A Merry Tuba Christmas

[A27Lancer]

16 mellophones?? Is this heaven or what?? And, yes, Steph, MORE COWBELLS in the pit! Phantom should do "Don't Fear the Reaper".

[Indianatubaguy]

I heard from a friend that the Stars of the Blue persuasion are moving to 18 contras!

Being a tuba player myself I believe this might be just a little gross sounding

can anyone say college band sound?

[Notorious T-U-B-A]

I heard from a friend that the Stars of the Blue persuasion are moving to 18 contras!

Being a tuba player myself I believe this might be just a little gross sounding

can anyone say college band sound?

Yuck

I am there with ya bud

=X

There's way to increase the sound of a hornline besides adding more lower voices

Edited December 24, 2007 by Notorious T-U-B-A

[Bruckner8]

Yuck

I am there with ya bud

=X

There's way to increase the sound of a hornline besides adding more lower voices

A few things about hornlines, outdoors, etc etc

1) If hornlines are going to get bigger, then pure logic dictates that tuba sections will get bigger too.

2) There's a prevailing misconcpetion out there that goes like this "Tubas don't add to the volume of a hornline." As a former member of the One Ton Contra Line (SCV 1984), I take offense to that. I dare ANYONE to play a chord at FFF with and without the tubas and then tell me the tubas don't add to the volume. (hmmm, then again, BD ....ofnvm...jk!)

3) HOWEVER! When I teach tuba lines, I'm very careful about the metaphors that I use, such as "Strive to sound more like a string bass section of an orchestra" or "The audience should FEEL YOU, not necessarily HEAR YOU" or "It's your job [along with baris/euphs] to make the upper brass sound great. That's all the modern audience cares about anyway"

4) The outdoors is a notoriously bad place for low end frequencies to carry. If anything, drum corps need MORE tubas to compensate, not less. I proudly admit I have very strong orchestra and pipe organ bias. That said, I'd prolly march 12 G Bugle Contras before adding more Bb tubas. I want the fatness, the roundness, the depth. That's what's lacking today. (Heck, make the horns in F...step lower than the Gs!)

5) Drum corps is still heavily based on Western Tonality, which is primarily root position major/minor harmony in an assortment of stacked thirds. One must [ie, should] have a strong foundation to make such harmonies clear and obvious.

6) It's not all about numbers. It's also about instruction, writing, staging. Phantom chooses to have the "thickest" sound, and they teach, write and stage to it [and has the biggest tuba line]. SCV/CAVIES choose thick with a little more clarity, and they teach, write and stage to it. Crown seems to be heading in to the THICK direction. At the other end is BD...by far the "least thick" of them all (hate to call them "thin!"), but there's no arguing their clarity...it's mostly about writing (Wayne) and staging with them, and they tend to be on the small end of the tuba number.

My point is: If you're a corps that chooses THICK, and you make the hornline bigger, you'll have to add tubas. If "thin is in" for you, you can get away with adding more razor to your sound. Either way, the crowd will love the thick corps for having big low brass presence, and the same crowd will love the thin corps for parting their hair with the "clarity."

[Notorious T-U-B-A]

A few things about hornlines, outdoors, etc etc

1) If hornlines are going to get bigger, then pure logic dictates that tuba sections will get bigger too.

2) There's a prevailing misconcpetion out there that goes like this "Tubas don't add to the volume of a hornline." As a former member of the One Ton Contra Line (SCV 1984), I take offense to that. I dare ANYONE to play a chord at FFF with and without the tubas and then tell me the tubas don't add to the volume. (hmmm, then again, BD ....ofnvm...jk!)

3) HOWEVER! When I teach tuba lines, I'm very careful about the metaphors that I use, such as "Strive to sound more like a string bass section of an orchestra" or "The audience should FEEL YOU, not necessarily HEAR YOU" or "It's your job [along with baris/euphs] to make the upper brass sound great. That's all the modern audience cares about anyway"

4) The outdoors is a notoriously bad place for low end frequencies to carry. If anything, drum corps need MORE tubas to compensate, not less. I proudly admit I have very strong orchestra and pipe organ bias. That said, I'd prolly march 12 G Bugle Contras before adding more Bb tubas. I want the fatness, the roundness, the depth. That's what's lacking today. (Heck, make the horns in F...step lower than the Gs!)

5) Drum corps is still heavily based on Western Tonality, which is primarily root position major/minor harmony in an assortment of stacked thirds. One must [ie, should] have a strong foundation to make such harmonies clear and obvious.

6) It's not all about numbers. It's also about instruction, writing, staging. Phantom chooses to have the "thickest" sound, and they teach, write and stage to it [and has the biggest tuba line]. SCV/CAVIES choose thick with a little more clarity, and they teach, write and stage to it. Crown seems to be heading in to the THICK direction. At the other end is BD...by far the "least thick" of them all (hate to call them "thin!"), but there's no arguing their clarity...it's mostly about writing (Wayne) and staging with them, and they tend to be on the small end of the tuba number.

My point is: If you're a corps that chooses THICK, and you make the hornline bigger, you'll have to add tubas. If "thin is in" for you, you can get away with adding more razor to your sound. Either way, the crowd will love the thick corps for having big low brass presence, and the same crowd will love the thin corps for parting their hair with the "clarity."

Me being a Tuba player, of course I love big fat, dark, round, open sounds and tones...

I completely understand everything you're saying :]

But if there's to be any rythmic patterns in the low voices, it would be quite difficult to clean 18 tubas, let alone center all of their pitches and tones, so that a hornline can balance to them. A few corps can manage this, but I'd be skeptical if even they, were to add 18 Contras.

- Crown is going for the "thick" sound, so you can reckon that they will march as many Contras as phantom.

And I'm sure that if you got a Hornline - all members playing the same volume...say Forte, then it their Forte would sound FF, and if you got them to do that, and be in tune, then their FF would sound FFF :]

And I'd rather listen to a hornline that sounds Loud but they make it sound easy, other then a hornline that forces sound.

Thank you for telling me things I already know :D!

Edited December 24, 2007 by Notorious T-U-B-A

[2000Cadet]

Me being a Tuba player, of course I love big fat, dark, round, open sounds and tones...

I completely understand everything you're saying :]

But if there's to be any rythmic patterns in the low voices, it would be quite difficult to clean 18 tubas, let alone center all of their pitches and tones, so that a hornline can balance to them. A few corps can manage this, but I'd be skeptical if even they, were to add 18 Contras.

- Crown is going for the "thick" sound, so you can reckon that they will march as many Contras as phantom.

And I'm sure that if you got a Hornline - all members playing the same volume...say Forte, then it their Forte would sound FF, and if you got them to do that, and be in tune, then their FF would sound FFF :]

And I'd rather listen to a hornline that sounds Loud but they make it sound easy, other then a hornline that forces sound.

Thank you for telling me things I already know :D!

How could anyone NOT love a Tuba line? They're the backbone of the ensemble. Without them, no luscious, rich, deep, dark, chocolaty(sp.), melt-in-your-mouth sounds. I think 12 is the perfect amount though.

[Notorious T-U-B-A]

How could anyone NOT love a Tuba line? They're the backbone of the ensemble. Without them, no luscious, rich, deep, dark, chocolaty(sp.), melt-in-your-mouth sounds. I think 12 is the perfect amount though.

Me too :]

Some exceptions...

SOME