Posted by Rick Denney on April 17, 2003 at 11:03:09:
In Reply to: Re: A Cappella Tuba posted by ken k on April 16, 2003 at 21:31:49:
Wekselblatt drops his rendition down an octave, which is a useful thing. Not all of them drop an octave as easily as the two that he chose. Playing them in the written octave on an F tuba is a real challenge--I don't have the chops or the endurance.
Almost any of the unaccompanied sonatas by Bach sound wonderful. Pokorny's rendition of the unaccompanied Flute Sontata is outstanding, and really tells me how good the tuba can be without the dad-blamed piano.
But you can go the other direction, too. Nearly all songs work well without accompaniment, because it is their melody that drives them and not their texture. Of course, that opens a wide range of material in all genres. One song that I always wanted to hear played really well on tuba is Paul McCartney's Yesterday. Likewise, most jazz songs will translate pretty well to unaccompanied tuba, if the melody is what you remember about it.
Still another avenue is any instrumental work that is mostly melodic. Another example that comes to mind is Sweet Georgia Brown. Sure, it wants an accompaniment by a banjo or some other appropriate trad jazz instrument, but it can do just fine without it.
Rick "who thinks piano and tuba are not a match made in heaven" Denney