My son opened for ZZ Topp today

Did anyone go to Texas Motor Speedway for the NASCAR race today? During the pre-race ceremonies the TCU band played. They asked my son to go ahead and play his tuba solo of Jimi Hendrix Voodoo child to open up. He said he was not nervous playing in front of 200,000 people. We also found out the pre-race was broadcast worldwide on several different channels also so I guess he played before an audience of several million worldwide.

I guess that will look good on his resume. Opening for ZZ Topp before an audience of 200,000. Did anyone see the pre-race show. I was at work so I did not get to see it. Did he look okay? He said one of his friends, who was in the crowd unknownst to him, texted him and said they had put him on the Jumbotron during the playing of the solo part.....

 

As he was leaving, ZZ Topp was coming on. Billy Gibbons was walking up the steps to the stage and stopped to talk to him about the solo part. He said, "You the one who played the Hendrix licks on the tuba? That was some good sh*t man". J.J. was pretty stoked to get some encouragement from him.............

Oh, he met Juan Pablo today also. He said he was not impressed. Said he thought he was pretty stuck on himself. Told him he used to watch him when he drove F1 and Juan Pablo just stared through him and walked past. I guess he was preoccupied with todays race.....

Groupies? He said there was still a good sized group of hotties following ZZ Topp around....Even as old as those guys are getting. Groupies for him..........Nah, tubas are really not very sexy..........Kind of interesting to play Hendrix guitar parts on one but not too sexy..........

I had to laugh. He said that at the end of the song he gave the "Rock on" salute to the crowd and a lot of Longhorn fans thought he was flashing "Hook'em horns" He quickly had to revise it to the "Horned Frog" salute...........It looked like crossed allegiance from TCU to Texas......and he was in his TCU uniform........

The video is not on Youtube yet but I am hoping it will show up soon.....I will post a link if I find it......

 

Flight of the Bumblebee is no problem. Carol Jansch did it on tuba on Over the Top on NPR several years ago. She was a prodigy. Probably the youngest college tuba professor yet. J.J. plays it just for fun. He was messing around a couple of years ago at International Tuba Euphonium Convention and someone caught him on video playing the intro to Dragonforce Through the Fire and Flames. This is when he was a senior in high school.

He prides himself on how quick he can tongue. He can single tongue faster than most double tongue and double tongues tremendously quick. Many of the trumpet players at TCU come to him for tonguing exercises......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFWbB5kGZQE

 

I did not get to see it. Did he do okay? He said he thought it sounded pretty good. Was the public address system good for reproducing the sound? His intent in playing the tuba is to attempt to change the public perception of it only being an oom-pah-pah instrument. He listened to a recording of Buglers Holiday, went to his room to work on it and came out about 30 minutes later and played it by ear. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7zs54Vq_l4 He memorizes everything he plays by about the third time he plays it. The trumpet part is what he learned.......

He is competing in a concerto competition for the whole TCU School of Music Wednesday. He is competing against all the violinists, pianists, all the strings, woodwinds and brass. All the grad students, doctoral students etc. It would be a real coup for a tuba to win it. Especially played by a sophomore.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGc3YWVf87o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y75ryZC8LB0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndCcKNTOC7I

The last two are performed by one of his mentors, Oystein Baadsvik of Norway. Oystein came to TCU two weeks ago and helped J.J. work on a new composition that has been written for him. Oystein was impressed with the piece and the way J.J. played it. He also played one called Fnugg that he wrote to show off the tuba. Listen to it and how he sings through the horn while playing.......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0qIL2ie-VE

This is the worlds best...........J.J. sounds a lot like him when they play together.........

 

This a link to when TCU performed in exhibition at the Irving Band Festival. J.J. was standing on the sidelines at the 40 yard line when they did Voodoo Child. You can hear him but since the filming was done from the top of the pressbox it is kinda far away to see any individuals. The lineup is:;

Warmup
Voodoo Child by Jimi Hendrix-J.J. Dunne, tuba solo
Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, Sara Bauza and Ryan Gilbert, trumpet soloists
Party Like a Rock Star

This was just a short portion of the show as they had only been working on it for six days when did did it here.

J.J. had been out for two weeks, one week for having all his wisdom teeth pulled and then the next week when he came down with the Swine Flu. He played this solo on the second day after returning from not playing his horn in two weeks. We have heard him sound better but he did pretty good that night for being rusty.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PlCK8J9dm8

 

He single tongues about 150 and double tongues comfortably at 280. Triple tongues triplets at 260. Does he need to go any faster????

 

This is a video that was shot of him when he was a senior in high school when he was messing around at the International Tuba Euphonium Convention in Cincinatti two years ago. He has improved greatly from this point and at that time he had just won the competition for 1st Chair All-State in Texas 5-AAAAA high schools

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFWbB5kGZQE

 

Hard to explain on the internet. It is how you tongue the notes you are playing on a brass or woodwind musical instrument. Like single tonguing using a di, di, di tongue action. When playing faster maybe the ki-ri, ki-ri, ki-ri method. However J.J. prefers digga, digga, digga. This is double tonguing. Triple tonguing is like ki-ri-ki, ki-ri-ki but I would have to have J.J. explain it to you. He has a way of getting the middle school and high school students who come to him to understand it.

Click on the link above and you will hear him double tonguing the intro to Through the Fire and Flames by Dragonforce. This was two years ago when still a senior in high school. His ability has improved about 100% since then and he is much smoother at the fast notes. However, he was really good back then and was 1st chair all-state when the video was shot.

I am sure this just muddies the water up even more........