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Thread: Toughest music piece

  1. Toughest music piece

    Dave,

    I used your fingering tips to Pineapple Poll to learn the piece when I played it with the Metropolitan Wind Symphony under Lew Buckley. I still couldn't play the first running part at speed! I could do the rest of it fine, but that first low running part is a B---h!

    Doug
    Adams E3 0.60 Sterling bell - Prototype top sprung valves
    Concord Band
    Winchendon Winds
    Townsend Military Band

  2. #12

    Toughest music piece

    Back when I saw 'real music' (as compared to now 3/4 of the time minus going to the International Music Camp mainly), I would have to say Festive Overture, the band arrangement of it. I just prefer not seeing it again esp. that one lick mentioned. I played a brass band arrangement of Festive Overture which the euph. part is tame. I can't remember if all the fun stuff went to the baritone part in the brass band arrangement which I played.

    I still have some solo music which I never really got around conquering. Some of them include Euphonium Music by Brain Bowen, mainly the 3rd movement of it!, Beautiful Colorado, getting the Allegro of Mozart Concerto in Bb, K191 up to tempo. Whether I will ever get a chance to perform them is another issue by itself.


  3. #13

    Toughest music piece

    As for ensemble playing, the toughest piece I've come through in terms of the song overall is the Fourth and Final Movement of the Third Symphony by James Barnes Chance. From the beginning push to the technically-challenging passages to the anxious moments before the euph solos, it has to be my pick. That piece also has one of the best Tuba solos I've ever seen. I'd have to agree with Festive overture in the eighth-note run passages, but the piece as a whole diddnt seem to get me.

  4. Toughest music piece

    The piece I mentioned above that gave me the heebie jeebies in that audition has, as I predicted, turned up on the list for the re-run of the audition in four weeks' time.
    And did I actually do any practice on it, since I suspected it was coming up? NO!
    IDIOT!
    Now I have to chain myself to a music stand, and slog through some of the nastiest tuba writing.
    Take it from me, don't play Wozzeck. I don't even like it to listen to!
    (Probably committing heresy by saying that, but it's ugly music!)
    Sue

  5. #15
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    Toughest music piece

    Originally posted by: suetuba

    And did I actually do any practice on it (Wozzeck), since I suspected it was coming up? NO!

    Now I have to chain myself to a music stand, and slog through some of the nastiest tuba writing.
    It always seems those challenging pieces 'rear their ugly heads' when we least expect them, LOL.
    Last edited by RickF; 10-18-2023 at 05:39 PM.
    Rick Floyd
    Miraphone 5050 - Warburton BJ / RF mpc
    YEP-641S (recently sold)
    Doug Elliott - 102 rim; I-cup; I-9 shank


    "Always play with a good tone, never louder than lovely, never softer than supported." - author unknown.
    Symphonic Band of the Palm Beaches
    El Cumbanchero (Raphael Hernandez, arr. Naohiro Iwai)
    Chorale and Shaker Dance
    (John Zdechlik)

  6. Toughest music piece

    Oh, man, I got jinxed by this thread! Pineapple Poll is on the next band concert!

  7. Toughest music piece

    That cartoon resembles my studio right now! Thanks for the laugh, Rick.
    Even last night I let myself weasel out of playing the two harder excerpts ("too tired", " a slight headache", "maybe a whisky would be nice")!
    A disgrace! I would murder any student of mine who did this! Self discipline is soooo hard!.
    Sue (going slightly nutty)

  8. #18

    Toughest music piece

    Sousa's The Pride of The Wolverines atleast at my Community Band rehearsal lastnight, mainly from measure 5 to the 1st ending esp.. I think it may just a case of the conductor going a tad fast and I only saw the piece once.

    I haven't able to find any full performance recordings of it on the net so far. Any little hints other then slow it down then build it up? I'm fine after the one section I mentioned minus wanting to do something with the tenor saxes at the trio (another story), lol.


  9. #19

    Toughest music piece

    Originally posted by: blueeuph

    Sousa's The Pride of The Wolverines
    ...I haven't able to find any full performance recordings of it
    There are a couple versions on the Euphonium Excerpt Site. The site is focused on the pieces in Barbara Payne's Euphonium Excerpt Book, but there is a section for other good euphonium pieces (this section is small but growing).

    Marches
    Dave Werden (ASCAP)
    Euphonium Soloist, U.S. Coast Guard Band, retired
    Adams Artist (Adams E3)
    Alliance Mouthpiece (DC3)
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  10. Toughest music piece

    Sue

    What Wozzeck are you talking about? Is it the Alban Berg opera? I take it that you're not talking about band music.

    By the way - Alban Berg is one of my favourite composers. I'm sorry to hear that you don't like the piece. I think it's great. 12 tone music and sprechgesang, a dramatic story with love and murder. What more can you get?
    And do listen to his violin concerto. I have three different recordings of it and can't finish listening to it. It has haunted me for 15 years now and still is my favourite 12 tone neo romantic piece.

    Oh, I have left the thread! Sorry.
    Let me see... the most difficult piece is not easy to name. There has been some contemporary music for symphonic band along the years. Some of that is nearly unplayable. Also I find it difficult to start on high notes in pp. I played Vissi d'Arte from Puccinis Tosca with symphonic band and the opening of it is starting on a high a natural. Not a difficult tone to reach under normal circumstances, but to start together with woodwinds and soprano in pp is a bit challenging.

    The technical difficulty is also up to the conductor. I have played Year of the Dragon in a tempo that was a bit over the edge. It isn't fun to play a concert where you go beyond the limit of everyone's technical capability.

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