more on: no longer owning a C tuba

[Bob Kolada]

I prefer Bb over C but I've noticed more squirrellyness on Bb tubas right above the second partial than I have on C tubas. The Miraphone 191 was very noticeable. Beautiful sound, fantastic low range but that Db, C and B both sound and play very differently than any other notes. The 1291 Bb was better but still had the issue so it's not just a rotary valve thing. I haven't noticed it on any of the C side of the family.

[jtm]

The local large university does a summer pickup band one or two weeks each summer, with rehearsals Monday and Tuesday evening and a concert on Wednesday. It mostly picks up alumni, but that's not a requirement. This group usually plays for kids at the university's music camp that week, but there's been no music camp the past three years, so this year it's just meeting for the tradition. It's a fun thing (though better with campers), and I like that it's three evenings all in one week.

Anyway, armed with the fresh knowledge that a 188 and my PT-10 Miraclone (off-label use of the term) sound and feel about the same, I took the F tuba to the Monday rehearsal. It was fine, and good exercise to play some parts that are a lot lower than Eb brass band parts, but maybe not the best choice, at least for easy fingerings.

So tonight I brought a longer tuba. I thought, "hey, I'm not trying to impress anyone with what kind of tuba I bring, and a BBb 186 should be perfect, so I'll bring that." In the end, though, I used the same logic -- a 188 and a BBb 186 sound and feel pretty much the same (which is true) -- and took the 188 because I just like it a lot better. And it was perfect!

I believe Joe when he says he doesn't need a C tuba. I don't either -- I've a perfectly good Bb tuba and I don't make any money playing. I'm happy to have a choice, though, and every time I get that 188 in a good space (like the recital hall tonight) I'm reminded how great it sounds and how easy it is to get just what I want from it.

[bloke]

I might build-or-buy a C tuba again (??)...but the ONLY way (knowing me) that I was going to coerce myself into "REALLY GETTING INTO" B-flat (and it did require me to muster up a bit of courage, and I did feel a bit of dread) was to rid myself of my C instruments.

As admitted more than once (in a couple of threads), once my only contrabass tubas were B-flat, I discovered (due to overconfidence and ego, likely) that I had overestimated my ability to read really busy (sure, and a bunch of sharps and double-sharps) and velocitized passages while playing a B-flat tuba, as my last real encounters with such were FIFTY years ago, and - fifty years ago - my mastery of "the tuba in general" (both reading an playing) was/were at a considerably lower lever as well.

[dp]

Have another round of brewskies,guys. Joe's buying...

[bloke]

Have another round of brewskies,guys. Joe's buying...

B&S Symphonie CC, B&S PT6 CC, B&S PT4P CC, York 692 CC, York 696 CC, Marzan CC, Holton 345 CC

[Mary Ann]

As far as not being able to read the aforementioned multiple accidentals at extreme velocity, --- I'm that with pretty much all brass, although horn is better than the others. Hand me a violin, and even now I'd be all over it. What you do as a kid, sticks. What you do for fifty years, also sticks.

[bloke]

As far as not being able to read the aforementioned multiple accidentals at extreme velocity, --- I'm that with pretty much all brass, although horn is better than the others. Hand me a violin, and even now I'd be all over it. What you do as a kid, sticks. What you do for fifty years, also sticks.

I've stated before that - if I have to read a whole bunch of little black spots - all different drips and hashtags in from of them - that jump all over the page, hand me my F tuba, please.

It wasn't from my childhood, but it was my ONLY tuba - when I was working a tremendous amount (full time money - freelance) for several years.

[Doc]

I really enjoy having choices, although my collection isn’t that large. Similarly, don’t have a bunch of dust-collectors, although I haven’t streamlined my tool set (and they have always been, at least financially, viewed/justified as tools) with quite the same level of scrutiny. Sometimes I think I have an affliction or maybe something to prove to myself (or in defiance of previous marital circumstances). Or I just like the darned things. Up until recently, they all have paid for themselves.

Regardless , having one GOOD tuba in each key ain’t a bad thing. Well… maybe going from no Eb instruments to having three Eb instruments could be considered a bit much. But I like them and they serve a purpose. If I had to do some serious reading, I’m not sure what tuba would get the nod. I probably don’t need to be on a job with serious reading anymore anyway.

But I liken tubas to ladies’ shoes/handbags/accessories and knives/fishing gear/guns:
You might have enough, but you can never have too many.

[bloke]

Were I single (living in a very modest place with a bedroom, an extra "tuba" room, a bathroom, and a kitchen with enough room to sit down and eat), I might - ?? - own more tubas than I do, but - when I look at those that are here (PLUS some projects that I MIGHT complete someday...and even a C-thing that I might-or-might-not complete and might-or-might-not keep - as that's become more-and-more irrelevant, in addition to a regular 19"-bell 3+1 comp. E-flat project, a similar two-bells comp. B-flat project, and a 4-top-action+5 tiny-F project - 5/8" bore), I don't know what I'd DO with more (ie. how I would use them to earn money). I ALREADY have TWO (good-playing "English-style") euphoniums, for pity's sake: One for low/middle range use (discussed in a very recent thread) and another (Yamaha 321) for playing in the upper range. To me (as a TUBA player) that's excessive, YET I'm choosing to keep both. The B-flat (regular bass trombone length) in-progress cimbasso project may seem silly to some, but one of my per-service orchestras allows me to cover the bass trombone parts on any "no tuba" concerts, and (though not a forture) that's often $1000/yr...and I believe I might (??) be able to do a better job on Dvorak/Beethoven/etc. with a (regular length) B-flat valve bass trombone than a 10-inch bell F valve bass trombone...anyway: we'll see...(??)

I've never been particularly interested in "collecting" stuff...nor spending a bunch of money. Were I to brag on how much I have "invested" in my "collection", I believe I would be bragging towards the down, rather than towards the up. (Has anyone else noticed? A large percentage of people seem to like to brag about how LITTLE they spent for their cars, and how MUCH they spent for their houses.)

[Mary Ann]

My collection, rather than being a plethora of one type of instrument, is a bunch of different instruments, because as I so often explain to people, I get bored easily. Just like my cats don't want to eat the same food day after day after day (and the only reason cats eat kibble is because it has chemicals in it to make them addicted -- ) neither do I, nor do I want to mess with the same instrument ad nauseam despite perfectionistic tendencies. Somebody asked me recently what instruments I had, and I think it was close to 15, but only three of them are tubas. Since I got the Star back, I think I should move the 184 since I simply don't need it for anything. Having the two Ebs is good because of iffy-ness of venues at times. Memorial day, I ended up sitting ON a grave marker, chair legs wobbling, tuba stand not secure, and if I put the tuba down, which I have to do to fiddle with music, bell was halfway on the grave marker and half off. I took the 183, which plays perfectly fine for anything I'm going to encounter. I would have been nervous with the Star.
When I was playing violin --- I had a classical violin and a bar fiddle. The classical violin actually didn't sound good through an amp; its sound was "too" refined and the bar fiddle worked quite a bit better (in the rock band in the late 1970s, Fender Twin tube amp which was miked through the MONSTER PA, with a Fishman pickup.) Classical violin got used everywhere that I played into a mike, though. Quite a bit of that back in the "trying to make a living playing" years.
The rest, quite a few of them, are still just for fun but that doesn't keep me from having high quality fun toys.

[bloke]

I have a (I'm told: collectable/vintage/desirable) electric bass, as well as (same classification) tube amp, but I don't like to think about being old, I bought it new, and I don't like the term "vintage"

I haven't been hired to play electric bass in a LONG time (though I'm not SEEKING those jobs...Do any pay, anymore?)
...just also remembering that I still have my hollow-body electric bass as well...I put flat-wounds on it, and can make it sorta sound like an upright.

I like my ballad horn (looks like an OLD-school/PRE-trumpet-shaped French-horn-shaped mellophone, YET in C, rather than E-flat).
With a TINY Bronx-made Bach trombone mouthpiece, I can play stuff like Mozart horn concerti at pitch, with that funny thing.

Does having a piano count? (We have a pretty good'-'un.)

My guitars...I've sold most of them, and given away others. I still have my Mom's F-holes archtop...I picked up a Guild (USA-made classic guitar) because I thought it was weird/interesting, and it was way under-priced (loose bridge/easy fix). I kept a Dobro (bottleneck playable only) absolutely top-of-the-line amazing metal-body heavily-engraved instrument for several years (could resist, due to pricing), but eventually sold it. (What would I do with it?)

[Rick Denney]

I have a collection and don't care. Thank goodness I feel no need to justify them with the money they make. They all get taken out and played from time to time (at least), and they all have stories I love to explore and tell. I don't think any of them are strictly a business relationship, and none of them could be described as a marriage, either.

I never felt the need to own a C tuba. I've played a few that I thought might have been worth the effort to learn C fingerings, but none of them were unique buying opportunities, and I never believed my playing was at the level needed to justify the effort (even if such exists). One key advantage to owning Bb tubas is that I can explore the state of the art for far less money than the best C tubas, simply because I'm competing against other hobbyists and not professionals (or professional wannabes, who often seem to have an unlimited budget for running prices up). So: I have a Hirsbrunner kaiser tuba that is among the best made, a little rare, and gorgeous, for probably two-thirds what the same instrument would have cost in C. I have a Holton 345 for which I paid about half of what the C version of similar playing qualities would have commanded in the market. My 184 certainly came to me for less than the equivalent C. And so on. The market drives the prices, not the costs.

Had I been a tuba player doing pro gigs with C tubas for decades, and if I felt, as many pros do, that my instruments have to earn their keep in financial terms (and not just in enjoyment terms), a switch to Bb would have at least had the effect of reducing the money I have tied up in instruments. All five of my Bb tubas cost me less than one Yamayork, by a factor of two.

I have collections of other things that are far more difficult to justify than my tubas :)

Rick "who only owns one tuba bought new, and it was a demo model" Denney

[bloke]

The C project (here) that might possibly still interest me is a bugle and bell which (in the shape of a tuba) completely imitate the taper of the C helicon I built - which played/plays so well (sold).

It's Buescher (1920's) I have a (genuine) Buescher .726" bore 4-valve FRONT-action valveset and a (Genuine) Buescher .726" bore 4-valve TOP-action valveset (both Secrist-rebuilt), so the project could go either way. It would be a bunch of work, and (again) I doubt that - if built - I would mess around with it very much.

As it has a detachable recording bell (and I have a collection of Buescher 18" and 19" upright bells - plus male collars that fit) it would be a two-bells tuba. I suppose (next time I played "American in Paris") as that solo is in C, the instrument (bugle, for sure) was built the same year as the piece was composed, and I would have an opportunity to play a recording bell instrument in a symphony orchestra, it might be "cool" (is that word too sophomoric?) to use it (if built) to play that piece and to play that solo...but that's not much motivation for investing hundreds of hours on a project - in a life that may not have that many tens-of-thousands of hours left in it.

same bugle taper as this, but tuba-shaped:

first pic I ever took of it, just after final assembly:




last pic - before being packed in that box, and headed towards its new owner:
(All of those water keys are genuine 1920's Buescher tuba/sousaphone water keys, as are the valve buttons.)

[arpthark]

Satin silver with gold accents and a gold wash recording bell...

[bloke]

plays better than it looks

[arpthark]

plays better than it looks

Oh I bet. I was more saying, if you slicked out the recording bell Gershwin Buescher (note: wildly inaccurate nomenclature), it had better have the frosted silver and gold accents like your old helicon.