Re: Trouble with Arnold's Fantasy For Tuba


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Posted by Scott Landry on July 16, 2001 at 20:54:57:

In Reply to: Trouble with Arnold's Fantasy For Tuba posted by Ben Golby on July 11, 2001 at 01:57:26:

Ben:

Whew! Those mordents are definitely tricky on the EEb. After spending some time figuring out the fingerings in my head, I'd have to say that alternate fingerings will probably not help your situation any, as a lot of those lie in the 5th partial of the harmonic series of the instrument and involve adding more fingers. One trick I've found that helps is to focus more on playing the mordent from the perspective of the lower pitch than the higher one. It tends to help the clarity and keeps each pitch in its place (not playing two upper pitches back to back).

As for the semiquaver section, everyone's comments seem to be on target. The things that I have found to work are mouthpiece practice, metronome practice and just lots of practice! Start slowly ((AT) 50 b.p.m.) and work your way up. I have done this drill on this section by bumping up the metronome 2 b.p.m.'s at a time; it just depends on how clean you want it. The mouthpiece practice will help with gaining more flexibility in the execution of the passage. At tempo, you embouchure will not have any time to "lock in" to any one note.

Another thing that will help in mastering the Arnold overall is some analysis of the piece. Knowing what scales and especially which arpeggios he's using from about letter C or D on and at which point he switches from one to the next and HOW he switches will go a long way in cutting down your woodshed time.

Hope it helps,

Scott


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