Tuba Intonation - Rant

[cmccain]

We shouldn't be omitting climate change. That's the cause of/reason for everything, these days.

Pointing out snake oil salesmen when they appear is important, but we should be careful not to fall into hand-waving at everything simply because we don't understand all the mechanics of something. "Everyone says climate change is the reason for everything, how ridiculous" we say as we sweat on the way out of our Christmas concert. "Tubas just have tuning issues and all the factors that people say affect it are all ridiculous" we say as we play only on instruments built and repaired by technicians we trust. "Who cares if those screws are a little loose? Not like they affect anything" NASA says a few hours before a rocket explodes.

@donn is right that there are, truly, choices that simply come down to aesthetics and that scientifically investigating musical instruments is extremely difficult. But the tendency for people to start hand-waiving any conversation that goes on long enough and start saying it's all just opinion and ranting is disappointing to me every time. It is genuinely difficult to differentiate placebo from physical effects, but that is not a good reason to give up on it.

[jtm]

stepped mouthpipes..."the dent"...Pocket Rocket...removing braces...adding braces...releasing tension...rings to slip over mouthpiece shanks...can-shaped mouthpieces with almost no material removed from the 2" stock...all rotors rotating in the same direction...gimmick spit valves...removing spit valves...

...these - and so many other things (instrument related, as well as a a seemingly infinite list of non-instrument-related things) - falling within the realm of "The Science".

Mine has the “each rotor bigger than the one before it” gimmick.

[smitwil1]

I wonder how much of it is the relative impact of being just a few Hz off of "right". A typical tuba-range C is about 130 Hz and a C# 138.5. If I'm 0.8 Hz off I'm ~10 cents* "wrong". However, just one octave up (C ~ 261 Hz and C# 277 Hz) that same 0.8 Hz is only ~5 cents "wrong"...and so on as you ascend the scale. I probably vary my pitch more than half-a-Hertz every time my heart beats. I'm not trying to make excuses: I chose the instrument and as most parts are written, it's much less technically challenged than any other (...higher playing...) instrument in the orchestra except for the bass. Intonation is sort of "our cross to bear", but I suspect that the larger relative impact of a few Hertz in our range is likely one part of our intonation challenges.

Bill

* sorry, I know I'm mixing simple linear and geometric units together but you get the picture, right?

[donn]

Like, pitch in the tuba range mathematically requires more precision? The units problem that you acknowledge, might be a real issue here.

[GC]

Sometimes you can get lucky. Last month while coming back from a lip injury, I played a banged-up borrowed St. Pete rotary BBb for three rehearsals and a couple of concerts. The horn had long, hard valve strokes and was very sluggish in response, but the tone was pretty good, and the intonation throughout the range from pedal Eb to high Bb was the best of any horn I've played in an almost 60-year playing career. Very few notes took any adjustment, and they didn't take much. I was surprised, but very happy. Had to give it back, though.

[bloke]

If we expect more of tubas than they deliver,

whose fault is that?