| This paper investigates the pedagogical usefulness of Banda Sinaloense music from the region of Sinaloa, Mexico for tuba players. Studying banda offers tuba players the opportunity to perform an authentic music style that features the tuba. It allows for improvisation through bass line construction and improvising licks and riffs, improves ear-training through such improvisation, and challenges players' technical facility because the style calls for virtuosic tuba playing.;A brief history of banda music is presented with an emphasis on its rise to prominence in the world music scene and its focus on the tuba. An overview of two song forms is presented, ranchera and cumbia, in relation to the tuba/bass line. A detailed discussion of style and technique follows aimed at the classically-trained tubist from the Western art-music tradition. Finally a brief practice regimen is proscribed for the tubist (or any other instrumentalist) through readily available recordings and transcriptions in the appendix. |
