Posted by Christopher on November 02, 1999 at 10:27:12:
In Reply to: Re: Re: What's a good tuba mute? posted by Leland Jordon on November 01, 1999 at 23:49:59:
It's been my experience, having worked with a lot of composers, that they don't think terribly deeply about muted-tuba sound concepts at all. (Can't blame them, really.) It's a lot easier to just mute the tuba when it's playing with other muted brass.
Nine times out of ten, I have been able to convince composers that it's not worth the effort to mute the tuba, even in ensemble passages. It's just a matter of bringing the thing to rehearsal once, letting him see you struggle with it, and playing the second half of rehearsal without the mute so he can hear that tuba players are tasteful souls who can listen and blend.
Of course, I have far less luck with conductors, and Bartok and R. Strauss are pretty tough to get in touch with these days... But suffice it to say that only tuba players really think about what muted tubas ought to sound like, so we may as well use whatever mute we like.