Orchestra musician is sort of like being minor minor royalty: The pay isn't great but you are upper class. A good job for idle children of rich families.

Making loud "work" and making loud "happen"...2 different things imo.

For a long long time young brass players gobbled up Canadian Brass CDs. Most of which utilize the 621. It was the best way to actually hear a tuba being played, while also being entertaining. Non-savvy relatives could always grab one for your stocking, and local libraries had them. Sorta a pre ...

Looking for a receiver for American/regular shank mouthpiece with a leadpipe opening about 0.580-0.570. I'm thinking King old-style or Olds 3/4 are most likely matches.

German copy of an Olds? Why??

Music might just not "hit like it used to". In the 1800s ensemble instrumental music must have been jaw-dropping. Like showing magic tricks to jungle tribesman. In today's age of infinite and immediate and constant entertainment, it's much less likely to grab attention. There are incremental ...

Smaller (or shallower, or otherwise more restricted) mouthpiece on a big tuba sorta works to tighten up the sound....kinda. it's like a "scooped out" tone as a guitarist would say, where there's lots of lows and highs without much in the middle. So the tuba has good bass with a bit of splash/bite ...

Yamaha hate again? Can't forget how the branch above the bottom bow sticks out further than the bottom bow...so every time it gets set down from a chair, that branch bangs the chair seat. Even adult owned ones (well, college. But at least auditioned.) are mangled there.

I blame Wenger Chairs. The Wenger Chair is supposedly built for optimum performance but encourages slouching. They were so aggressively sold they are now omnipresent and the children know nothing but it. They are no longer taught to sit properly, with nothing but the tailbone on the front ledge of ...

There's a cool arrangement of Wacht Am Rhein as a classic three-strain march.. the tune isn't fully revealed until final strain and it's very catchy. Might fit the project.

Some schools need to treat the tubas as convenience stores operate in the ghetto: everything behind bars and Lexan, operated by some rotary mechanism with absolute minimum openings. Build 2 tubas into the back right corner, they can play standing behind the tympani.

I use my bike trailer to fetch a months worth of beer from the discount megagrocery. THANK YOU granny gear!

Only one time I saw a guy with a giant instrument on a bike. It may have been a cello. I saluted that man but I had to hang my head and admit I had been outdone.

The thing about Cerveny is there's too many. There's 3 basic bodies of 6/4 BBb, 2 of squatty bell BBb, up to 4 normal size+proportion BBb, and variants within like red brass, kranz, 5th valve. Its like..."can they all be good?". Maybe it is so.

The long skinny generic allied supply mouthpipe work out perfectly. I made a replacement for a Reynolds 5/4 that I have for sale right now. I haven’t marketed that tuba very aggressively at all, which - duh - is probably why it hasn’t sold. Thanks, that's good news. And is there a good receiver to u ...

Is there an established recipe to make a new leadpipe for a Reynolds 5/4 BBb? The factory one, or possibly ill conceived previous replacement, has a really tight opening under .500" OD at the receiver. Which is as bad as sousaphone bits, and I think has a similar effect of making it "crunch" or ...