Posted by Sean Chisham on January 12, 1999 at 09:17:46:
In Reply to: High school Jazz Bands posted by Bill Russom on January 11, 1999 at 19:47:11:
I will assume he plays tuba. If tuba is his instrument, then "Makin Whoopie" is a standard tuba/bass trombone solo piece. Another option is for him to learn bass trombone, and play that in the jazz band. It is difficult to find charts for high schools which work well with a tuba. When I was in high school, I wanted to play in jazz band, but ended up playing lead trombone in order to satisfy both my desire to participate and the director's reluctance to use a tuba. I had learned to play trombone because the year before, I had wanted to play tuba in the Youth Symphony of Kansas City. I was coming in in the middle of the season and they already had a tubist, but they were lacking in trombones. I got a bass trombone from my high school, along with Bach 1 1/2G mouthpiece and played bass trombone for the rest of the season. At the next year's auditions, I auditioned on tuba. I am confident that my audition went well and I felt I deserved to play tuba. The director knew he still had a shortage of trombones, so he told me he was going to take 2 tuba players and we would share the duties. His motives were very obvious. I played tuba for one rehearsal. It was silly to take 2 tubists. He wanted me to play bass trombone again. I relunctantly brought in the trombone and played the season on it again. Looking back, I am not too upset as to how the situation evolved. I got to experience a whole different world from that of the tubist. We played 1812 and Pines of Rome and William Tell Overture and others. They were all challenging pieces, especially for someone who had only been playing the instrument for a few months.
I don't think it would be so bad if he learned trombone and played that in the group. That would be a good compromise.
sean