If you need a tuba player, I know a guy. Give him a few months to build up that embouchure and time to save up Fodera money for a good concert 4-valve.
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If you need a tuba player, I know a guy. Give him a few months to build up that embouchure and time to save up Fodera money for a good concert 4-valve.
It’s funny, doubling on Bass and Tuba is more common than people think.
@ElMon sounds like a real beast is in your future! The Sea Foam is an interesting choice to me, but I really like it.
It will look all nice and happy on the outside - but meaner than a well-shaken paper bag full of wasps on the inside. Good choice.
It will look all nice and happy on the outside - but meaner than a well-shaken paper bag full of wasps on the inside. Good choice.
The one time I was in 'Nawlins', I chatted up a local guy about how I play upright/electric/tuba. He was very emphatic that if I moved out to New Orleans that I would have to make myself take a night off. One of my many 'what could have been' moments.
Wasn't it trumpet? I mean, I hope it was tuba.
I love the Stingray tone. My first truly good bass was a 95' Stingray 5. If it wasn't for the 19mm bug I caught, and that my greasy hands felt Roger's craftsmanship/heard the sound of his instruments in a mix, I'd still be playing that bass. I was cheering and hoping and lighting candles in Sterling Ball's name in hopes that that ill-fated, '19MM Stingray 5' thing would be a go.
Something about a single-pickup bass just works for me. The only gig I have these days, I either bring my P5 Olinto or my Seafoam Green PJ5, using only the neck pickup.
@Fuzzbass posted some clips of his Sadowskyman 5, and I've never been the same. Really excited, and so glad to throw some business to a good shop, in uncertain times, and in a city that I would imagine is a veritable playground for the Covid ... although I've wondered how an average New Yorker might have an enhanced immune system in general, considering all the strange germs they must encounter not to mention the questionable-but-delicious street food.
Trumpet...but I’d definitely give Flea on Tuba a good solid listen!
A friend of mine that I went to school with and taught briefly in his early learning years plays tuba and bass. He makes a pretty solid living just on his tuba work and I don't think that was his plan. I believe he wanted to play bass but got way more work playing tuba after he joined the cast of Blast in Japan for a few years. Now he teaches, arranges, wrote a book on playing tuba for a living and without covid he travels around playing with different groups at 10-1 ratio of tuba to bass.
Maybe I should let him try one of my Sadowsky's and he'll give up tuba?
Played sousaphone in high school marching band (it was a little tough to march with a bassoon, my main instrument at the time). Now I wish I had kept up my sousaphone/tuba chops over the years. It would’ve come in handy for some of the pit orchestra gigs I do.
Then again, the last thing I need is another large instrument to haul around!
Then again, the last thing I need is another large instrument to haul around!
Brings a tear to mine eyes that I'm in such good company. I miss the big ol' brass beast. At an All-State band thing, I figured out how to do the low-bass 'riff' (duhduhduhduh-duhduhduh/etc) on a low pedal note, near low A on a piano ... and almost passed out. My 2nd chair kept me from falling off my chair, right when the image of the conductor got all swimmy.
Since then I've had to have either drank too much and/or had an 'I should sleep more 2 cans of rockstar before the gig crash during the last set' to have almost passed out on stage.
Since then I've had to have either drank too much and/or had an 'I should sleep more 2 cans of rockstar before the gig crash during the last set' to have almost passed out on stage.
I played baritone in marching band but trombone was my primary instrument in high school and college. I also played tuba as my third instrument but got tired of having to lug that thing around. Wound up getting better at playing bass and found it more enjoyable to play regularly so I gave up the brass instruments in my early 20's. Still have a trombone in the house but haven't touched it in years.
@ElMon I never almost passed out from playing tuba but I did a year in college on bass trombone and that thing got me in every jazz band rehersal. I don't know if you've ever tried a flute but bass trombone was basically the same, take a big breath in, play one measure and you're out of breath already. Repeat that 5 or 6 times and you're seeing those floating spots for the rest of the song if you don't pass out. Much respect to flute players, that thing takes a ton of air to play and it's hard as hell to play.
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To be fair, I came to Tuba late ... faked it to get in 10th grade marching band, got a scholarship by the time I graduated ... and didn't realize that the concert horn I took a loan out on in high-school was a 5/4 size beast of a tuba. To me the sousaphone was more manageable in comparsion.
But yeah, you bass-boners are in your own class. There's a few local cats on jazz gigs who always elevate the ensemble with that sound.
Joeykun
pronounced ジョーイくん
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Another brass player here!
I played trumpet in both Jr. High & High School Concert Band and Marching Band.
I still have it but haven’t touched it since I graduated back in 1980.
I played trumpet in both Jr. High & High School Concert Band and Marching Band.
I still have it but haven’t touched it since I graduated back in 1980.
I love brass instruments. Played baritone horn from 5th grade through college graduate. Met my wife at band camp. Still have the horn and break it out every so often for birthday celebrations. As much as I enjoyed the horn, bass is much more fun to play.
I made a 1 yr commitment (scholarship $$) to bass trombone and couldn't continue with it. I just literally didn't have the lungs for it going from lead trombone to that. Plus I missed playing lead so year 2 was back to lead but that year I started to get more serious on bass and joined some friends in a jazz ensemble. That was the beginning of the end on brass and where I discovered my passion for playing bass.
I ended up on Euphonium senior year of college. Melodies? What?
Curious if anyone else did this: I like the visual reference of the fingerboard on an electric bass/upright, and to help my tuba playing, I always visualized my left hand moving across the fretboard. Back then I was imagining my 'mental bass' as a Warwick, and I'm sure if my mental bass was a Sadowsky bass neck, I would've been that much further ahead in my tuba playing.
Euphonium/Baritone was fun but in college it always doubled either the tenor sax or clarinet lines which were either insane runs up/down or boring as hell.
I loved tuba because there just wasn't a lot of good players that played with volume that could carry the weight of a band or orchestra. I always tried to play lower in the pedal range to add girth to the sound like adding a low B string from a bass, I wasn't good enough then to visualize the fretboard. I was too busy trying to play too many instruments figuring out what I really liked and was good at all of them but not great until I ditched everything but bass. Great is probably a relative term in my playing but definitely a step above the other instruments.
Took me a while to find these but this is why I have a SeaFoam Green thing. My one 'never-ever-could-quit-you' bass:
