Adventures in Tuba-sitting

I've had two weeks playing tuba so far in band rehearsals. Practicing on my own is not a good barometer of how I'll be when I'm in a group, so I was very curious to see how I did.

So far, the results are mixed. I'm both better than I feared I'd be, and much worse than I'd like to be. I guess what I naively didn't count on is that the music we're playing is extremely difficult. It seems like every piece is a grade 6, and there are parts of it that I'm certain I couldn't play if I practiced 3 hours a day until the concert. Those things are usually fast passages....and at least one piece has 16th and 32nd notes in the tuba part....and quite fast tempo too. Ain't happenin....at least no where near cleanly. The best part about my own musical ability is that even when I can't play something and am strugging through it, I don't get lost....it's a VERY rare occasion for me to be lost to the point where I can't find my way back on track within 4 bars or so. This Monday we were playing a piece called Niagara Falls (initial impression was utter hatred of it) and at one point, I was just royally lost. And shocked because of it. George was shocked when I told him too because he'd never heard of me feeling lost while playing before.

The new conductor so far is treating the entire group like we are professional musicians, which in my opinion is a big mistake. If I'm getting lost, then I can only imagine what others must be feeling, and the conductor isn't offering much help. Our group consists of such a wide range of musicians that when you do that, it starts to drive people away because they don't feel like they are keeping up. I've already heard from a few friends who are very unhappy at the moment, and I'm a bit worried about that. If I hadn't been in the group for so long, I might also be unhappy. There are going to be unhappy people no matter what happens, but I do hope that the intent is not to drive people out. But Joe deserves a chance to do what he intends to do with the group before I pass judgement on him (like I have any right anyhow), and that's not going to happen in a couple of rehearsals. I'm trying to go with the flow and see what happens.

But back to tuba....I'm also struggling more with the transposition than I thought I would. Again, that could be because the music is so hard to begin with....take that difficult music and try to sight-transpose it and you're doubling the difficulty. Add to that an unfamiliarity with the instrument itself, and sometimes a struggle to get a pitch to speak out of the horn at all, and I guess you can't expect too much.

On the upside, each day I pick it up, and I really am practicing a lot more than I normally do, it gets a bit better. I still hope that by band camp, I'll be playing and feeling ok about it.

On the other hand, I have also switched to trombone in Swing Band. I probably have less actual experience playing a trombone than I did a tuba, so you'd think I'd stink on that even worse. But I was a euphonium player originally....which uses the same mouthpiece and therefore embouchure as the trombone....same basic breath support too. (when the heck did I develop this habit of using ..... constantly in everything I write.....?)

Now my entire experience of playing a trombone was marching with it one year about 15 years ago, which means I played 3 very simple tunes and nothing else before or since. And I practiced tuba every day prior to the first rehearsal...and ignored trombone completely until the night before the first rehearsal. Yet I already play it a lot better than tuba, and had no problems in swing band. The big difference between trombone and euphonium of course is using the slide and getting in the right place, but I knew the basics. I'm not too exact on it yet, but I have a good ear and adjust quickly when I'm off. I felt really good about it that night. I get one more rehearsal, then a gig. But it doesn't worry me at all and in fact is fun so far. I'm a bit disappointed that I haven't gotten any feedback on either instrument....guess I need some validation that I'm helping more than harming, and people probably don't expect me to need that.

Last night I finally got to play a familiar instrument again. We had Sax in the City rehearsal and it was great as always. This group is even getting Jive for Five performance-ready. Last night we got all the way through it and surprised ourselves how decent it sounded. I'm finally starting to win everyone else over to that piece I think. It was really nice playing the bari again...felt like it had been months since I played an instrument I sort of knew how to play. (again I'm not a real bari player...but I've been doing it longer and feel more successful on it.)

I just wish I had somewhere to also play trumpet right now....love that instrument and prefer playing it to most others, but no one ever seems to need or want me on it. (band has 15 trumpets now.) I still want to play it on the small ensemble concert but need to get my act together soon if I'm going to do that.

Lol, saxes want to play at band camp like we did last year. That's fine and I want to as well, but I am wondering exactly how I'm going to get myself, my sleeping bag and clothes, music stand, tuba AND Bari sax all to band camp in my Pontiac Solstice (two-seater convertible with virtually no trunk.) That should be most interesting!