“Tuba, Travels and Teaching”. Roger Bobo is interviewed in Tokyo, Japan by Sarah Willis and talks about his illustrious career and what his advice would be to aspiring tuba players of today.
Transcript
Auto-generated from the live stream, expect the occasional robot mishearing.
Welcome to Tokyo in Japan we are in the yamaha shop at the Ginza which is the main shopping street here in Tokyo an amazing place and I have the huge privilege and pleasure today to meet one of my heroes especially as a low horn player mr. Roger Bobo thank you so much for joining us today I’m thrilled to be here
I’ve been watching you and you’re so great and I’m glad to be one of the people now you are one of the people you are one of the horn hangout shows right I know there are many many people around the world who are gonna be thrilled to be watching this because you are really a legend you are a tuber legend a brass legend and it’s quite a lot to live up to really isn’t it now
I think it helps for a move oh not that old come on that’s true why does it help that you’re old because I have more history to look back at you have you have many students here you have students all over the world when I told him I was going to be interviewed interviewing you there was a huge rush of enthusiasm from the tuba world you’ve touched many many tuba players of not only tuba players but a lot of brass players over the over the years and now you’re teaching here in
Japan what how many students do you have here in Japan I probably have about 15 and what’s a normal day for you here a normal day is I I do my personal work in the morning at night teach maybe at 11 o’clock and at 1 o’clock and then 2 o’clock you just go back from Mexico as well yes well we had how are the tuba players in
Mexico incredible big surprise they were wonderful there were sweet people they were enthusiastic they were quick and they had the motor responses to take my suggestions and make them work very quickly you you travel really all around the world doing doing all your master classes and conducting as well do you find there’s a similarity to the problems that students face all around the world or can you say like the
Japanese humor players have these challenges the German Shiva players have another challenge or is it do you find that students in general struggle with the same things there are two answers first of all they all struggle with the same things functioning some of them are just musical from the heart and some of them other countries are very rigid and don’t understand for example in
Japan the western style of making music is a little foreign still that’s elegantly put um I find often that there’s a lot of emphasis on perfection in some of the Asian countries especially and as you say that the western style of music making that’s a process being learned on the other hand as other countries where you go to they play all with heart and don’t have the physical technique behind it how do you have you come back do you bring the two together well of course
I try but you know I think in the European countries in Germany and France and Italy Spain it’s all coming together all by itself you know you just nudge a little bit push a little bit in and there’s not any big adjustments that you have to make but sometimes in Asia you have to write down every dynamic and then enforce it by being stubborn when you say you have to notch and push a little bit how do you and push the students a little bit
I senior master classes on YouTube which I really recommend by the way or you guys should get on YouTube and watch watch these great master classes but what is your policy for nudging and encouraging well there are two ways of teaching first of all you teach how to function on the instrument we all know that and you teach music out music allottee can you teach music
County yes and some people it’s easier than other people but I think in most places of world everybody has it and if you can get the student to understand it then they’ll discover a way to do it themselves their own physiology their own body will learn how to do that if it becomes necessary we talk about what physically has to be done do you get all these questions like where do you put the tongue for this note and how do
I put my cheeks for this note I get these all the time at master classes very frustrating yeah I don’t think I’ve ever said this but my joke is look it up on Google you can look up everything everyone just look up to bhai register and it’ll explain it as well as I think currently true yeah well it’s it’s hard to get the students out of this perfection box with
I mean of course these days there are very few jobs and you know you have a hard time as a student to get to the top to call your way to the top so of course they want to be as perfect as they can but to get the musicality across that that’s a challenge for the teachers I think these days but
I’m happy you say that you think it can be taught unfortunately but the students I say no one you know and then I have this complex deep deep deep down inside that maybe I think I’m oh wow that must have been worse things than being Pavarotti yeah but it gone when Pavarotti does it it works and so you seem like you sing in the power are you a tenor are you a camera number one from a baritone parrot and the earth and all especially since
I quit playing the tuba the night I don’t have the instrument to dentistry so I sing it do you never play not for fun no no no do you miss it as your body miss it sometimes for example I just came from Spain from Mexico and there was great players there and then they were all playing I just
I wish I could just play one concert but I don’t sound as well as I used to well the puddin well put it mildly I’m not sure quite if I you don’t even get it out of home and have a little total not so much no but you sing and that’s your the voice is the the most natural instrument
I think yeah and it works pretty well I try not to overdo it sometimes somebody doesn’t use enough air and the sound just isn’t there you know that then I’ll get this star away from their ear and I’ll be Pavarotti and they must fill the horse make sound and then I back away and they’re sounding okay embarrassingly successful that’s a great trick
I know where to come next time right no singing is is really really fantastic way of making helping people understand also the musical lines I find because if you can sing it you can play it and so many people can’t sing for example example motor home concerto then they practice in practice and practice until get that it there’s music in there and you make them sing it and
I’ve got what the beginning is like it depends on where you are you know in Holland can’t you sing no look please sing this one Italy can you see of course of course I can sing and then they do it and this sounds great and I say please play like that they go love me know what a good idea and it works it works and it sounds simplistic but it really how about your students here in
Japan do they like to sing they can I think they have a lot of karaoke experience now that’s a good idea maybe we should take our students the next master class we do we should take our students down to a karaoke place that’s not a bad idea or travel around with a portable karaoke machine because but most of the time by this by the time they start singing they’re pretty uninhibited that’s true which is not so good for tuber play with so so you you are planning to to carry on travelling around the world
I hear your time in Japan is coming to an end well I’m not sure about that my time at the Musashino Academy of Music has ended or it will end in a few months and after that I have work enough master classes all over the world and as far as the future is concerned I have three choices right now one is
Italy which I’m sort of pulling for I want to go back and work with the Italian use Youth Orchestra the orchestra Giovanni Lee which I worked with for 15 years and it was very successful Bost you could boast as much as you want okay you don’t know anything else we want you to boast that’s what you’re here for every branch section in every
Italian Orchestra has students that play with me in the orchestra Giovanni that’s fantastic yeah that is very very proud of that and some of them have become very very brilliant soloists so I would love to go back and do that there’s another music school in Japan that I can go go to and it’s a good job but
I think it’s time to move on and I just came back from Mexico and had one of those and wonderful pedagogical experiences of my life what made it so special there the response the feedback it was instant and positive and as I said they were quick they were musical some of these kids were really naturally musical and they all worked very hard to make it sound good than that they were all successful and happy and
I have to tell you one story I had a brass quintet very looking not such great instruments a sousaphone and they lived in a town up in the mountains and the Spanish was their second language me shake was their first language Misha there never heard of that they were wonderful so positive and I talked about it and
I I just talked it up how much I enjoyed it and they’ve invited me to come to their city in the mountains 3,000 people to stay for two months in September and October and I’m doing it I don’t hear what else anybody offers me I’m going there and I’m looking forward to it as a social mean it’s an adventure it’s an adventure to the venue and there’s you know in
Germany probably in Australia in America there’s always one city that specializes you know they’re all the brass players come from and that’s the spaceship that’s near Oaxaca and Oaxaca you know I think there’s probably 30 or 40 to us say it would revolutionize brass playing in Mexico again you’ve evolutionized it all over the place I am enormous ly tempted and essentially
I’ve been invited and for those two months I have really been invited and I’m going that’s great oh that’s really great news so well after after you’ve been there we’ll get you back on and you can tell us about about all the adventures I’m sure I’m sure there’s going to be some things yeah well you are quite a big
Facebooker actually and isn’t this a wonderful way of keeping in touch with everybody when I heard first heard of Facebook somebody said oh that’s for kids unless for high school kids you know and then I got into it and I found myself enjoying it enormous ly and frankly I think half of my contacts for jobs did a job you know in
Scandinavia or Spain or Australia half of those things come from Facebook somebody I met in Facebook hey I’d really like to come there okay let me see what I’ll do it then I they send me back something and this again can you get any money yeah that’s a way that things everybody would say I liked it and then the did
I think works a lot of it works a nice I have such an appreciation for Facebook and a lot of my work the international work comes from my associations it’s a great way great way to keep in touch you’re also a big blogger I was just reading this morning your very last blog post which was about the dangers of practicing too much oh
I like I like that well no I mean I’ve had Japanese students particularly who start cramming for exams and they go five hours a day then the next day six the next day seven and the next day nine tuba players can play for nine hours no they can’t they become non-functional and then they worry and things get worse and they practice harder and they become non-functional there they actually destroy the tissue it would be like you know a track star or runner a marathon runner practice and working out too much yeah keep an eye on this cheapo players
I know they can they can go for pretty long hours much longer hours than we can but that’s true it’s just true in and you can go longer hours and trumpet players yeah whether we do or not I don’t know but I’m not sure about that um when when we do hangouts there’s always all sorts of we couldn’t do live today because we
Tim my dear Tim Kelly my wonderful webmaster he’s actually not in the office today so we couldn’t do live today so we haven’t got the live questions but I did ask around around the tuba community what they would want to know from you I know what I want to know we’ll get on to that but they really they are so grateful for everything online that you put you have your master classes you have your blogging you keep in touch by
Facebook basically that the students all want to know your top tips for tuba playing your let’s say let’s say the five hottest tips for tuba playing I know it’s always the thing I always get the mouthpiece questions but you’ve already answered one you say sing yeah okay another big focus for me is that breathing is part of the music
I’ve had students come to me and they insist that they have a breathe problem and they they don’t and once I convinced him that breathing is part of the music and the music needs to breathe also you know nobody wants to hear a 20 minute phrase can she would play a secular breathe sure sure sure but the music needs to breathe breathing is part of the music and sometimes when there are attack problems it’s always because of the breath that comes before the attack which is out of rhythm if you breathe on a beat one two well and it comes out beautifully every time not
To stop the air the air moves always never right there comes an incredible brass plane definitely usually caused by by the brain often together you know and it turns into nerve nervous problems and neuroses and alcohol problems and psychological sessions in order it’s all favorite only breathe yeah I think that sounds so simplistic but I’ve never seen it fail
I’ve never seen this fail so singing making the breath the part of the musical phrase I’m not letting you out of these um yes not practicing too much not going crazy about about making yourself out of it that’s not a big deal I think articulation is very important and the languages of the world linguists can’t agree on how many consonants there are some say a 100 some say 120 you know because you speak that language is yourselves a sign and some of them that they’re all different and so many brass players think it’s duh and puh duh it makes it makes us brass player sound
Really intelligence prospects about God well I always make that joke when I’m telling this in a in a master class once they get that idea which is also what I did in Mexico with great success because it came naturally it’s just natural and if you come in after a beat then take the breath after the one two three four the the the and then you know we all have our flexibility exercises there must be like a million flexible reflects ability exercises with the bra section different ones every day
I make them do it with six different articulations whole slur ah breath and forced slur hahaha trouble legato I call it da da da normal Tata da da Matta Marcato to neutral quasi symphonical I call it Marcato tenuto peasant take Antalya and you know do flexibility exercises with that great like you would play a Tchaikovsky sniffing and staccato and then that makes six yeah okay there’s a hundred and twenty consonants in languages and articulation is the consonants of the musical language so more articulations that we have control the more interesting we can the music and the gonna the music in the more we can use
That to communicate I use the example you know when somebody doesn’t use their current semester what happens well than anyone here and then I already had to talk the consonant really you know what playing it that year they’re not ready neither is not Ruben it might be a maybe that problem so and I say you don’t want to sound stupid do you and then they get the idea and then they use their constants we we
Brits do like to use our consonants yes I know why I do that all the time you might get to a little bit of a controversial subject so those are really great tips for the students I mean if they watch there if you watch the master classes online you will get all these fantastic tips best still go to a live master class live is is always better so those those would be the questions our student home let me quickly say
I have a master class DVD out called tuba profond oh you do yeah you can get it on your website yeah yes you can find it on my website yeah so order it it’s great that’s really Desha two and a half hours long don’t watch it all at once please who an hour long master class goodness me well um yeah that’s value for money
I’m sure I’m also there that those those were like the students questions and then I asked around um a few professionals to say you know what what do you think would be a good angle and actually a trombone player friend of mine came up with I won’t know names because I don’t want to irritate anybody but he actually said something very interesting he said there’s been this true tuba revolution over the last 20 30 years and she were players have gone from the instrument that plays on the beat and the bass chords to these incredible virtual stick incredible solo guys most of them have been
Your students you know Sandra Rowland Steve really incredible players and sometimes um you find these days that these people are not not these ones I mentioned of course but I was trombone player said he’s had the experience that with some students that they’ve been able to play anything but in the orchestra they were pretty useless because they have all this virtuosic ability but haven’t actually done
I remember when I was a youth orchestra of the British a dog Sir John Fletcher made the tuba sit down every day play on the beat get faster get slower he really drilled them in rhythm and and and these days my chumbo boyfriend had he had the feeling that most people were just playing fancy pieces and I just wanted to ask you what you thought about this tuba revolution maybe there’s a proclivity in that direction however most of those players be pretty good symphonic players and you know if articulation is the consonants of the musical language then the articulations that are necessary in the
Marcato to newton passante can tabular style I haven’t got that off by how it yet that I’m working on it that we use symphonic ly we can’t put it in a single category because you know better than most people that you know Bruckner and Tchaikovsky and mater are very different from each other and just in their own pieces in one symphony they differ from section to section so what you’re describing probably is true somewhere but
I’m not so aware of it so do you put the what is your emphasis once you get them singing and articulation and everything a lot of orchestral excerpts this this it’s obviously I mean we had a for our audition where Alexander from put how I got the job there were he had to play the most incredible things that the string players had never actually heard the recipe ghee and he was there you buh-buh-buh-buh your friends and people started giggling they thought you know gosh not to cheaper players practice and where did they practice this at home well
Babe Ruth you know that has to be practiced yeah but you’re practicing these days with older although all the party pieces a lot as well party to me mean like virtuoso yeah I think they have to do both I think that II that kind of style has to be worked on there are certain etude books that deal with that style any favorites apart from yours no mine doesn’t it doesn’t no
I’m sorry dude I never haven’t haven’t got to go I wish everybody well I would love that but there are are studies that are orchestral in nature Plaza for example which is a standard staple I have that one night I like to practice that yeah that has to be played like Tchaikovsky or sometimes for coffee and what
I avoid and there are I don’t know if there are anymore but I know that there were schools in the United States and other nameless another thing that will stay nameless where they would go to school for four years learning passages for auditions that’s crazy and that’s all they learned you mean yeah yeah that’s what they worked on and that’s a pathway to neurosis absolutely for sure that’s so much fun either noise when playing should be fun listen it’s not it’s not healthy you know it’s like eating
I don’t know what you know what shredded wheat is I know what showplace not all the world knows whether it is good breakfast cereal that if you don’t put milk on it it’s really dry yeah and that’s like eating it without milk or sugar hmm that’s a very good analogy um no it was just I just thought there was an interesting interesting view of things from from my trombone player friend who also may remain nameless another guy
I talk to a little bit about you I meant it at the moment in Japan it’s quite incredible because we have at the same time we have the consult kabbalah vienna film the city of Birmingham your astre the city the Berlin Philharmonic all these horn sections have all met and we had a big party the other day they are the night on all the horns yeah and and last time
I met your good friend Perry Oh Perry us the achievement player that principle she ruined the Concertgebouw Orchestra with a very difficult second name Hawk and I can use I prefer is that right Hagen very hot and I okay and he is was one of your students and and you are a total hero to him and he said he said that the tumor world would actually just like to know your your your greatest inspirations oh you know where where do you you you are a complete musician he said you’re not just a tuber freak um you you you you you get your inspiration from
Pavarotti and singing tella sure did roots deeper fischer-dieskau Pavarotti you know I mean any great player or a Berlin yeah you know we can’t get our inspiration only I hate to say this work I use it rarely from the to my ghetto we can’t it’s just that’s a tragedy if we do do you think is a danger that a lot of people do that little students stay in the tuba ghetto a lot more we’re not sure in my school now there’s very little interchange between the tuba class and the other brass a shame you know not so much brass choir maybe there’s two brass quintet’s
In the school like coach one tube ensemble troubled ensemble trumpet ensemble horn ensemble and Symphony Orchestra where they have maybe 20 or 25 rehearsals for concert to sing with Wind Ensemble sounds great you know 25 rehearsals you can make anything sound great and my god they do sound great but the influences you musical influences are very much outside there’s no chamber music for mixed groups you know this repertoire for 2min cello unthinkable they look at me like
I’m crazy when I see okay it’s great and just so many things to good woodwind quintet that in there oh and then every combination we can think of it’s not done we just don’t do that that’s a shame because I think they can I think playing together such a is also as big inspiration for students and it’s fun too there are problems but have to be dealt with
I’ll say one of the most frustration frustrating things is after exams the students gather around they want to know they’re there my criticisms or my comments I don’t have a language facility and and they don’t speak English well enough but I have a iPad and I keep it all in I had somebody translate each one of them
I’m testing and I made it available to them and I got into very serious trouble why is that they do not need your comments they only need your score so that’s that’s mighty one chip on my shoulder that I’ll share okay I didn’t understand that that’s a chip on your shoulder yes I think that’s J do need they do yeah student students need input on the other hand and it’s one thing that
I saw you say often in your master classes students need to learn to teach themselves and that’s what the teachers have to help them along the way and you said that in a master class I saw online that actually your job is more is the most important thing you can give is to help a student to be able to be their own best teacher they are the primary teacher they determine when to practice how long practice what needs work how to fix it where’s the problem how to fix it yeah it’s all their responsibility that’s our job is a guide to try to lead them
To being able to make those decisions this stuff so pedagogical decisions okay away from the pedagogical because um you were for so many years the the leading trimmer player ever you started in Rochester you went to consult Kabbalah Perry was telling me yesterday a bit about the history there you’re only there for two years sadly it was fifty years ago
I couldn’t believe it period that’s yeah exactly but you can remember it like it was yesterday you love it oh my god was magical you know I can remember the smell I can remember sitting on the stage definitely too bad sing Mahler’s name and Bruckner’s name and Brahms and then all the all the box seats had this name yeah on the wall and you see hey
I read the moldering book with symphonies every time and I remember just taking notes but a whole it was so why did you need I mean LA Philharmonic is also you know you been there for 25 years a long time in the job what made you go back was it because it was home I think in my mind
I’ve always wanted to go to Los Angeles Philharmonic that was sort of my goal and it’s hard to say if I know now what I if I knew then what I know now would I have done that me I made contacts with things in California that I would not have done in the concent come on but the
Concertgebouw was a wonderful experience and Europe was a wonderful continent and Holland was a wonderful country and you know going back to Los Angeles I really went through I guess something of a withdrawal I missed it so much so very very much and there’s a great photo of you online standing in front of a plane you know the one you could you can google it you look amazing you look like a film star and you’re waving goodbye and you’re leaving for leaving for
Amsterdam on the plane you know the one I need you’re sure Rayford I think what we’ll try and find it and put it into a frenzy just but they must be quite an adventure in those day there was no Facebook no email no nothing to keep in touch with your heart rate I was one of the first
Americans to go to Europe and then there was a toy yeah Balai half of them so um this is a terrible question um as an interview or I hate to ask it but it’s what people want to know do you you have so many highlights you can actually pinpoint highlights but is there something you can say during your time nearly
Philemon it yeah I remember that that that musical highlights the Johnny Carson show must have been a highlight no I mean I had watched that show so many times that I didn’t feel so strange out there is like okay this is the Carson show mommy it’s me here in front of me you were so cool it was so you sat down there and just played
I don’t know how you did it and oh the conductor’s you worked with in the LA Phil time well of course even mater and Giannini and conductor maybe you know in spondoolie yes yes I thought he was wonderful I did too he always told those stories with with it you know sort of imaginary little stories about what’s happening like it is a little a deer coming out of the forest you’d always say in the scouts or
Bruckner Forum we all knew he was gonna say that every time it came over did you tell little stories in those days - yeah but I don’t remember right this minute Stravinsky so frequently not only an LA Philharmonic but in the Columbia Symphony Orchestra maybe 50 times played those Reap recordings that he did it usually drama tonight the conductor but did it matter it was very interesting he was he was very feeble until he got angry and then from about 5 foot 4 inches he turned 6 foot 6 his fists went up in the air and came crashing down on the music stand and he
Had a voice you know like one of the greatest bass baritones in the world oh well it sounds a little bit I catch tried like is the monster yeah in the Firebird he was he was magnificent yeah so um when you look cute when you look at Roger Bobb on Wikipedia one of the things that you read in there is that you played on
Indiana Jones and that’s quite impressive that might have been a highlight yeah I love the play for John Williams and John Williams Nelson Riddle and Quincy Jones all of those guys were just wonderful blessing people you met that yeah and then I did the John Williams stupid concerto with your enchanting well you know I played it several times with
John Williams and also the Pacifica someone and he was wonderful that’s been quite quite a hate the oldies studio recordings you did as well yeah um every film in the book that’s interesting because no I thought my job I was sadly I think that was a little bit of a snob I was the truest in the LA
Philharmonic and I played these studio jobs for money good money I heard yes and then I moved to Europe and I quit playing the tuba and what I missed were the studio job really now the Bruckner in there and the male of course I meant that I miss that but I went to a studio a studio recording at
Sony Studios a year ago last March when I was out in LA I was doing master classes and teaching private lessons in LA for a week and I was really nostalgic I was so touched that it was so good to see all these people in the atmosphere and then the intensity and the level of playing they were great and talk about speed it took then one reading and they had it and unfortunately
I don’t remember the name of the composer that he was very very high level so what you do when you aren’t think on teaching or organizing your your tuba life do you watch all these movies with all these great soundtracks or your movie watcher you like eating teriyaki yeah I think there’s there’s something I wrote for example today we’re going to a teppanyaki restaurant that has the best steak in the world and
I made reservations for that there is when I when I asked a few of your dear students you’re very famous when a very famous unison yeah what should I talk to Roger about they said nothing to do with the tuba is it off ask about food wine and women so I think we I think we’ll save that for the next
I had a very interesting position with Kristian Lindbergh last week we were working together in Mexico and I said I’ve got a problem with country trying to find a country that I want to stay trying to find the University where I want to stay and find the trying to find a woman that I want to stay with those three things
I just can’t settle down Oh Roger I wish there’s much fun that it’s not funny honey but I think it’s incredibly sweet because I’m sure you’re gonna find all three of the moves for your walk you’re gonna find all three of them and um as soon as you do then I want you back here to tell me all about those because actually that’s probably what most of the people really want to get dressed up mouthpieces singing they want to hear about the the real juicy stuff
Roger thank you so much for being on the phone hangers it’s been a total pleasure to meet you and a real honor and you’ve done amazing stuff for the whole music musicians were all the tumor world you’re an incredible individual and an inspiration to many well we’re so lucky to have you here fine I saw much and you’re in here what you’re doing is amazing too so
I really thank you thank you
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