For my blogging post I have chosen Oystein Baadsvik; the only tuba player to make a career exclusively as a soloist, rather than becoming a teacher or joining an orchestra.
At age fifteen, he picked up the tuba for the first time, and instantly loved the instrument. At 18, he competed in a national soloist competition in his home country of Norway, at which he won first prize. This started off his dream of a future musical career. Baadsvik studied under tubists Harvey Phillips and Arnold Jacobs for several years, until he finally achieved his goal and became a professional soloist on the tuba. In 1991, he launched his new career with 2 awards at an international competition in Geneva.
Today, he is most well known for his masters classes and tuba clinics held throughout Universities in the USA. Baadsvik is also becoming remarkably well known due to his facebook, myspace, and youtube pages. His goal is to expand the musical aspects of the tuba, continuing to play solo rep for tuba and orchestra, and sometimes collaborating with jazz and rock musicians.
In his work, Baadsvik has even created several new tuba-playing techniques, that can be listened to on any of his 5 CD’s, or viewed in his several videos online.

In his performances, he is most well liked for his ability to connect with his audience and make them laugh with his impressive playing and humorous facial expressions.

His most famous piece is one that he composed, entitled Fnugg, which is Norwegian for snowflake. This piece includes a variety of unique tuba performance skills, several of which were developed by Baadsvik himself. Some examples of these are “lip beats” and multiphonics. The piece was later modified for brass band or concert band and entitled Fnugg Blue. The challenging parts in the piece have fascinated me since the first time I heard it. The player is so phenomenal, that I could not stop watching it over and over again. No matter the range, Baadsvik has great sound. Not only will he play peddle tones or notes in the upper register flawlessly, he will double tongue while playing them. I don’t believe that a tuba piece gets much more technically complicated than this piece.


The piece that is in the clip that follows is actually Czardas. I find this piece just as or even more impressive than Fnugg due to its complexity. The tempo of this piece changes before you can blink, and Baadsvik goes from a slow, drawling melody to an upbeat racing fanfare. His mere ability to adjust his fingers that quickly astounds me. This piece can be traced back to the Hungarian army in the 18th century, but this representation makes it lively and exciting. My favourite part about this piece is how well he paints the image of the music just on the tuba. He is accompanied by an orchestra, but plays only as a soloist throughout the piece. Just trying this piece would probably be the end of my lips as a tuba player. I wonder how he double tongues so quickly. I would also like to know how he hits the note that he does at the end of the piece, and the peddle tone about halfway through as he is lying on the floor. The range of his playing is unreal. There is not one point throughout the piece where a listener cannot be drawn to the screen. I love his ability to remember all of these pieces, along with dance around the stage while doing so. Please enjoy the following clip, it will Blow your mind !



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYOsNp4O7AU

15 minute practice, went through parts of Holst for test. Nothing too difficult, played it enough times already that Im fairly confident. Just working on some awkward rhythms.

Quick run-through, 15 minutes of band rep for concert tomorrow. Focus overall for music this evening was memorizing choir music.

Confident with the music for tomorrow, looking forward to the concert.

Short post here.

I apologize, and Im not trying to make excuses. I practiced heavy duty all around the Variety Is concert for honour band. I practiced when I could in there for band and music class, work on some scales and played through rep. However, since then, I booked a week off of work to have Kyle with me, then because my week was off, I had to fill in a bunch of time after they were here. I have had to work late several days, and I am not allowed to play after my sister is in bed. Unfortunately, have not practiced much in the last little bit.