Re: Contra-Octave in band playing


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Posted by Sebastiano on May 04, 2001 at 13:03:15:

In Reply to: Contra-Octave in band playing posted by Austin H. on May 03, 2001 at 17:31:29:

Contra octaves...a wonderful thing. I am a tubist, as I assume we all are, and love to take things down. But alas, there are those times when one must know not to do it. Example...fight songs. Okay, most of us look at marching band as the reason we're the oom to the world (and our counterparts the pa), but they just add that somewhat classic sound to the end when you just whale out a BBBb or an EEb, it's all good. Yet, again, if I EVER heard someone take down anything in the Vaugh Williams concerto, Hindemith sonata, Symphony Fantastique, or even Wagner, they'd get a severe beating. I've dealt with egotistical tubists (and yes, we're sometimes even worse than trumpets when we get together--just check out tubachristmas...), and when I hear them thinking they're the shiznat by doing little diddles here and there and taking stuff down, like a trio, I want to kill them...well sort of. I used to do that, and know that it's sometimes out of boredom, sometimes out of ego, and sometimes out of sheer enjoyment of watching the digitial clocks in the room wave around like some sort of liquid formation. At any rate, contra octaves are good on massive brass chorales, anything that was intended for the organ (ie toccata and fugue and other such nonesense), and long prolonged chords that are quasi remniscent of the Catacombs in Pictures...oooo yeah....

Nick
President of the IATTP


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