New Miraphone 3/4 BBb tuba Hagen 494

[MN_TimTuba]

When sitting in a band section with some pretty good players, I need to keep my mouth shut.
Often, they play with a good time, with good pitch, and with good execution, but don’t do anything more than what is shown to do on the page, and with dynamic limitations between piano and forte. Though I might be able to make some nice suggestions, I’m not sure that it would occur to them that my suggestions are particularly helpful…and I’m not their teacher, and neither am I their music director.

If you're the principal or section leader, it's part of the job, and a section of good players will appreciate it.
Tim

[bloke]

If you're the principal or section leader, it's part of the job, and a section of good players will appreciate it.
Tim

…or blank stares, probably thinking “Why in the world would you suggest that I play that note or that passage in that way? It’s not written down to do that…”

Anyway, I believe there’s a market for this new 494 model, particularly if it’s easy to play in tune.
Sharing the YouTube clip of excerpts - above - had the purpose of demonstrating the use of a similarly-sized instrument (what - in the past - would have been labeled "4/4") with probably a similar type of resonance…which I consider to be quite useful.

[greenbean]

...and quite a few people don't understand that any tuba with four valves (regardless of overall size) is probably going to weigh at least 23 pounds, and insisting on carrying it in is bag from the car is going to add a minimum of another 8 pounds.

Huh? The heaviest tuba I have owned weighed 23 lb! All the other were less. The (older) Mirafone 186's have been 19 lb and my current Mirafone 184 BBb comes in at 16.5 lb. I will make a bag for it that will weigh 7 lb. As the old man, in just a few more years, I will be able to make those numbers work!

[bort2.0]

Wow, 16.5? The Cerveny 653 F tuba that I once owned was around 14 lbs, and felt like a toy -- super light and easy to carry.

My Rudy is 26 lbs... Which seems like a lot for a handmade tuba, but when you look at the size of the tubing, bows, etc... I suppose it is an awful lot of metal! Not old guy stuff... Enjoy it while I can!

[bloke]

Absolutely. The older handmade instruments weigh a good bit less, but very few models are made that way anymore, due to the cost.
Even were they as affordable as hydraulically formed tubas, most are sold to schools, and any that are really old handmade instruments remaining at schools today – most all of those instruments are toast.
… and your report of the weight of an old 186 - that is handmade - is right on the money.

… but even my 32 inch tall Holton B-flat weighs 24-1/2 pounds, because I used a (heavily altered) King valve section, and that slide tubing has always been thick, since forever. Even were I to remove the fifth valve assembly, I’m sure it would weigh at least 23 pounds.

I continue to suggest to people - who think a 25 pound instrument and a 10 pound bag is too much to lug in from their car - at their age and/or health condition, to take the tuba out of the bag, set it on their shoulder, and walk into the venue from the car - without the bag.

Of course, a smaller instrument might weigh two or three pounds less, but it also will sound different, and will offer no less effort to play, typically.

[pjv]

I prefer to play on the tuba that makes my life easier playing whatever I have to play. So a small piggy body would have to be about functionality: do I need/want this sound/shape.

My car is my hard case. Considering how expensive a tuba is, how little I earn and how important the tuba is in my life; being passionately careful with my instrument is second nature. (you don't throw a baby around, right? Or put a baby in a gig bag or a hard case?). Of coarse I'll use a case or a gig bag if the situation warrants it, but most often it's useless bagage.

I have no problem unloading at the loading dock (space, whatever) and/or walking two or three times back and forth to the car. (Percussion players do it their whole life.). I also double a lot so it's become part of the gig.

I'm almost 60, so I hope by the time lugging the tuba around becomes a real issue there'll be top quality carbon tuba's on the market!

Anyone out there want to sell their Martin fiberglass tuba?

[Rick Denney]

Last night, I showed up to a double-quintet rehearsal carrying two tubas. That's unmanageable without a case--I can work out to maintain my strength but I can't grow another arm. Gig bags do something hard cases don't--they go on my back. I put the F on my back in an ancient but still excellent Cronkhite-era Reunion Blues bag (Cordura--no need for leather for me), and rolled the 184 in with a hard case.

Why two small tubas? Because I was playing first tuba and the other guy brought a C. I needed to be a high, clear voice (by tuba standards) and he needed to be a low, foundational voice.

I bought the 184 to fill a certain role--small ensembles where I'm playing low enough to prefer Bb fingerings, and where I don't have to be quite as relaxed to make acceptable sounds (to keep tremor at bay as much as possible), and where I want a tone quality that will do duty as a bass trombone.

One of the things we played was (of course) Gabrieli, and for that, the F was the clear (so to speak (so to speak!)) choice. For some jazzy arrangement we were playing as a double quintet, either would suit but the Bb was easier. For a large brass ensemble arrangement of the Fanfare from La Peri, the F is more secure coming in on that high Ab.

So, I bought the 3/4-size Bb tuba for situations when I might use an F but prefer to play a Bb, and for situations where I need the ability to go trombone-like. It is not easier to play in the "old-man tuba" sense. I recall Paul Haugan (I think it was) paraphrasing a comment he heard from Jacobs that smaller tubas required players with bigger lungs. My "old-man tubas" are still my Holton for when I need size and my Eastman (or even the plastic Martin) for when I don't. Those instruments are an easier blow, but only fit where a big, round sound is appropriate. For when I need punch and projection in a dead hall, I have the Hirsbrunner 193 and the 184, but those are not easier to play.

Rick "still figuring out the 184--likely to be the case for some months" Denney

[bloke]

…and I am looking askance at myself currently for now having two B-flat tubas - and then hurriedly having stuck together that Besson recording bass from parts - although none of those three resemble each other very much at all.
I doubt that I’ll ever catch up with Rick, in the B-flat department.

B-flat tubas:
Undeniably – and regardless of the size and compared to an equivalent-size C instrument, they require more player precision to play with finesse, but there’s more resonance there with two feet of additional expanding air column - which the player feels, and surely that additional resonance transfers to the sound heard by the patrons (assuming an equal player delivering equal energy to an equivalent-dimensions air column).

Miraphone sizing model numbers:
Rudolph Meinl uses five to indicate (though 7/4 bore) 6/4, four to indicate 5/4, and three to indicate 4/4.

I’m not keeping up with the actual Miraphone company rhetoric, but - with this Hagen series - it looks as though four indicates 4/4 - but is being referred to as 3/4, five indicates 5/4 – but is being referred to as 4/4, six indicates 6/4 - but is being referred to as 5/4, and seven indicates 6/4 (though 7/4 bore) but is being referred to as 6/4.

bloke “That was hard to keep straight, much less type into this text box.”

[Rick Denney]

You have this oft-expressed notion that the tubas you own ought to pay for themselves in the (paying) work you get using them.

I am fortunately not burdened by such silliness.

Rick "whose tuba collection is at least well-curated" Denney

[bloke]

You have this oft-expressed notion that the tubas you own ought to pay for themselves in the (paying) work you get using them.

I am fortunately not burdened by such silliness.

Rick "whose tuba collection is at least well-curated" Denney

I suppose owning TWO F instruments (though one is a huge valve trombone), and THREE (or four) 9-feet-long B-flat instruments (though TWO of them are - a very-large and a small - valve trombones, and one is a bass trumpet) is (arguably) borderline...but less dough has been sunk into some of those 9-footers...and (astonishingly) they have paid for themselves.

[Rick Denney]

You have this oft-expressed notion that the tubas you own ought to pay for themselves in the (paying) work you get using them.

I am fortunately not burdened by such silliness.

Rick "whose tuba collection is at least well-curated" Denney

I suppose owning TWO F instruments (though one is a huge valve trombone), and THREE (or four) 9-feet-long B-flat instruments (though TWO of them are - a very-large and a small - valve trombones, and one is a bass trumpet) is (arguably) borderline...but less dough has been sunk into some of those 9-footers...and (astonishingly) they have paid for themselves.

The only instrument of mine that truly paid for itself might be the one of my instruments you'd like the least--a Yamaha 621 F tuba. But that was more an accident of circumstance than any particular merits of the instrument, except that for standing gigs on the street, it's really easy to manage.

I expect my good trombone would easily pay for itself--it's a Conn 58H and I only paid a hundred bucks for it--if only I could play it well enough for public consumption.

And it might only take one gig to pay for my Besson euphonium. But one actual paying gig in 40 years seems to be about par for non-military euphonium players, right?

Rick "buys for fun and they all return abundantly on that investment" Denney

[bloke]

I could see where the 621F could be a really good workhorse for a gig such as the one for what you used that instrument.