Contrabass Bugle GG Question.

[G-horns]

You Confused the hell out of me..

I'm grabbing a Spare mouthpiece/my iPod with my iTalk pro and a Tuba Part. I'll hammer away.. I need the practice...

Saxes come in many Sizes and Shapes And Keys. Alto/Baritone/Contrabass (Eb) Soprano/Tenor/Bass (Bb) They get transposed Treble clef parts. Unless you're playing a C-Melody Sax.... Then you're in C... I hope I confused the crapoutta you too! I've tried them all Except the Contrabass sax.. Bass is Cool.. I like my Baritone Better. Bass Saxophone players tend to use Euphonium/Baritone Bb Treble Clef Parts. So Technically.. You could use Tenor/Bass Sax Parts on Bb Tuba. with the Bb Euphonium Fingerings... I think... LMAO..

I love Sibelius with the Transposing score button.. You put all the stuff in concert pitch and Bang instant Transpose.. I just would like to play my Contra on some of these tuba Parts. I never tried it after all these years.....

The transpose feature is also available in the much less expensive NoteWorthy. For me, a basically lazy person, it is the only way to go. Now, my wife prefers to do the transposition by hand (or is that head?).

[sonofjabba]

Okay. Use your notation progtam. "Do the math".

1. Enter the tuba part as it is usually written. Bass clef, concert key.

2. Change the part to a G instrument, i.e. alto flute.

3. Transpose the whole part up two chromatic octaves.

4. Change the clef to treble.

You now can play the tuba part on your contra, it will be in standard TC drumcorps notation for G bugle.

But alas I only have Sibelius First. No Alto Flute...

I'm still on my Trial. I use it for a Non-Drum Corps Group I'm also Playing with. Works Great for that. No Bugle instrumentation.... Only Peeve. For Saxes, and Banjos, Basses it's awesome. I should Try Out Noteworthy... :D

I gave up on Finale.. Too much extra crap, Too Expensive, too Complicated. I can do a part for myself in a 20 minutes that would take me all day with Finale.

[Shadow_7]

Getting lost is when the director starts referencing them by treble clef name, transposed base clef name, and/or by actual pitch. Yet another downside to multikey / multiclef hornlines. It's unison guys that means an F for the baris, a C for the mellos, and a G for the trumpets. Unison, what don't you guys get about unison...

[sonofjabba]

Getting lost is when the director starts referencing them by treble clef name, transposed base clef name, and/or by actual pitch. Yet another downside to multikey / multiclef hornlines. It's unison guys that means an F for the baris, a C for the mellos, and a G for the trumpets. Unison, what don't you guys get about unison...

I never got anyone in front of me that Bad.. LMAO

The writer for the String band is a Classical Guitarist and loves hearing his periodic 9th Chords come out. I'm trying the Full Sibelius out that Lets me transpose to G Treble Contrabass. And it's RIGHT! My attempt wasn't so good. LOL I should have taken Theory in High school... \

Getting Lost is When you have Multiple Repeats with AABAAC Written at the top of your part to remind you that Oh I play A twice at the Second ending to B then A twice Again and Finish the Song with Number C..... Yeah I said NUMBER C

[G-horns]

But alas I only have Sibelius First. No Alto Flute...

I'm still on my Trial. I use it for a Non-Drum Corps Group I'm also Playing with. Works Great for that. No Bugle instrumentation.... Only Peeve. For Saxes, and Banjos, Basses it's awesome. I should Try Out Noteworthy... :D

I gave up on Finale.. Too much extra crap, Too Expensive, too Complicated. I can do a part for myself in a 20 minutes that would take me all day with Finale.

For $39 Noteworthy is the poor man's Beemer. I have a template set up with a full G line of 3 sop, 3 mid, 3 bari and one contra line. All I do is start with the template set the key and I'm off and running. I also have a band and marching percussion templates. For G line voices, I use trumpet, french horn, trombone and tuba.

[Shadow_7]

Well with a little know how on using Rosegarden 4, Timidity, Lilypond, and Linux, you get the same functionality for FREE. Although entering parts via pianoroll and mouse is a bit more tedious than punching them out on a midi keyboard. Timidity lets you use custom sound patches. Although I haven't quite gotten around to figuring out how to create one yet. Baring that Trumpet, French Horn, Trombone, and Tuba gives you something to play along with. But it really needs a new Trombone sound patch. The default midi patch for Trombone sounds like it fracks every single note. The cool thing is that Timidity lets you create WAV files out of MID files. So put them on your iPod and review your memorized music while you make that three plus hour drive to camp.

[Bruckner8]

I'm sure this has already been said, but:

ALL bass clef tuba parts are SUPPOSED to be "IN C"...that is, at pitch, and the player must learn whatever fingerings work for the particular instrument they CHOOSE to play! ORchestral Tuba parts are always in C, but the players have played 'em on BBb,CC,F, Eb, and even Euph (Bb)! I don't think the orchestral librariains have parts readily available in those different keys <wink>

That being said, back in the G Bugle days, if you wanted your high school BBb players to come in and have "everything work" for them in the G Bugles in bass clef, you'd have to transpose the parts up a minor 3rd, so that written Bb (played OPEN, back home), would come out sounding like a G.

[HornsUp]

ALL bass clef tuba parts are SUPPOSED to be "IN C"...that is, at pitch, and the player must learn whatever fingerings work for the particular instrument they CHOOSE to play! ORchestral Tuba parts are always in C, but the players have played 'em on BBb,CC,F, Eb, and even Euph

In the British Brass Band activity, there are separate parts for 2 Eb Basses and 2 BBb Basses. These are always published in treble clef - in fact every instrument in the band except Bass Trombone is written in treble. So every valved instrument is using the same (cornet) fingerings.

That all works out nice and dandy in England, where there are thousands of brass bands and everybody learns in that tradition. But in American bands playing this literature the players come in with their own multi-keyed tubas and bassclef brains, and have to cope with the treble clef parts.

Occasionally they even encounter a Dutch publication with Eb and BBb transpositions in bass clef. The first read is always quite interesting, until the conductor and/or the tubists get things sorted out. (Sometimes they never do.)

The moral of this story is - - - take up the accordian. You'll never have to deal with transpositions.

[ussglassman]

Basically you want to play your GG contra in a concert/marching band setting right? I had actually written a fingering chart for that purpose. The only problem is anything above the concert Bb in the staff starts getting really squirrley and hard to tune. I think I actually tried playing one random high note with all fingering combinations and it read the same on my tuner. However, if you want to take the time, its best to have a tuner and go from there. The horn is in the key of G, which means that the tuning concert pitch that comes out of the horn is a "G." That is the same G played 12 on a BBb tuba. If you follow the chromatics up from there, you will see the BBb, fingered open on a BBb tuba, is actually 23 on a contra. please PM me for any other questions, I'll try to find that fingering chart i wrote. I wrote it because I find it sad that these huge majestic instruments are considered useless and obsolete. Also, im sure they will turn up on ebay as "marching tuba" and I can see some kid buying one not having a clue how to play it.

[Martybucs]

I think all the previous posts were just about the most confusing things I've ever tried to understand.

Now, I know it's Greek to me because I've never had any music lessons to speak of, but if I take something up only 3 steps, and play it, I'm only part way up the stair case between the first and second floors and why would I want to play my horn there anyway?

They're not minor steps, though, just regular steps and it sounds the same no matter what step I'm on. And forget reading bass or teble clef, the lighting is not so good on the steps.

Think I'll just stick to my bugle and trumpet.