Zinnia

“Zinnia is a piece for tuba and live electronics composed in the spring of 2018. Zinnias are popular garden flowers because they come in a wide range of flower colors and shapes. This work takes the sound of recorded tuba and manipulates it in ways that change the timbres and colors, mimicking the natural variety of zinnias in the wild. Zinnia was realized through Pure Data and Logic Pro X.”

-Chace Williams

I first met Chace when he recorded my Sophomore Recital at BGSU. The next semester, I joined the recording services team at BG and Chace became my coworker. I remember the first time I worked with him because he invited me to go to Waffle House after the concert. I was nervous to go hang out with a handful of grad students and Seniors that I didn’t really know, but I’m glad that I went because I made a lot of new friends that night. Chace ended up being a great friend, but it turns out he’s also a great composer. Much like the Zinnias this piece represents, people come in “a wide range of flower colors and shapes” and I’m lucky to have met and worked with a great variety of people in my time at BGSU, Chace included. Zinnia is a great “big tuba” piece in that it lets the low register shine. The electronics move between background and foreground and when the electronics shine through they give the piece an other-worldly feel.

Ludus Mvmt I - Allegro

The first movement has essentially one line going throughout but that line is picked up and passed around the three parts. Some notes are played by all three players and others are played by two or one but there is actually no harmony or dissonance at all for the first half of the movement. The movement is all unison with the interest coming from when different players drop in and out of the texture. Suddenly, an ascending chromatic line starts blurring the unison sound as the tubas work together to build clusters before returning to unison playing for the rest of the piece.

Ludus Mvmt II - Agitato, Molto Rubato

The second movement of Ludus was the most challenging for us to learn. The movement requires a lot of communication between parts and requires you to know the other two parts intimately so you don’t place a note in the wrong place. In contrast to the first movement, this movement opens with some chromatic dissonance and is mostly homophonic with a lot more chords. Not all of the chords are pretty though. Much of the harmony is minor or augmented chords which give this slow movement a more menacing feel than a sweet one.

Ludus Mvmt III - Molto Vivo

The third and final movement of Ludus is the fastest of the three. It is similar to the first movement in that there is not much harmony or dissonance as the tubas trade the line around. This movement utilizes many octave unisons, giving it a more spaced out and powerful feel than the first. The piece ends with an ascending chromatic line that overlaps building clusters and then finishes with the three players in unison working from G4 down to G1.

Three Furies

“Three Furies for Solo Tuba was composed in January and February of 1993 at the request of tubist Mark Nelson, to whom the work is gratefully dedicated. The surprising - and, indeed, remarkable - flexibility possessed by the tuba inspired a music that is immediate, good-natured and fun, requiring of the performer both keen musicianship and physical stamina.” -James Grant

I first heard Three Furies by James Grant performed by Brendan Ige during a recital he gave at Bowling Green my Freshman year. I was so enamored by the piece that I went and started looking at it later that day. It quickly became apparent that the piece was beyond my skill level, but I was determined to perform it before I left BGSU. I finally performed Three Furies on my senior recital in the Spring of 2021.

Fury I - Decidedly Jocular

“Fury I is marked ‘decidedly jocular’ and is a pleasant ramble through the registers of the tuba, featuring angular arpeggios and tonguing demands that one does not usually associate with the instrument.”

-James Grant

This movement opens immediately with a warning to any tuba player that decides to look at the score. The first bar has an octave and a half jump from the top of the staff to below the staff that certainly intimidated me at first. With much practice, I eventually overcame that octave and a half jump in the first bar. The problem was that there are another seventy-one bars after the first one that aren’t much easier. The movement has thirty-second notes, flutter glisses, dynamics from piano to fortissimo, and a three and a half octave range. This movement shows off the abilities of the tuba in only a few minutes, but it does so in a truly entertaining way.

Fury II - Very Clean / Gently Inebriated

“Fury II, in form somewhat reminiscent of a minuet with trio, contrasts series of long, arching arpeggiated figures with an amicable waltz marked ‘gently inebriated.”

-James Grant

The second of the Three Furies is probably my favorite of the three. The piece opens with a bombastic section that the player is instructed to play “very clean”. This section is quickly followed by a long middle section that is labelled “gently inebriated”. The inebriated section in particular was my favorite to play with in the piece. It’s fun to experiment with ways to make your tuba playing sound drunk. I ended up moving valves slowly with stepwise movements so they sound dirtier and I played around with the time to make the line feel like a drunk person stumbling around. The bombastic line from the beginning of the piece returns and then suddenly grinds to a halt at the end of the piece like a drunk person getting their second wind and then passing out.

Fury III - Relentless Throughout

Fury III is relentless and powerful, exploiting the full dynamic and articulative range of the tuba. Again, the performer is met with virtuosic demands not normally encountered in the tuba literature.”

-James Grant

I’ve been told once or twice in my time at BGSU that I sometimes tend towards an “aggressive” sound. Naturally, the third of the Three Furies drew me in. The movement opens suddenly with two forte sixteenth notes, then an entire bar of rest followed by a mezzo-piano eighth-note. This creates a very bipolar feel right off the bat. The piece plays with this bipolar feel throughout, but it always feels angry. Whether that anger is screaming or seething, it is “relentless throughout”. This movement is somewhat cathartic to play and really gives you chance to let out some aggression as we all need to sometimes. The movement is an exclamation point on the end of an exciting piece.

Happy Harp

“Happy Harp was a piano piece I wrote as a child, in an attempt to imitate the harp. This version has been arranged and reimagined for three tubas, roughly 20 years after it was originally composed.”

-TJ Cole

I first reached out to TJ in the fall of 2020 looking to commission a piece for tuba trio. I had a couple reasons for commissioning a tuba trio from TJ. First, I had formed the Johnson Three so that we could play Ludus, but it turned out that there weren’t a ton of pieces for tuba trio out there. The second reason was that there aren’t a ton of pieces for tuba that aren’t written by straight white men. I decided on TJ after listening to some of their pieces, in particular Playtime. Happy harp alternates between slower sweet playing and fast hocketing between the three players. I told TJ that we would play whatever they wrote, but not to hold back. They did not, and I am thankful for that.

Duh Suite

“Duh Suite for Two Tubas and Drums was commissioned in 1998 by tubists Kelly O’Bryant and Dennis Askew for their new CD, ‘Carolina Morning’. They wanted a multi-movement work that would show off their particular talents. So I asked them how high, low and fast I could write and they gave me the green light to challenge them. I added a drummer for variety and to propel what were to be rhythmic/groove pieces.”

-Jim Self

I was inspired to play Duh Suite after hearing it on the album Full Tilt by the Transatlantic Tuba Connection. The tuba player that gave me the album and learned the piece with me, Noah Laabs, had studied with Mike Forbes, one of the two tuba players in the Transatlantic Tuba Connection, in high school. The piece utilizes a pretty unique instrumentation: Two tubas and a drum set. The piece was a blast to learn and it was a no brainer to add to this album when I was deciding on pieces to include.

Duh Intro

“Duh Intro, is a fast contrapuntal piece with declamatory fanfares and a four-octave range.”

-Jim Self

Duh Intro opens up the suite with technical runs not typically heard on the tuba. Although they are challenging, they are quite idiomatic to the tuba. This is the benefit of playing a tuba piece written by a tuba player. The movement is energetic with a couple little cadenzas for the tubas thrown in to spice things up.

Duh Odds

“Then comes Duh Odds, a fast, relentless series of odd-meter measures with a variety of tom-toms providing a driving beat (don’t be surprised if you hear some Stravinsky).”

- Jim Self

Duh Odds is my personal favorite of all the movements in Duh Suite. The movement features mostly odd time signatures, alternating between 3/4 and 3/8. When you least expect it some 2/4 is thrown in to keep things fresh. The end of the piece changes up the meter again with a few 5/8 bars. The movement is rhythmically challenging and very exciting.

Duh Fool Professors

“Movement three is a slow, jazzy ballad named Duh Fool Professors. The percussion accompaniment is all spacey metal sounds (cymbals, triangles and the like), over wide-interval melodies in the tubas.”

-Jim Self

The slowest and most expressive movement of the bunch, Duh Fool Professors showcases the tuba’s lyrical ability. The drum set plays a secondary role, gently supporting the tubas as they play melodies over the cymbals. The tubas take turns throughout the movement joining the drum set with rhythmic accompaniments or playing soaring melodies on top. This movement was arguably the hardest to nail down. Making the “wide-interval melodies” sound smooth is pretty challenging, but it was well worth the effort.

Duh Blooze

“Duh Blooze, calls for lots of laid-back slippin’ and slidin’ and much trading of blues melodies and bass lines - while the drummer plays brushes.”

-Jim Self

I think every tuba player, deep down wants to play jazz and slip and slide around bass lines. Jim Self gave us the opportunity to do so in this movement. Noah and I took some liberties glissing some notes and playing around with the time and we had a lot of fun doing it. Thomas laid down a mean shuffle and we really got to groove with this movement.

Duh Yaz

“In Duh Yaz the tubas are called upon for some super acrobatics. After a scary intro, the group moves into a jazz/rock and samba feel for ‘the tune’. The middle section is a kind of development section with each tuba taking the limelight, after which there is a return to the tune and a fade ending.”

- Jim Self

The most technically challenging of the movements, Duh Yaz is truly acrobatic as Jim Self claims. Lots of whole step dissonance gives this movement a tense feel that keeps the listener on the edge of their seat until a slightly less aggressive middle section lulls the listener into a false sense of security. The tense dissonance returns again and then the calm returns followed by a brief improvisatory section at the end as the piece fades out.

Duh KoDa

“The finale is, of course, called Duh KoDa (an acronym based on the initials of the soloists). The music of this movement returns some of the fast scales from the first movement and more wild, declamatory material for all. Like all the movements, it emphasizes interesting and varied rhythmic patterns”

- Jim Self

This movement brings back the scales from Duh Intro, but this time they overlap between the tubas, first playing the same scales offset by a bar, then playing on top of each other a fifth apart. The piece ends in 5/8 time with the tubas playing chromatic rhythmic lines in opposite directions. The last two bars are unison in octaves which gives the ending a very powerful feel, putting a definitive exclamation point on the end of this very exciting work.

Thank You!

From the bottom of my heart I need to thank all of the people that made this project possible. I’ll try to keep this brief, but there are a lot of people to thank. First, I need to thank you, the listener for checking out my album. I hope you enjoyed it. Next, my parents: Nancy Stohs and David Bush. Without their support (emotionally, financially, and otherwise) I would not be where I am today. They’ve never stopped believing in me and supporting my passion. As much as we all enjoy unaccompanied tuba, an album involving only me and my tuba would have been less fun to listen to, and even less fun to record. I need to thank my musical collaborators: Anderson Johnson, Noah Laabs, and Thomas Worrel. I’m thankful that I have such great friends who also happen to be killer musicians. Next up, I want to thank my old roommates Jared Saenz, Sam Beery, and Robbie Dunham for putting up with me practicing this repertoire in our apartment. In particular I need to thank Robbie, who was the recording engineer for the project. I am incredibly lucky to have had such great roommates and friends. Another heartfelt thank you goes out to TJ Cole. TJ agreed to take on a commission to write Happy Harp for me and my trio and it was amazing getting to work with such a talented composer. I also want to thank Jim Self, James Grant, Chace Williams, and Brian Doughty (Cimarron Music Press) for allowing me to record the pieces on this album. I want to thank Bill Woodruff and all of the members of First Presbyterian Church Maumee for allowing me to use their beautiful chapel for that purpose. This project would not have been possible financially if it weren't for the Hansen Fellowship and the support of Dotty and Duwayne Hansen. Missy D’Angelo made the radical cover art you saw at the top of this page and the back cover to your right. Last, but certainly not least, I need to thank my advisors for this project: Michael Laurello and David Saltzman. Professor Saltzman; thank you for the years of lessons, rehearsals, fundamentals sessions, and trips to the Chinese buffet as well as the nit-picky (but helpful) comments on the edits of the pieces on this album. I wouldn’t be the tuba player that I am or the person that I am without your help and guidance for the last four years. Mike; It’s been a blast to work with you for the past few years. You’ve been an inspiring teacher, a supportive boss, and a very patient mentor.

Below you can read more about the process of producing this album and about the honors project.

Honors Project

As a student in the honors college at Bowling Green State University, I was tasked with completing an interdisciplinary project that highlights my work at the university. It was a no-brainer for me to create Tubular to fulfill that requirement. As a music education major with a minor in recording technology and aspirations to perform, producing an album felt like the perfect way to demonstrate my achievements in my time at BGSU. Setting out on this project, I decided on two questions to answer. These questions were; Why commission and record new music featuring the tuba? and; What recording techniques can I use to produce accurate and acoustically pleasing tuba recordings of myself?

Why Commission/Record New Works?

The tuba is an often overlooked instrument. People imagine the tuba as a goofy oom-pah instrument that is barely capable of quarter notes. Unfortunately, this perception stunted the tuba’s growth as a serious musical instrument for a while. The first concerto wasn’t written for the instrument until the middle of the 20th century, over a hundred years after it was patented. I wanted to record and commission newer works for the tuba in order to add to the repertoire and show the world that there’s more to the tuba than just basslines, the Vaughan Williams Concerto, and the Hindemith Sonata (not that all those are that bad). One specific tuba group that I believe needs more pieces to play is the tuba trio. The Johnson Three Tuba Trio was looking into repertoire to play when we first started working together and we quickly noticed there weren’t nearly as many trios as there were solos, duets, or quartets. On top of showing off the tuba’s abilities and adding more trios to our repertoire, I wanted to commission a new work for two other reasons. First, I believe music is a living, breathing art form that needs new performers and new works to stay alive. I love Mahler just as much as the next guy, but all music was new at some point and if we never commission new music, we’ll never find the next masterpiece and our art form will die. Another reason for commissioning a new work is representation. I believe that music, as all other things in life, benefits from varied perspectives and experiences and, unfortunately, famous works for tuba (and famous works in general) are predominantly written by straight, white men. That’s why I commissioned TJ Cole to write a trio for this album.

What recording techniques can I use to produce accurate and acoustically pleasing tuba recordings of myself?

I originally set out on this project with a different question in mind: What are the most accurate and acoustically pleasing techniques for recording tuba? To definitively answer this question you would need to have objective ears and, as far as I know, no such ears exist. Another complication in finding an answer to this question was my limited access to space, time, and equipment. In an ideal world I would have made sample recordings in many different spaces with many microphones in many configurations. Unfortunately, I only had access to my four channel interface, a few pairs of microphones, and one space. Although there isn’t a lot of it, there is information out there on recording tubas. After reading through a few different sources ranging from tuba specific recording techniques to classical chamber recording techniques, I landed on a configuration that I believed would yield the best results in my circumstances. The layout involves two pairs of omnidirectional microphones: One pair used as overheads to capture the direct sound of the tuba(s), and one pair was placed about a third of the way back in the hall spaced far apart in the room to capture the sound of the hall. After some experimentation with spacing, I settled on the layout you see to the left. This produced a sound that I believe accurately represents me as a tuba player. It gives the tuba enough clarity as to not sound too “tubby” and also captures the wonderful sound that the tuba can make in a nice hall.

The Process

I want to take just a little time here to explain the actual process of producing this album start to finish. After all of the research and planning done in the fall of 2020, January of 2021 I first started tracking for the album. The general process for most of the pieces was to schedule a recording session, drive to location and set up, record for a few hours, then tear down and drive back. After I had those recordings, I would edit them together to make one cohesive run and then send it to one of my advisors: David Saltzman. Professor Saltzman would then listen and send me a marked up score with things that he wanted changed. From there I would go back and repeat the process until we got a complete run we were both happy with. As you can imagine, this part of the project took an immense amount of time. After we had edits of the album we were happy with, I used Izotope RX to de-noise the pieces and then sent them to my other Advisor: Mike Laurello. Mike then gave me advice on what to change to make the tracks sound more cohesive and fix some balance issues and then Mike Mastered the album for me. While all of this work was going on I was also working on this website and preparing to defend the project in order to graduate with honors. I can truthfully say that no other project has been as taxing on me as this one, but I am proud of the work I was able to accomplish and again, incredibly thankful for all of the help and support I received from all of those directly and indirectly involved in the making of this album. I hope you enjoyed the album!