When I Met Harvey Phillips ...

When I went to college, I began by majoring in music with piano as my principal instrument. As we pianists were encouraged to gain as much experience as possible, I auditioned to become studio accompanist for the legendary Harvey Phillips, the patron saint of tuba performers worldwide.

I was in for a wild ride. Harvey was powerful but unpretentious. When you entered his presence, you came face to face with his colossal personality.

My Unfinished Sketch of Harvey Phillips

He was all business. He was all fun. Like others who have written about Harvey, I, too, was a guest at his famed Tuba Ranch in the countryside. Who could not feel at home there? I remember autumn evenings with bonfire sparks drifting toward the stars and with tubas and baritones playing old favorites. I, too, was there when the musicians donned Santa costumes for the Tuba Christmas honoring William Bell, Harvey’s mentor who had been born on Christmas back in 1902.

One of my first tasks as Harvey’s studio accompanist was to learn the piano scores to the tuba repertoire. Alec Wilder and Halsey Stevens became my daily companions. I was in and out of Recital Hall so often that it made my head swirl with visions of Effie the Elephant dancing like a dervish. Harvey was always there, in the back, applauding, encouraging, approving.

One day while we were waiting for a tuba student who was late, I started to draw a portrait of Harvey. I used a pencil and a plain sheet of typing paper. What a challenge! Harvey stared directly at me the whole time, and he kept up a conversation that required my participation. When I was looking at my drawing, I still felt Harvey’s eyes piercing my cranium. He had such stage presence—or just presence—yes, a monolithic presence—that I knew I was sketching an original, that rarest of rare individuals having extraordinary gifts.

The tardy tubist showed up, and I put away my drawing, which remains unfinished to this day. I don’t think I could have finished it. To try to squeeze the larger-than-life Harvey Phillips into a pencil sketch was like trying to balance a Miraphone contrabass on the head of a pin or attempting to force a monster King tuba into a piccolo case.

I will never forget a studio session when Harvey announced that a musician from Holland would be visiting. “You will accompany him on the Hindemith sonata. He’s coming in next week.”

Oh, really? So I had a whole week to familiarize myself with the entire piano accompaniment to the Paul Hindemith sonata for bass tuba! Oh, sure! Nothing to it!

I had heard other accompanists perform the piano score. No two sounded alike, especially when the seemingly endless runs of soft notes began tinkling toward the end. Many of them were faking those runs!

I spent hours and hours, all my free time, much of my sleeping time, drilling and drilling that sonata. It drove me nuts! I finally confessed to Harvey that I felt certain I could not perform the accompaniment.

“Why not?” Harvey asked with his trademark bluntness.

“Because the ending is too difficult. I don’t have enough time to prepare it, and I don’t want to fake it.”

“Let me hear part of it.”

I obliged.

Harvey stopped me. “What’s wrong with that?”

I just stared at him.

“You’ll do a fine job,” Harvey said, and he went back to work at his desk.

As I walked away from the music building, I started to laugh. I felt I was unable to awaken from a dream that could turn out well or that could take a nosedive into nightmare.

The performer arrived from the Netherlands. We rehearsed … once! That’s right. We played through the sonata only once in our practice session. Harvey nodded his approval, and the musician thanked me. That evening, the three of us met again in the hallway outside Recital Hall. The tuba player and I strode onstage to appreciative applause from a big audience.

Was I nervous? You bet! The whole scenario struck me as entirely absurd. I had been given only a week to prepare a difficult piece of music, and I had played through it only once—only once!—and now we were going to play this difficult piece in public. No one had said anything to me about how I could improve my part!

While the absurdity saturated my mind, I adjusted the piano bench, looked toward the performer, and began on his cue. Suddenly, I relaxed! I realized I wasn’t here to be perfect; I was here to accompany! I leaned into the opening and listened carefully to the tuba so as to support and blend and make music!

When I reached the daunting finale of the sonata, I faked nothing; instead, I was relaxed enough to follow the ups and downs of the rapid lines without confusion. The standing ovation was proof that the man with the tuba was a star and that I had done nothing to dim his brilliance.

And you know who was responsible for that? Harvey Phillips, who, from the beginning, had known exactly how everything would turn out.