band instrumentation very heavily is based on Adolphe Sax’s family of Saxhorns as it was brought to England by French makers like Besson and Distin, the latter moving on to the US at a later point of time. The soprano was in high Eb, the mezzo/alto was the Bb flugelhorn, the tenor was what all sane people today call an alto horn, the Saxhorn baryton was the small bore British style baritone, the Saxhorn basse was a slightly differently wrapped non-compensating equivalent of the euphonium (valves sitting above the top bow)/ And the Saxhorn contrebasse was the equivalent of the modern Eb tuba (I own a Besson 3+1P non-compensating Eb tuba from 1870, which has a very small bore, a lot of cylindrical tubing, and a very compact sound, rather a baritone taken a down a fifth). Apparently the Saxhorn family originally had no BBb contrabass member. That is reflected in old British brass band scores, where the Bb (sic!) bass is placed on the stave above the Eb bass. Geoffrey Brand calls this Bb bass a glorified euphonium. There are odd voicings in old brass band scores, which try to use acoustical effects to compensate for the lack of a true contrabass tuba. Often euphonium parts have a divisi on big chords, where the 2nd player plays the fifth of the chord a fourth below the 1st player. The purpose is to add a fifth to the Eb tuba’s root note thereby creating the illusion (by the effect of difference notes) of a contrabass note one octave further down. Oddly enough these times of BBb tuba shortness appear to have returned to England. BBb tubas have become very unpopular due to their weight. Some local bands may have 3 Eb basses and no BBb basses. A British tuba friend was asked by 4 top grade bands to join them on BBb tuba for a very recent marching/standing concert competition. He thanked no to them all, as he didn’t want to ruin his back. Already 18 years ago when a British military band played a concert on my local town square during fall exercises, I asked one of the two tubists, why they brought two Eb tubas rather than the regulation one Eb and one BBb. You have to march those devils, was the reply. In British military scores both tubas play from the same bass clef concert part with a lot of octave divisi intended for Eb and BBb basses respectively. When no BBb instruments are available, one of the Eb players plays the lower octave whenever possible. There even are interesting aspects in the American usage of Bb, Eb, and BBb basses. Early Sousa marches before and right after 1880 don’t expect the availability of BBb basses, and there is a high Bb bass presented musically identical in Bb treble clef as well as in bass clef concert parts. Eventually this part develops into the 3rd or bass trombone part. The US Library of Congress has a very interesting, but not comprehensive, online collection of Sousa marches in the form of scanned parts. I have entered some of these into rough Finale files just to have a look into Sousa’s toolbox. Sorry for the ranting, but these topics have my interest. Slightly up in range I made a bit fun of international term confusions already ten years ago. Sadly the storage server has a narrower ASCII-interpretation than my Mac, but some points would still come through. One not so familiar one is: Ròg! <http://www.chisham.com/tips/bbs/jul2001/messages/61604.html> Klaus _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
