Word: tuba
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...concert : enormous Vaughn De Leath, announced as the first voice to go on the air; fat Morton Downey who looked foolish singing "Kiss Me Goodnight''; the four black Mills brothers huddled around a spikelike amplifier, knees quivering, sounding like a trumpet, a pair of saxophones and a tuba. The actual concert, save as it benefited unemployed musicians, was unimportant. But when bald, egg-shaped Ferde Grofe came sheepishly on the platform, it was formal evidence of the Whiteman-Grofe split. There is no bad blood between them but chunky Ferde Grofe was tired of squeezing behind the scenes...
...Cincinnati's radio station WLW there works a smallish, bespectacled man of 55 who plays the great tuba without ever huffing, puffing or straining himself red for breath. He is James Austin Houston, only U.S. tubaman who, despite mediocre diaphragm development, can perfectly sustain a note for 20 measures, make tuba music which could be represented graphically by a long, unbroken line instead of by telegraphic dots and dashes. Last week Tubaman Houston's secret became known: He uses a German wind-saving contrivance called an "aerophor" which cost...
...reach the mouth at lung temperature and humidity, the tube passes through a small tank of water heated by an electric light bulb. Mr. Houston admits that the aerophor presents its difficulties. It takes a big mouth to hold the forked tube on either side of the big tuba mouthpiece, a special facial-muscle technique to switch from lung to bellows air without interrupting the tone or affecting its quality. But hitherto players on the big horn have had to have the heart and lungs of athletes. Oboists and bassoonists need outside help even more because of their tiny, double...
...flat, the lowest tone in music that is not just a grunt, is sounded in orchestras by the contrabassoon or the contrabass tuba. Beethoven used the big woodwind in his Ninth Symphony. Haydn in his Creation, Brahms in his First Symphony. Wagner used the mighty mouthed tuba to plumb the murky depths of his Niebelungen Ring...
...pitch is considerably higher, starting at 50 cycles and crashing sometimes as high as 40 cycles above Middle C (261 cycles). Wind may moan at 100 cycles, whine as high as 600 cycles. Not even Niagara can go so low as the big bassoon or the brass tuba...