We'll have today and tomorrow with nice moderate temps, but - clearly - it's coming to an end, and we're approaching the chilly-preceding-the-plain-ol'-cold temps:
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Years ago, we got an incredible deal on this house. It's ridiculously large with ridiculously high ceilings (mostly, they follow the high roof lines). We had just enough money after selling our population-center house and population-center commercial property to pay cash for this place at a "final reduction before auction" foreclosure price and "got out when the gittin' was good"...basically, we sold those properties (to some in-denial buyers) just PRE-bubble and bought this place just AFTER the bubble burst (for those who remember...)
I really cannot (or - OK - WILL not) afford to cool this place down to 73 or 75 F. in the summer, and neither can I afford to heat it up to 68 F. or so in the winter (though - thankfully - we do have an inexhaustible supply of dead-fall wood to use as fuel). In the middle of the summer, the thermostat sits on 82 F. and - in the dead of winter - it sits on 59 or 60 F. (and - btw - our utility rates are considerably lower than most big-city and yankee rates).
In the summer - when playing my 6/4 tuba in this house, I have enough slide to pull out for my huge 6/4 tuba to play at ref. A=440.
In the winter, it's a bit of a different story. I set up near the gas logs fireplace, turn them on, go get some coffee (with the tuba next to this fake fireplace (whereby the other one accepts wood) let the tuba absorb some heat, and then warm it up with rest of the way (with it's slide all the way in.
Had I NOT shortened the ferrules on this tuba's main slide (each) by 3/4 of an inch (1-1/2 inches total) - as this tuba was flat-natured from the factory (even in the summer), winter practice would have been out of the question.
ok...WITH ALL OF THE ABOVE HAVING BEEN SAID...
With a cool temperature environment, there's still the phenomenon/issue/whatever of the LARGE part of the tuba's bugle warming up MUCH MORE GRADUALLY than the front-end (mouthpipe/valveset/tuning slide/smaller bows) of the instrument. This results in (for the first several minutes of me negotiating a considerably out-of-tune tuba, whereby this (particular) tuba - otherwise - offers REMARKABLY EXCELLENT intonation.
When cold, the 3rd partial is saggy, and the 8th partial is saggy, (of course, the overall pitch is low as well) as well as other intonation anomalies which - otherwise - don't exist. Again, when everything FINALLY reaches "operating temperature" this tuba (and one of the reasons that I made a determination - over a decade before I FINALLY acquired a tuba of this model - to eventually own one) offers remarkably good intonation.
My ears are far from "gifted" - in the intonation department, but (having tuned guitars thousands of times), I'm pretty sure that I can "hear" equal temperament pretty well (as well as "perfect" intervals - which are far easier to "hear" than equal temperament intervals).Can bloke hear the grass grow?
yeah...It's distracting - and the first several minutes of practicing (with this giant instrument) are tedious...ie. "just gittin' it to workin'...
ALSO...
Those who contract musicians (particularly since the gubmunt printed so much fake dough that it's now worth about half) have become cheapskates, and they only heat up venues (auditoria, music halls, churches, etc.) on THE DAY of the performances, whereas wintertime rehearsal hall temps (unless contractual) often hover between (like my own house) 59 - 62 F.
Truth be told, I really don't spend all that much time practicing on the (way-easier-to-warm-up) F instruments...They're very easy to play and (when I need them for quintet jobs or for particular orchestra pieces) I can "get right back into" playing those in a half hour or so.
- they're both remarkably excellent
- they're considerably shorter and skinnier than giant BB-flat instruments (duh)
- they nearly play themselves
- yes, I'm very lucky to have them
- for quite a few years, I ONLY owned an F tuba, which is the same one I own to this day, so that one - in particular - always greets me as if an old pair of shoes...
...so probably 90% of any practicing - that I manage to get done - is with the gigantic 6/4 (BB-flat 21.2mm bore) tuba.
..so why am I ranting at youse guys out there in tubaforumia?
Hell...I dunno.
I'm drinking this coffee, right now, so I (an old man) can be sort of alert and energetic enough to encounter a short practice session, and I can't drink coffee and blow into a tuba simultaneously.Happy Thanksgiving, and - for those of you who do so - pray for us as we negotiate the freeways (driving through the night on Tuesday) to go see our grandkids (after not seeing them for the better part of three years). Yeah...my daughter and her husband no longer go on trips, either...Their money - just like everyone's else - is also worth half what it was previously.
)