Christmas Bells ... wind bass drones
So, at the finish of the mighty Covid 19 pandemic year of no live concerts we will finally have a wind ensemble performance. The Queensland Wind Orchestra has been sponsored to produce a one-off live streamed concert, without an audience, on our home stage at The Old Museum in Brisbane. Saturday night (tomorrow as I write this Blog) we will perform a holiday inspired program of what can be called ‘Symphonic Christmas Music’ by expressing big colourful sounds of traditional hymns and tunes in beautiful arrangements. Great fun, expressive and a fine way for the ensemble to reconvene and play after nearly nine months apart. Indeed the concert is billed: Together and can be found at the QWO website starting at 7pm AEST in Australia at: http://qwo.org.au which I am told will be archived and available for listening to the rest of the world on QWO YouTube Channel.
An interesting aspect of holiday music, for wind bass tuba, is the prevalence, indeed dominance of “drones” in the bass lines. A compositional, musical, technique of ancient providence that becomes ubiquitous in Christmas holiday music. A technique that works well, and produces both musical tension and grounding to these mighty ensemble arrangements. This is not an objection. Playing drones can be fun and musically satisfying within this context of sentimental musical intensity.
In this concert “Together” there are eight pieces of music in which seven of them employ the drone technique; some extensively. Over 240 measures in total, with one piece employing 69 bars of drone with one phrase indicated to be sustained pp < ff for 19 bars of slow continual support. Other pieces ask for 54, 31, 28, 26, 25, 8 measures of such playing. While effectively supporting the ensemble musically in such a fashion can be enjoyable and satisfying it can also be physically exhausting.
Massive blowing and consequent hyperventilation in tuba playing is a line walked by employing various ways of breathing and also “staggering” the continuous playing between multiple players in a tuba section. This later technique being the assumption of most composers who could expect 3 or more basses in a wind ensemble. In the Queensland Wind Orchestra, we have two tubas. Sustaining a ff note on the tuba can require 120+ liters of air per minute. Tubas are high Flow / low Air Pressure brass instruments (the inverse of trumpets which are high air pressure / low flow rates). Learning to breathe effectively, and cleverly so as not to break musical phrases comprises ongoing practice and effective tuba technique.
Arnold Jacobs (1915-1998) principal tuba of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (1944-1988) tells us in his study of respiration:
“The effects of hyperventilation are due to a lack of carbon dioxide and its effects on the brain. The carbon dioxide is washed out of the blood by the heavy pumping of the respiratory system – keeping the air flow into the tuba at the maximum - the blood is soon carrying a higher percentage of oxygen to the brain, making the person feel dizzy” ( 1 )
Jacobs studied this effect with researchers at the University of Chicago Pulmonary Function lab. He was measured playing long loud phrases of music and the quantitatively expressed indications were that a massive debilitating hyperventilation effect should be going on in his brain; but it wasn’t. The question became why not? Why is it that as a rule tuba players do not suffer from extreme hyperventilation?
The answer came in how tuba players are taught to breathe, through the corners of our mouths. Blowing into the horn releases Co2 into the instrument. When replenishing fresh air through the corners of the mouth tuba players also re-breathe some of this Co2 from inside the horn. This provides a balancing effect to the oxygen / carbon dioxide mix in the players lungs and reduces the effects of hyperventilation. Simple and natural; previously unobserved.
“Now when I get into these huge massive blowing episodes, like what you have in “The Great Gate of Kiev’ at the end of ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’, I will deliberately take the air back through the instrument to forestall hyperventilation” (ibid).
This technique does indeed work. But it isn’t how I play drones. I circular breathe. In through the nose, with small ‘sniffs of air’, to replenish and maintain a medium-full lung supply of air. By circular breathing I can continuously sound the drone tone with efficiency and ease; sustaining tones from crescendo < to > decrescendo. The musical effect being to create an endless drone, like a bagpipe, allowing the respiratory system to act as a simple bellows. Once you “feel it” the technique becomes quite natural. The sensation is of ‘being breathed’ by the instrument (tuba / didjeridu, whatever). It is so innocent and simple once you “get it” ... too simple actually. It took me 5 years to work it out on didjeridu and when I did it just happened, without thought, circular breathing became a sensation of being breathed.
(1) Arnold Jacobs, (quoted)
William Barry Furlong, Season With Solti; A Year in the Life of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra p.303