Contrabass Digest
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1998-09-17

 
list                           Thu, 17 Sep 1998           Volume 1 : Number 91

In this issue:
 

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Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 16:05:58 +0900
From: Tatsuhiko Yokohama <tatsuhiko.yokohama@fujixerox.co.jp>
To: <list@contrabass.com>
Subject: Re: Piece for wedding

Hi, Akiko-san,

If you can luckily have a piano (or an electronic organ)
accompaniment, what about playing "The swan" composed by
Camille Saint-Saens. I usually play it with my alto saxophone,
but it can be played with the tenor saxophone and probably
with the bass clarinet as well. I can show you some related
transcriptions for the tenor saxophone at the next rehearsal
of Clanowa.
Maybe for the bass clarinet, it might be a good idea to play
it at octave lower notes than the tenor saxophone's score.

A few years ago, at my brother's wedding, I played "Romance"
by Martini on my alto sax, with the electronic organ accompaning.
It originally is a song, however, it has beautiful melody and sounds
so much similar to Elvis Presley's number that it pleased the audience
very much.

I wonder if you would really play some piece on your own...
Anyway, what do you say?

Best regards,
TY

------------------------------------------------------
Name:  Tatsuhiko Yokohama, Mr.
Office: Digital Imaging Technology Development Dept.
        Advanced Technology Center, Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd.
         2-9-50 Chuo, Ebina-shi,  Kanagawa 243-0432, Japan
         Tel: +81-462-35-8858    Fax: +81-462-35-9003
E-mail:tatsuhiko.yokohama@fujixerox.co.jp (business)
       PXF01705@nifty.ne.jp (Personal)
------------------------------------------------------

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Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 10:26:22, -0500
From: KUUP84A@prodigy.com (MR MARK A TRINKO)
To: list@contrabass.com
Subject: Bass Clarinet Wedding Piece

Ray Rosario has an octet for Bass Clarinet and 7 contra-bassoons (if you
happen to have 7 contra-bassoon friends:)

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 14:19:37 EDT
From: LeliaLoban@aol.com
To: list@contrabass.com
Subject: bass sax hiss

Lederman wrote:
>>The real cause of the hissing is that some unscrupulous woodwind repair
"Conn" artist has actually replaced some of the tubing on your instrument
with sections of radiator pipe.... One way to confirm that you've been duped
is to open up the spit valve.  Does it emit steam?....The problem could also
be a result of your horn being used for another purpose than the one for which
it was intended. You see, I knew of a bass sax that was once used in "J.
Silver's Travelling Reptile Show". Mr. Silver used the bass sax in a reptile
play he adapted called "The Boa In The Iron Mask". You know it; the one in
which the evil boa brother traps his twin boa brother in an iron casing.
Anyways, your hissing might have some reptilian origins....>>

Thank you so much!  BOTH your suggestions gave important clues to The Truth.
When I opened up the steam valve, it emitted, not ordinary radiator steam, but
a hiss louder than any I had heard before, along with a spirited snort of hot
green vapor.  When I took a flashlight and peered into the spit valve (at a
terribly awkward angle, of course; I couldn't see much) a flash of iridescent
scales quickly withdrew from view and I heard a scuttling noise as something
scrambled up the pipe and into the U-joint.

This could only mean one thing:  The previous owner of my bass sax was not
really an innocent-looking elderly musician who claimed he gave up the bass
because he couldn't lift it any more.  No, that fellow was merely an agent for
the real owner: none other than the notorious intergalactic smuggler who
incorporated steam radiator plumbing into a bass saxophone in order to provide
the proper environment for shipping a concealed cargo of Arcturan Fire Lizard
eggs.  Evidently an egg got trapped in the top U-joint when the cargo labelled
"musical instruments" shifted in transit, probably during the jump to
hyperspace.  Who knows how long the egg stayed there, dormant, while the sax
languished in storage on Earth after the arrest of this craven criminal?

Exporting Fire Lizards out of Arcturus is perfectly legal, though he'd sneaked
the eggs out without paying duty on them -- and of course it's illegal to
import them to Earth.  If memory serves, the Arcturans extradited him, tried
him on some other charge that made no sense whatsoever to Earthers, then
sentenced him to something like 150 years of hard labor in the lizard-guano
mines of the rubbish ring orbiting one of their planets.  (The Arcturans, as
you probably already know, were among the first to use mass-drivers to space
their garbage.)  Too light a sentence, really, since the prison colony's
relative time and space shuttle sent the smuggler back to his home planet
after only a few weeks of local ground time; but then he's lost his
Intergalactic Traveller credentials for good, so at least we shouldn't have to
worry about him using toxic waste dumps on Earth for his storage facilities
until a century or so in the past, or next month, whichever comes first.  It's
so confusing these days.  That's probably why he directed his agents here to
sell off the bass sax, along with Yog knows what else--contrabass clarinets
crammed with Rigelian sea slugs, maybe?  That's the trouble with buying an
instrument from a stranger:  You don't know where it's been.  Or WHEN it's
been, for that matter.

The worst story I heard about the smuggler had to do with using a poly-
dimensional chimera generator to disguise a Denebian Flatulent Vortex Weasel
-- the entire Weasel disguised, mind you! -- as an Eb contrabass sarrusophone.
It was playable, too. You could pick it right up out of its case, put its
snout in your mouth and play it for a Customs agent. But that scheme went awry
when the buyer failed to show up, and the Weasel continued en route with the
rest of the shipment, which contained genuine, unmodified musical instruments.
Of course, eventually the batteries in the chimera generator pooped out.
Well, you know how waking up from stasis gives Things the munchies.  The
Flatulent Vortex Weasel ate the personnel of an entire 30-piece swing band,
shoelaces and all, right in front of the horrified partygoers at a hotel
ballroom dance in the Catskills, before some fully-armed Space Cadets, sitting
together at a table in the back on a group discount ticket by pure
coincidence, managed to swarm the stage and subdue the creature.  After a year
or two of legal skirmishes, when all charges were dropped on a technicality,
the smuggler flashed reporters his famous double-mouthed grin on his way out
of the courthouse and sneered through his fangs, in perfect, unaccented
English with one head and perfect, unaccented French with the other, "Next
time I'll buy better batteries."  Indeed, some people whisper that he used to
travel incognito by disguising himself as a double-belled euphonium!

Anyway, the rise in temperature when the repairman did some soldering on my
bass probably quickened this egg and caused it to hatch.  I leave the case
open now so that the baby Fire Lizard can come and go as he likes, but he
still enjoys climbing up into the U-joint and hissing along with the music.  I
intend to ship him back to his proper habitat, of course, just as soon as he
finishes clearing the mice out of my attic.  My cat has been terribly remiss
about this ("Moi?  Eat a VERMIN?"), but Fire Lizards seem less particular
about their diet.  Maybe that's because they can steam-sterilize their food
before eating it.  I'll pack him off home before he grows enough to develop a
taste for kitties (or humans, for that matter).

But you know, it's interesting that he hisses only on the notes between D and
G#, exactly half of an octave, or six semi-tones, the same interval known on
Earth as "the devil's chord" and forbidden to Christian composers in times of
yore. These tones roughly correspond to the Arcturan sextochromatic scale, so
maybe there's a genetic reason for the lizard's preference for them.  Not only
that, but the scales on his iridescent hide (note the significance of the
visible wavelengths) are hexagonal. These musical coincidences and the general
appearance of the dominant sentient species of the Arcturan system (the horns,
the tail, the red eyes, the forked tongue, etc.) may have something to do with
why our ancestors mistook the earliest Arcturan visitors for demons.  Blatant
prejudice, so typical of the human species, alas.  This little lizard seems
harmless enough.  In fact, he's sort of cute, and you should see him go after
those mice!  Fire Lizards certainly aren't endangered on their home planet, so
I don't know why it's forbidden to import them.

Thank you again,
Lelia Loban

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 22:26:18 -0500
From: S210031@MAIL.NWMISSOURI.EDU
To:   list@contrabass.com
Subject: RE: Subcontrabass tuba

I know that there are examples of subcontrabass tubas, but has there
ever been a subcontrabass trombone?  Is it possible, and does anyone
have any information on contrabass trombones?  Please let me have any
knowledge you may have.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 12:08:25 -0700
From: Grant Green <gdgreen@contrabass.com>
To: list@contrabass.com
Subject: RE: Subcontrabass tuba

At 10:26 PM 9/16/98 -0500, you wrote:
>----------
>I know that there are examples of subcontrabass tubas, but has there
>ever been a subcontrabass trombone?  Is it possible, and does anyone
>have any information on contrabass trombones?  Please let me have any
>knowledge you may have.
>------------------------
Possible?  Sure.  Ungainly?  Probably.  Not that *that* stops anyone...

One form of contrabass trombone has the slide "doubled", in essence two
slides that move together.  I suppose one might be able to essentially
double the slide again, so that the positions would remain the same as on
the bass 'bone.  It might be difficult to keep all the slide tubes aligned
just right, and it would have a *lot* of inertia, compared to a tenor or
bass 'bone, but you probably don't want to play 32nd notes down that low
anyway ;-)

Has anyone done this?  Not that I know of.  You could be the first...

Enjoy!

Grant

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Grant D. Green                  gdgreen@contrabass.com
www.contrabass.com     Just filling in on sarrusophone
Contrabass email list:             list@contrabass.com
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 12:21:14 -0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)
From: Frank D Diaz <Frank.D.Diaz@wdc.com>
To: list@contrabass.com,
    S210031@MAIL.NWMISSOURI.EDU
Subject: RE: RE: Subcontrabass tuba

I know that Mirafone makes a BBb Contrabass Trombone. I've seen one. I was at a trombone
choir concert once and they brought in a contrabassoon to help out. I heard the bone
player match the bottom Bb of the bassoon. After the concert, several of us audience
members talked to the player. If I remember right, the bone had 2 rotory valves just like
a bass trombone and I think he played down to A or G (below the piano) for us. I was told
that it had been
loaned out once to the L.A Symphony in order to play the Contrabass Trombone parts in
Wagner's Ring cycle. What a sound it had !

The slide positions were all "normal" because the slide was wrapped around twice. No
handle was needed like what is found on British G Bass Trombones.

I think Alexander makes one or has made one also. Does anyone know about      this ? I've
never heard of a Subcontrabass Trombone, though.

Frank Diaz

----------
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Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 12:38:14 -0700
From: Grant Green <gdgreen@contrabass.com>
To: list@contrabass.com
Subject: Helicons and Sousaphones...

Hi,

Finally had a chance to go by Sandy Craig's store again.  Her new location
has much more space - enough that she can set out all the sousaphones and
helicons...

I should have taken notes, but she had at least:


And yes, she still has the Buffet Eb contrabass sarrusophone, along with a
number of double-belled euphoniums, flugabones, bass trumpets, alto horns,
mellophones, saxellos, and others.

Enjoy!

Grant
 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Grant D. Green                  gdgreen@contrabass.com
www.contrabass.com     Just filling in on sarrusophone
Contrabass email list:             list@contrabass.com
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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End of list V1 #91
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