[Dixielandjazz] Re: stride vs. comp; 'holes' in dixieland

[David W. Littlefield]

At 11:09 AM 1/23/2003 -0600, you wrote:
> I think a lot of people don't post because they're intimidated by 
> people with vastly more experience and knowledge than they have. 

Which is cruel, if for no other reason that, as somebody or other said,
"Out of the mouths of babes..." Newbies have a different perspective on
things and can ask some serious questions about tightly held traditional
assumptions of the oldbies.

>-------------------
>I think that studies have been done on the human perception of sound
>that is continuously the same, which tends to 'disappear' into the
>background after a while.  

I experience this phenomenon 6 times a year when I take tpt, clar, bjo, tub
into a slots casino. Perhaps 1000 or more machines noising at the same
pitch, as soon as we get into it, the noise disappears from our
consciousness and we just play, whatever tunes we want, however we want
(with due regard for standards, and mostly at danceable tempos, in case
someone might be listening and thumping)) for 40 minutes. Those 5 sets go
unbelievably fast. (I suspect that the constant din takes a lot of physic
energy, because we are utterly wiped out at quitting time, beyond what we'd
expect of a 5 set gig...)

>     The tuba player 'should' be playing almost entirely on the beat,
>in the tuba (not trombone) range, leaving the off-beats for the banjo
>and drums.  If he plays continuous notes, he covers up the holes for
>the other rhythm instruments to sound in.  I have to remind myself of
>this sometimes while playing, and when i play fewer notes, the band's
>rhythm seems to get stronger and more focused (i think, "What would
>Bill Carroll do?"). String bass playing 4-beat is a different kind of
>sound, since it's usually not quite as loud and the note-stream is
>soft enough to allow the off-beats of banjo and drums to be heard
>better than if a tuba were playing it.  Both establish and anchor the
>beat.

4-beat tuba sucks. It's just too heavy, whether the music is 2- or 4- beat,
and overpowers the other instruments, drives too hard; I've played with a
couple of guys who mitigated this by making it sound like an upright; world
of difference. (Ed McKee was good enough at this that I had him in my
10-piece swing band for a while.) But as far as I'm concerned, tuba-banjo
is a 2-beat combination, and tuba's role is 1 & 3 with occasional diddlies,
4-beat fills, solos; but on the out chorus, 16 bars of 4-beat can kick the
dynamics way up. Tuba has virtually no place as the bass ax in 4-beat OKOM.
Note that even 4-beat upright bass can be too heavy: many foxtrot stocks
from the latter 20s-early 30s would have the bass play 4/4 on out choruses;
more often than not we'd tell him to just play 1-3; this was always true
with the tuba.

>we don't need the tuba-player playing harmony parts in the trombone
>range...

Generally true, but assuming each player knows exactly what he's doing,
tuba doubling or harmonizing with trombone notes in certain places can be a
delightful change-up. This was written into some 20s era stock charts, a
prime example of which is "Puttin' on the ritz."

--Sheik