New playing modes for bassoon and tubas
Two recently published methods examine new instrumental playing techniques for the bassoon on the one hand, and the tuba family on the other.
Dedicated to the bassoon, the book written in English by Ryan D. Romine explores the full range of new playing techniques in no less than 61 chapters, most of them short and dense, describing each of them, meticulously detailing for performers the way(s) to realize them, and mentioning for composers the use that can be made of them, all with pedagogy and without hiding the limits, difficulties or problems that may arise. Also a composer, Ryan Romine devotes the second part of his book to his Fantastic Tales32 characteristic studies for solo bassoon, with a wide range of moods and an easily accessible, mostly tonal language. Preceded each time by notes introducing their interpretation, these pieces offer the opportunity to learn these playing modes separately, making them accessible to less experienced students too, which is highly appreciable, since learning alternative sound production techniques is usually reserved for advanced students capable of working on complex works.
After a brief history of the tuba's extended family, from its ancestors (including the serpent and the ophicleid) to the present day, via the Verdian cimbasso, the various saxhorns and the sousaphone, Jack Adler-McKean's bilingual (German and English) book focuses mainly on the tubas currently in use in orchestras and in contemporary music. It explains the mechanisms by which sounds are produced, explains the various ways in which they can be modified, and reveals the usually unsuspected potentialities of these instruments, such as the extension of the tessitura in the extreme low or high register, or even the high register (whistled sounds). Like the other wind instruments, bass and contrabass tubas allow the use of multiphonics, various air noises, key percussion, modified attacks and micro-intervals (facilitated on instruments with a specially adapted piston system). In addition to extensive appendices, including a large repertoire of selected works, nearly 100 audio and video examples are available online.
Ryan D. Romine: Bassoon Reimagined - A Sourcebook for Performers and Composers, 300 p., $ 80.00, 2019, http://www.ryanromine.net/RyanRomine/Welcome.html
Jack Adler-McKean: The Techniques of Tuba Playing / Die Spieltechnik der Tuba, 211 p., € 54.00, Bärenreiter, Kassel 2020, ISBN 978-3-7618-2421-4
