Carol Jantsch, principal tuba of the Phildelaphia Orchestra, talking to Sarah Willis live from Philhadelphia talking about tuba, cats and frisbees. Live interview December 18th, 2012
Transcript
Auto-generated from the live stream, expect the occasional robot mishearing.
Hey guys everybody out there thanks again for joining us it’s nighttime here in Berlin and Carol what time is it over there it’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon 3 in the afternoon Philadelphia I may I welcome Carol Yan it’s such a pleasure to meet you we’ve never actually met in person so this is just so exciting exciting for me to fun thank you for joining us we the chat is going crazy and what with all these people wanting to ask you questions but first of all because
I’m the boss I get to ask you my questions um you are in your apartment in Philadelphia with your cat Oreo right yes and milkshake is around here somewhere too he might Oreo and milkshake yes oh good it would be nice to see a sort of tail walk past the computer you may see that but it is afternoon nap time for them so maybe not do you practice at home
I do not I live um as you can see I live right downtown um I live a block from our Hall so I keep my instruments there and it’s really convenient because I know a lot of uh tuba players who have had long careers and uh now have shoulder problems back problems neck problems from carrying the things around so it’s really nice to keep them in one place people think that um brass playing is so tiring because of all the physical effort we have to do but the worst thing is is carrying the stupid thing everywhere
I’ve had two tubas on the New York City subway system and uh I can but it’s not it’s not convenient at all isn’t that one of the best things about having a job is that other people carry your instruments around the world it’s quite nice it’s it’s quite nice you know I um our tuber player Alexander from
Pam he said to say a big hi to you um as well he’s a total fan and he has two big tuber cases um that he takes with the two tubers on the tour and so we use those tubers to sort of store wine bottles and and shopping and uh and stuff like that so when we came back from
New York everyone was trying to put their shopping in his tuber cases does that happen to you too um the usually there extra room more in the Trump bone cases I only have one and some sometimes I have one trunk um that travels with the cargo and I’ve been asking for a second one for a while but um
I don’t know may maybe bankruptcy means that I don’t get second in two bookcase but um but usually I have like my f2a just in its in its like regular case so I don’t have that much extra room you just mentioned before we get to you um which is what we’re all here for you just mentioned bankruptcy for the people that don’t know what’s going on just tell us what’s been going on in
Philadelphia um let’s see April of 2011 um our organization filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy which means it’s it’s a restructuring bankruptcy it’s not um chapter seven is liquidation because everyone gets confused like our our stigma for the word bankruptcy is that like we’re going out of business forever and that’s one of the things that we have to fight because we were actually chapter 11 which just means we um are restructuring our finances and um that we’re still and we still operated as normal throughout the whole thing but the orchestra
Association just got out of court like a few months ago um and it’s just settled some debts and hopefully is on a better path now that’s not so great for morale in the orchestra is it no it’s it’s been rough yeah and how are people keeping their spirits up what is what is there to Hope uh that the power of music will win through because it really should do it’s it’s the strangest because
I mean the orchestra sounds as good if not better than it ever has right now and like despite all of the the the mire that we’ve been waiting through that uh that I really have to commend my colleagues um that we’ve really it’s you know we band together and and support each other through the bad times yeah gosh well
I wish you all the best send yanic please a huge hug from me and tell him tell him to make sure that boat is still floating a little shining Beacon of Hope and he’s just like this little ball of positive energy and I just want to like put him in my pocket and take him home with me and like put him on my shelf no he’s great send him my love so okay enough
Orchestra not well we’ll get back to it of course but Carol um for my horn friends out there um tell them a little bit about yourself um are you you were sent away to Camp age nine yeah yeah that’s a little bit early isn’t it I was forced into music from a young age by my mother um
I started piano when I was six years old and um my mom my parents sent my brother and me to summer camp when I was nine so it was two months summer camp like away the whole time it was kind of intense for a nine-year-old but but that’s the summer that I learned euphonium and that worked out and
I switched a few years later to Tuba just sort of like graduated to the bigger one and I I don’t it’s a good question I don’t really know why um in the seventh grade band no one was playing tuba and there were a couple lying around um so I was just sort of like dabbling with both and then
I moved in the middle of that year and just sort of stayed with the bigger one I guess I guess different I like that it was different and unique but I didn’t think it through very well with feel like carrying it around stuff I remember when I was looking for a second instrument my father um said you know wouldn’t you like to play the flute or the clarinet or something
I was like No And then I thought the harp was pretty cool but um he said no because it was too expensive and also it meant he would have to carry it everywhere I wonder what he would have said if IID said that tuba I get that line all the time like when I’m carrying a tuba somewhere like some guy who thinks he’s clever on the street would be like don’t you wish you played the flute thanks guys how many times have we heard that what you got in that case sweetie yeah but could you all was was it something that you love straight away
Was it just uh was chuba just just your thing immediately I don’t know I just thought it was cool different it is cool it’s amazing and and you um but you were the only what’s it like in the states at the moment because in Germany it’s really unusual to have a girl tuba player I mean I’m I’m the only girl in the brass here
I’m not the they’ll all be in very very soon I mean it was the first but certainly not the last it’s becom less uncommon for sure um that like you going around like you see marching bands like you’ll see girls in the super section you’ll see girls in the studios um at College too um it’s it’s becoming more
Comm it’s coming yeah isn’t it a whole new generation and I imagined um what in maybe when I’m about 60 and almost about to retire I’ll be sitting in the back row with my knitting looking over my glasses and we’ll see a sea of blonde gorgeous uh uh belly button free you know the sort of the cropped t-shirt
Beauties orass instrument that’s coming I’m sure yeah um so you were always quite a superstar and you were the only girl when you were studying you were the only girl Cho of player um pretty much um not in college uh there were two other girls in my studio at Michigan a a tuba player and an euphonia player actually no more than one euphonia player but yeah
I mean I was always like one of the only ones like when I went to the Milwaukee audition my junior year um it was a cattle call so there were 76 people there and I was the only girl and I represented but is do you find people ask me this all the time they say what’s it like being the only girl it’s actually no big deal is it it’s like what is that what is that question what is it like
I just don’t understand that question what is it like being a guy who plays the tuba like what is it like being a a nurse in a hospital what is it like being the president of the United I don’t know like but you get it all the time too right did I but I what now you get that all the time too that question
Oh all the time all the I have no idea how to answer that question I’m just me I play the TU I’m I’m a musician who happens to play the tuba and be female yeah no I I do you think there are any what are the disadvantages of being a girl are there any I mean it is you go against the total myth of a tuba player
I mean you’re skinny and and and I can’t imagine you you you don’t look very wide so um you know there’s this sort of myth of how much air you have to take in right well I mean I have to be efficient with my air but I mean I know guys who are smaller than me too like it’s it would be nice to be uh six foot tall and have six lers of lung capacity but
I don’t think there are any disadvantages there aren’t any disadvantages to being a girl you I I think I’m the horn there are the the one it’s not a disadvantage but it’s something you do have to work at is the physical stamina because I mean even just carrying the thing around you know maybe I I find that that
I I I do this a lot more than my colleagues but maybe that’s because I’m a lazy Pig and don’t do enough sport I don’t know think if you’re in shape and efficient at what you do then I mean everyone’s given what they’re given like in terms of like what you have as your body like and I guess statistically like men are stronger and bigger than women but that doesn’t mean that you’re not capable of any of that of course of course not but
I mean I just I get this question so often that I I try and think up clever things to say but I don’t come up with much usually that’s why I asked you I don’t think it’s a real thing I I I don’t think there are actually any disant es yeah okay with we have a a question um from
Brian Richards and he said what Tu players have influenced your sound it’s a question I would have liked to to have thought of as well um uh like gotta say Roger Bobo because he’s like our first real soloist um like really good out there um I guess argue there’s so many so many great tuba players but um
I would say him and I I was a big Patrick Sheridan fan as a kid I wanted I wanted to be him I wanted to like dress up and put cakes on my head and do fun things and I even have like I even copied him um and dress up as a Bumblebee and played Flight of the
Bumblebee yeah I heard about that I read about that photos still going out I will never live down those photos because I go back to my high school now interlockin where I did that performance and like like hi I’m Carol I played T I graduated like 10 years ago and they’re like are you the Bumblebee oh here’s milkshake oh hello is that
Oreo or milkshake this this is milkshake love it we haven’t had we’ve had Gail Williams’s um dog singing on on the hangout but we’ve never had a live there you go there he is my friend’s cat likes the vibrations of the laptop so it likes to just uh lie down on it so um someone’s just asked Becca has asked should we call you
Pharaoh would you like to explain that pH yeah that that has to do with the rrap video we are gonna get to that I’m saving that for a little bit it’s the wrap video okay Becca we’re getting to that um I’m not going to give away everything yet but uh this is this is part of our our plan today um your most influential teacher asks
Shane in New York uh Fritz kenig University of Michigan um was my mentor through four years of college um but my teacher in high school played a big part too I’m Tom Rono he’s actually a trombone player um and my first teacher was a trombone player yes yeah so he um teaches all low brass at interlockin and he just like gave me a really great
Foundation just like as a musician and he’s the one on the video on the YouTube video with you talking about you is that him yes from my yes not the rap video but yeah the other no not the rap video um I saw you teaching as well I saw some footage and and I was really impressed with how you work with these kids and is it and he said also on the video he said it’s because you’re so close to their age that they just really respect you and and um and and really you know hang on your every word do you find does that
Come naturally to you sort of giving back what you’ve acquired over the years um I I really do like teaching um and I I really love the feeling of just being able to express what I want on the instrument freely and if I can pass that on to someone else uh it’s just like one of the most wonderful things that
I can share so um I I really like it yeah okay car I would like to go on with the personal stuff I think we’re going to make a break from the personal stuff that the chat’s going crazy with questions for you so I’m gonna fire them at you and we’re gonna get back to pharaoh and cats and stilettos we’re gonna get back that when we’ve done some questions so if
I may I’m just GNA fire some stuff at you Bo has asked a couple of times he wants to know um what your thoughts are on piston versus rotor tubers in general now I shall just nod and pretend I know what you’re talking about um well yeah in Berlin you probably have rotary valve tuas um but I
I used to play rotary valve but they were old and uh very high maintenance and um and that got that was the the deal breaker for me was that they were too difficult to maintain so I’ve been piston ever since I don’t really have preference as far as playing but that’s and we have AJ in Nova Scotia wanted to know what your main focus were was in lessons while studying
University of M Michigan I guess becoming a good Tu player yeah like everything whatever uh whatever there was to fix just tackling it and I think were you a tu a tuber nerd were you really like in there like that or were you a party girl somewhere in um I definitely was never a tu a nerd um but definitely very hard worker always yeah late hours in the practice room and yeah
I remember those um there’s a question now about which is something that that I I’m really interested as well it’s about the F the German F versus the uh the the B flat versus the SE tuuba um Benjamin in Massachusetts wants to know if um do you use your eight 22 F tuba for all F tuba literature or do you have a
German f as well and on adding on to that Ben wants to know if you have to play a C chuba to be taken seriously in the USA okay so um the Yamaha is the only f2o that I have so I play that for everything um and it’s becoming uh more common to see players playing B flat tuba on the
United States um before recently like you couldn’t find professional quality B flat tubas around the states because the stigma is that B flat is for amateurs and then C play professional um I’m not sure exactly the the reasoning behind uh like the the history behind why it’s that’s our current status but um I I can tell you that um what
I have some cash flow issues right now but once I sort those out one of the first things that I want to buy is is a fafner B flat tuba because it’s so much fun to play and it’s a lot like my pt6 but like a size bigger so I want to play that for like Vagner and bofia
I think it’d be really fun they do that Jean does that doesn’t he in Chicago he uses it yeah does that um I think the guys in I think the guy in Pittsburgh has one now and the guy in Houston maybe or a couple guy I’ve heard of like several guys around the states then you’re going to have to get that new trunk the orchestra is going to have to get you that new trunk yeah um so and they asked me
Ben asked me is it true in Germany that you have to play the B flat tuuba I mean yes it yes you do have to play it C tuuba is very rarely used here I think when I got the uh audition information from the Berlin philarmonic um it was like kind tuba in like three underlines and 18 exclamation points no
C2 whatsoever they say you have to play flat tuba and that’s why I ended up not auditioning there coming I know we were we were really hoping to hear you I we’ve got a great guy but I mean I had a job already and like it’s not it wasn’t that I wouldn’t learn B flat 2o but it was the point that it was like six weeks away and to learn a new instrument period yeah would have been too much to like
Simon was sad Simon wanted to hear you Simon it was his idea for you to come over and play yeah it would have been fun but but we have a fantastic cheber player now too and everyone’s in and uh he makes a great noise on that on that be flat tuber he really does do you use different mouthpieces to make the a22 more versatile no just the one
I’m very much not an equipment person I have like my things that work for me and I just keep them the way they are and so I have I play uh one mouthpiece with my F2 one mouthpiece my CBA and I’ve played those since I’ve owned those instruments yeah if I lost my mouthpiece I would have to give up the horn that’s
I one um Mark Weaver it’s say do you have a daily routine that you do to stay in shape since you do a ton of playing I would think you need to have some sort of routine well don’t we all but tell us about yours maybe I can learn something from it because I’m a low horn player
I I have like this very flexible kind of rotating routine because um I’m sure you know what like like performance schedule like varies dayto day right so I mean your routine on a day where you have a dress rehearsal and a concert for like Vagner ring excerpts isn’t going to be the same as your routine for when you have the day off from performing right so like like how much time you have to spend on like fundamental drills or whatever but
I mean the things that I always have in my warm-up are um like low a2s are just playing in the low range and playing um liers I think those are like the biggest fundamental like lip slur are are fundamental as brass layers is what that’s how you change notes on your instrument right and yeah um but then
I sort of like I don’t like to have play I feel like when we get too stuck in playing the exact same thing every day we’re no longer doing it mindfully so I like to have like slight variations like as I go on so I don’t get stuck um because I want to make sure that I’m doing the the warm-ups well because it’s the point of doing them right it’s like reminding yourself what good technique is for that day so that you can just put that in and then that’s your default but if we’re not doing if we’re just doing our going through our routine
Going through the motions then it and not being mindful about about it then you’re not really enforcing your highest standard so I like little variation within all the things you do amen this is exactly I always tell my students warm up is a good word but um it’s not the be all and end all it’s more like what do we practice today it’s like it’s just as you say if you have a heavy concert there’s no point doing two hours of a warm-up in the morning so
I’m really happy you said that because um a lot of people sometimes think they have to do the same thing every day um if it helps them then they of course they do it but for me it’s that’s it’s not the case become a mental block if you’re like I can’t play until I’ve had my two-hour warm up well sometimes you don’t get that and a lot of times
I’m sure you know like traveling around you’re doing a master class somewhere you get zero time to warm up you have to play something absolutely cold and just if your fundamentals are locked in solid from the way that you practice every day then it’s not a problem no absolutely I totally agree 100% um tell me Brian has asked again what questions from him today have has playing in
Philadelphia in Philly changed your approached playing in any way has it made you play louder as it made you play bigger I guess um yeah good question I feel like I like Philadelphia definitely feels like home at this point and this Orchestra feels like home too and I was pretty inexperienced when I got this job like literally in college
I played 24 you were 24 when you got the job I I won the job at 20 and started at 21 amazing I thought it so in college I only played two semesters in Orchestra so I had basically zero experience um and I like I just was I figured it out by playing with recordings and listening a lot and studying um but sort of my now now that like
I’ve been with Orchestra six and a half years and like all of my experience has come from Philadelphia almost and that like that my way of playing is really the Philadelphia way now so like I’m I really feel like my musicality has been heavily influenced by my colleagues and I love like um I love just listening to so many of them the the fact that
I get to listen to them every day and like draw from their talents and like pick up little things that oh I like that I like that and like try to bring that into my own and um it’s definitely made me a much better musician just just playing with this Orchestra all the time it’s just so amazing to sit in an orchestra full of good colleagues
I mean I I sit sit in my my section and I and the the whole brass section and you just sit there and I know what you mean you know just sitting there and listening and it makes you grow as well because uh being surrounded by great people is actually the best way to get better yourself yeah um great but now the questions are coming in that
I especially want to ask how the heck do you do the breathing thing because because you’re small I mean you are small and I’ve seen videos of you it looks like you you just I mean you use every bit of space you have which is what I have to do as well but you have to do it on a much
Huger scale because you blow in a [Applause] bucket like blowing into a bucket yeah um we do the same thing I just I deal with larger qu Quant ities which means your body needs to work an awful lot harder yeah I um I definitely think uh about efficiency a lot and um it’s funny because everyone you know
I I do a lot of breathing clinics and I talk about breathing a lot and it seems like lots of people I talk to are looking for this like magic solution that I can teach them that there’s some they want to believe that there’s some brilliant way that there’s some trick that you can do that means that you can take in like a ton of air really quickly and that’s and then your all of your problems will be solved and
I wish it was that simple but I’m I think I think about breathing on a more like holistic approach it’s not just about the inhale it’s about the exhale too and planning the inhales around like so that you can make sure breath is a full breath and then you can get back to um your your default of just breathing big every time and so um learning just like
I sound really new Agy these days and kind of like a hippie because I’ve been doing a lot of yoga but like I feel like a lot of it is like learning to be one with your breath like to like be have like a higher level of awareness of like where you are in Your Capacity and like and knowing and obviously knowing how to like get get to where you need to go like as quickly and efficiently as possible but also like being educated about it and like being smart about planning the way you bre breathe and and like it’s it’s both inhale and exhale
And I agree with that I think the the the I think if you exhale the air it’s like if you go running up a flight of steps very fast your body’s going to be taking it it’s going to be taking it in and out how it needs it so if you exhale all the air your body’s going to auto automatically take it in so it’s no big myth actually just
I just have to learn to go to you know to use everything that I have rather than wa you know it like a lot of people do they don’t use all the stuff all the year they have but that is something you can work on and you can train and people are asking what what do you do to train your air or is it just playing do you use all these wind machines and these blue things and these spirometers and
I I’m not much uh like I’ve used the the the toys and the devices but um I I don’t do those as often I always say the the best um the best training you can do for um breathing efficiently especially if you’re talking about an a quick uh relaxed as possible inhale um then the best thing you can do is cardiovascular exercise like you
R marathons you you sporty girl I I have one run one Marathon I was to do it again this year but then I decided I didn’t want to anymore because I was uh not enjoying it at all so so um yeah but cardiovascular exercise if you think about it like you get your heart rate up you you run up and down the stairs like you start breathing heavily and you’re not working to move that air that quickly and well
I mean you’re not consciously working right so like you try to model the way that you’re controlling your breath when you’re playing after that natural breath where you’re you’re using as little effort as possible yeah yeah someone say asked if you’ve done ever done the breathing gym yes yes I was too exhausted by time i’ got five minutes into that into that video yeah
I love those guys and it’s hilarious and fun I just were a couple of those exercises make me more tense when I do them and for me like if you’re doing breathing exercises it should be all about the form that like you have to make sure that you’re minimizing tension as much as possible which is maximizing efficiency and if you ever feel like you’re becoming more tense when you do um an exercise like that then just stop doing it because you’re defeating the purpose you’re just practicing being tense if you do that so
I definitely draw from those but not all them when you go to m i I found this when you go to Masa classes and people say how do you breathe and show us and I find that quite a big responsibility because I I get the feeling I I try I try and show I’m not really quite sure but
I try and show it and then they everyone gets so tensed about it you know and then I I worry they go home and then and shoulders go up and I mean it’s one thing to know that like at the end of your breath right the top of your breath like it’s one thing to know that like when you breathe in like it starts at the stomach and then it fills in the chest and then your shoulders will come up at the end but it’s another to force those first and then and then expect the air to fill it because like if you just think
About breathing everywhere in your torso that’s the order it’s going to happen but you don’t need to be thinking about that sometimes too much information is is a problem so like because then you see people doing this kind of like breath like that and that’s not helping like um all you need to be thinking about is just being like have good posture and balance and then just like think about it’s that the
Arnold Jacob style the think about your torso as a balloon the entire thing is filling up around your spine yeah absolutely and also this Charlie veran said to me breathing dark also helps none of this girly breathing none of this none of that yeah I mean I don’t know do you make a loud do do you make a lot of noise when you breathe no
I mean you want to minimize resistance in your passageway right so it’s the difference between like this shape and like that shape right like this is the girly bre and this is the manly breath I guess um but yeah I mean if you if you’re moving air very quickly there’s going to be some like sound because there will be wind resistance but for um the the pitch will be lower with this shape then this will be a higher pitch and more girly sounding so
I don’t I don’t if I breathe in like that I don’t get as much air and if as if I but I can’t always stop it if I’m doing something fast I still hear myself do a girly breath and uh yeah well that’s like sometimes I get on my students for being too tense and I say your breath sound like mine yeah but we’re allowed to say that
I I would I would have given so much to have had a female teacher when I was studying you know there were just few far between I went to see freudis in Norway but you know you had no one to ask um I’m not sure it I’m not sure I needed that because I think I think it was almost good that like um and and my teacher
Fritz kenig from Michigan isn’t a big guy either he’s like around my height so our lung capacities are pretty similar how tall are you I’m 57 58 okay so tall tall medium tall but like I’ve got like somewhere around four liters of lung capacity so like and that’s about the same as like he has a little bit more than me but like
I think it’s good that I didn’t have someone saying like well you have less so you’re gonna like no I mean you just you have to make the music do what you want to and just figure it out around that figure out your breathing around and just make music happen yeah no absolutely music is always the first
Carol Alexander’s on the chat our Alexander from the Berlin Phil CH play greetings from your colleague Alexander so hello so that’s nice that’s what we love about this Global thing I wonder I wonder how many of everybody how many chba players do we have out there today are they many horns or many tubers maybe you can let us know um how
Jeffrey has asked from Pennsylvania how do you achieve playing higher notes without making the sound tense um that’s what I love about low playing is that like if you play all the time in the high register um it can be really damaging to your low it makes you all tense and tight and then you can sound like crap when you play low but the great thing if you play in the low register um then it it only enhances your high playing um the my favorite um exercises for high range are actually um slurs and arpeggios that cover a large range that go from like like
From basement register and up like three octaves and back down and if you can do that all in one set that mean and that means you’re like is your low set is like relaxed and and you’re relying on your air to get the notes out instead of like squeezing so much with your face yeah yeah this is all the best principal horns
I know have really great low registers because they really work on them no excuses not to work on your low registers but it makes your high register better so if you can really if you just buy into it then everything gets better yeah no oh it’s just it’s just amazing I could talk to you for hours we’ve got we’ve got home players and chba players out there uh coming in fast for the questions but
I’m going to take a little break from the technical stuff if I may because um you know this it’s not t play isn’t only about technical stuff and I would just like to explain the pharaoh to you guys may I Carol please by all means okay guys for you that for those of you that don’t know this carol brought out an amazing
CD and oh she’s left left the room no she’s come back and um when I was researching her I came across this uh video on YouTube that maybe YouTuber players will know it’s not very long but I’m just going to show we couldn’t work out any other way of showing you to so I’m going to put it on my laptop and here we go [Music] who is this guy his name is
Steve Peterson uh he’s a home player um I went to University of Michigan with him and he started making funny of videos when he was in his undergrad there um and he would make like recital trailers like movie trailers for people as advertisements for people’s like senior recitals and uh so when I and he started making more and more he went did his
Masters or he moved to Houston and was like making videos down there and so when I came out with my CD uh I think I was like I need a a CD video and so I called Steve and and he he pulled through on it it was awesome it is the coolest thing I have seen in a long time
I sent this immediately to Tim in Melba my wonderful Web Master who you’ve met and I said I can’t wait for this interview because I just thought the cool thing I mean it’s really quite what you’re in some fountain with your trousers with and these he’s got these cool green glasses you guys put the um put the put the link up on
YouTube maybe one of you can put it up on the chat so everyone can watch it and and did it help sell lots of CDs no not at all oh sh no get out there nothing everyone is like awesome video I’m not buying your CD everybody out there I want you all to buy Carol CD for Christmas please um no and it’s why will you call then the
Pharaoh Pharaoh y oh that’s that’s from the opening track I don’t actually have the nickname but um okay well you do now yes oh yeah thanks Tim Tim’s put the link up so everyone get that and where can they buy your CD um on my website Carol an.com uh link please Tim thank you we got to use this for a little bit of self-promotion come on this is we want everyone to buy a
CD oh somebody’s already someone Adam Hannah said he he’s got it already so there we go good so I I love this I love this this way um think it’s a fantastic way of also getting young people interested in in what we’re doing um using a language that they speak um did you write the lyrics yourself no uh the only lyric that
I can take credit for is your mama wants a CD that was an ad that that’s mine but the rest the the main rap is was Steve um okay would he write a horn WAP I would love to do a rap video I would love that maybe we should do one together I bet I bet he would
I think that would be really really fun I would love that we could really we’d have a little collection of of brass players rap videos you know we’ve got tuuba we could do a horn one we could get Alice bam to do a trumpet one yeah oh great great okay it’s about time to make H another video and
I have like the seeds of a new idea but I don’t wanna I don’t want to give any spoilers so okay well if you need a partner in crime then then let me know I’ll be um now all the questions of course are coming coming in what do you do away from the chuba um what do you enjoy doing in your free time um
I am an avid Ultimate Frisbee player um and Ultimate Frisbee uh is a is a team sport um so you know what a frisbee is right like the flying FR is of course I don’t know what an ultimate frisbee is Ultimate Frisbee is a sport so you um so you score like American football we have end zones you you’re running like soccer and you play defense like basketball and you’re doing this while you throw a frisbee so you throw the frisbee to the next person and once you catch it you stop running and uh then throw it to the next person until someone catches it
In the end zone and that’s a point and there some pictures on Facebook of you playing this that that’s what it is yes yes all right yeah and so that’s a great way to meet um non-music people which is is uh important for my sanity um to have friends outside of Music also I do a lot of yoga um these days for like the past year or so um and
I like to read things Matias in fryborg here in Germany says what are your plans for the future that’s a big question play the in in what respect uh can you see yourself being staying part of an orchestra I’ll rephrase that cuz I I mean I just say I would want to know um could you could you imagine leaving the orchestra doing only a solo career or could you could you imagine you you already teach at
Curtis don’t you right and I’m doing a lot more teaching music I had I teach at Curtis I have one student and a class at Curtis I have a student at Temple University and I have two students in Nebraska at elel University um so there’s a decent amount of teaching um going on and I I really love um the sort of like artistic balance that
I get with my job the the sort of um that it’s uh first of all a really awesome job that I’m playing with a really fantastic group of musicians um so that’s just like an amazing privilege um but that I have the freedom like to take some weeks off here and there to go do like solo gigs sometimes and
I have time to teach so really for me it’s an ideal situation and I would worry that if I did just the solo thing that just sounds like so much work I don’t know um that as well it’s lonely a lot of gigs it would just and be traveling all the time I get really tired of traveling and
I like this stability of having this job but the freedom to like go do solo things some of the time also if you were only a soloist and you didn’t have your trunk from the orchestra you’d have to carry myself I knowes yoga someone’s just asked um John has asked in South Carolina if you get neck and shoulder
PL pain as a tuba player how would you how should you deal with it I guess yoga is perfect for that um not your tuba is also good for that yeah yeah I mean I definitely um I definitely Advocate like self-awareness in terms of of tension and um yoga definitely does that for you it like turns turns your awareness into internally and uh so that you know like you can be one with your body
I sound so new AG it’s so annoying but um that you that you know what’s going on with your body and hopefully then you can start to um notice if there’s a trend like oh every time I play high my right shoulder like goes to the ceiling maybe I should stop doing that I think the first step is awareness and that’s the hardest part
Lee Curtis says Carol is a great teacher I Le that’s nice that’s nice um there’s all I mean we could go on for hours but I have to let Tim Tim has got a normal job and at this point I would like to actually bring Tim into the conversation because the horn my horn hangout friends um they own they know of
Tim because he’s the he’s the one that controls all this he’s the most incredible person Tim are you there I want people to see him today because it’s our last one of the year you’re our last guest and um Tim are you there we can see a picture over you but we can’t see you and he’s a tuba player did you know that he did tell me that so this is my
Christmas present to him that I’m interviewing you yeah hi Tim right hello how you going hey Tim finally finally everyone gets to see you out there it’s a worry isn’t it Tim did I touch on enough Tu tuber e things for Carol I think you did you answered most of the questions too because it’s all in tubber land there’s all this talk about
B flat and c and rotors and pistons and all of that which is a little bit boring sometimes but a lot of people like to move like to what do you play on in Australia I play in brass bands so I play a be flat tuba in brass bands okay because we we play the much harder Parts than the orchestras it’s much more difficult playing a brass
Pand and you have to wear silly green hats when you play yeah we have to wear hats and dress up and wear funny suits which makes a little bit more interesting from time to time Carol are you a brass band girl I’ve never played in a brass band I played in front of a brass band a couple times now but
I think it would be really fun I was a band person in college uh I played in windband uh the symphony band at University of Michigan um I love the conductor and um I always thought playing a band was more fun than playing an orchestra because I had things to do a lot of a lot of rests when you’re play in an orchestra but in a band there’s definitely stuff to do all the time somebody somebody on the chat has suggested that um
Tim and um Tim and Carol play a duet so there you go one day we’ll have to organize that get a duet set up between Pennsylvania Philadelphia and Melbourne oh Carol you’ve been invited to solo with the Houston Brass Band a proper British band group yeah there you go the BS are flowing in here there we go
Tim can you see the chat yes I can everyone is very veryy happy to see you and may I just say officially um at this point it’s our last hangout before Christmas and um it’s of course about Carol today but because you’re with us may I just say such a huge thank you to everything you’ve done for me this year and also for our our horn hangout community and now the tuba
Community as well you built the website you’ve made this all possible um thank you very very much for everybody everybody out here from yakob here behind the camera and uh thank you very very much no worri it’s a pleasure it’s been lots and lots of fun and a lot of work but lots of fun and it’s nice to see people out there watching the videos and appreciating it all big
Applause on the on the chat so Carol what do you wish for for Christmas um I I just uh kind of want a break and just hang out with friends and family and that’s all I really want you had a big tuuba Christmas thing I I this is something I think horn players need to start can you two please explain to me this chuba
Christmas thing did you guys have Tuba Christmas Melbourne doesn’t doesn’t really happen much in Australia unfortunately oh that’s sad you should organize it because I mean you you don’t have any things to do right my and I I can’t say anything because I don’t organize the tube of Christmas I just attend it um our our my colleague at
Temple University J crush is the guy who organizes it in Philadelphia and he does a great job um but I think Tuba Christmas is so much fun it’s it’s um it’s a great Community builder for all the tuba players around town to get together and just play play together and meet each other and um and it’s really fun it’s has a pretty good following
Philly now that we play in the the lobby of the Kimmel Center where my Orchestra plays um and we get a good crowd like coming out of the holiday pops concert they’ll stay and the they’ll see like this crowd of tuba players on this stage as they’re leaving they be like what’s that and then they stay to hear like the rumbling sounds of like
Christmas type music there’s also you had some very nice lights on because yours was yesterday wasn’t it on Sunday it was on Sunday yeah and um covered in neon lights yeah I uh the tradition I grew up at the the Columbus Ohio Tuba Christmas that I attended when I was in my freshman year of high school um was like the the thing there is everybody decorates their instruments like hardcore and so
I I like to go all out with that and found some battery powder battery powered LEDs and uh made the most of them well people are telling me now that there is something like that um the horns of Plenty Christmas ho ho horns not playing in a group called ho ho horns have think well have to think of the
German version but Tim don’t you think I mean as Carol said you don’t have much to do these days couldn’t you organize that I mean how about Tuba Christmas in Melbourne on the beach with a Barbie I don’t mean a Barbie doll I don’t mean a Barbie doll I mean a Barbie an Australian barbie which is a barbecue
I can totally see that I can see like a 100 tuba players getting together wearing their Santa hats and playing some tunes and then like drinking beer and eating meat afterwards like I’ll have a chat I’ll have a chat to my people and see what we can R up for the next make sure I get some photos to you invitations in
MA of course next year Tim I I have a new I have a new thing for you we have to do live links you have to live link the tuo Christmas world you know we have to get a link from the Kimmel Center to the beach on me in Melbourne yeah no worries no worries so um last one before
Christmas and I wanted to say Merry Christmas oh my hat doesn’t fit in the the picture that’s probably the most ridiculous Christmas hat you’ve ever seen um but in the risk of looking totally ridiculous all I want to say is Merry Christmas Happy New Year and um join us next year 2013 Carol I hope you’re G to be back because you’re fascinating and we adore you and um
I you’re will all be back with us the videos will be coming in the archive very very soon won’t they Tim uh yes yes they will see what happens with the videos is they go out and I have to edit them all together and I’m a little bit slower at that than I should be but I promise they’ll some up very soon yeah
I’m a slave driver I’m a slave driver sorry no it’s all fantastic and um thank you very much for doing that Carol thank you so much for joining us today you’ve been the most amazing guest I’m taking my hat off because I feel rather silly Merry Christmas to you and a pleasure and we’ll see you very very soon
Tim we’ll be back on in five minutes we’ll talk bye everybody Merry Christmas bye bye
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