Miraphone model 98 B-flat playing characteristics and learning curve - VIDEO added on PAGE 10

[bloke]

Kopprasch - lowers self-esteem
Bordogni - restores self-esteem

[Mary Ann]

I never liked Kopprasch. Not musical. Much preferred Maxime-Alphonse.

[bloke]

Treble clef isn't a problem, but horn-in-F music doesn't quite center on the tuba range as I would prefer.

The Ferling 48 etudes (composed for C-scale centered woodwinds such as saxophone, oboe or flute) rarely dip below middle C (B-flat) - in other words B-flat or C below the (bass clef) staff, but - if I want to work on low etudes, people have published some of those somewhat recently that can be studied, the clarinet books - such as Klose - explore the range down to so-called "low E".

The Barrett oboe method is also fine for technical studies.

The things about the Kopprasch book that I use the most (with this gigantic B-flat tuba) are the interval studies, and those who know the tuba book version know about the cued intervals in that one particular exercise in B-flat major (easy enough with the F tuba, but a little different - and humbling - with this thing.)
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One of my Tennessee friends asked about dealing with the typically treacherous B-flat tuba F-sharp up in the staff. My recently discovered trick (which so far seems to help) is to tune the #3 slide slightly flat, and that pitch is much more secure and actually ends up being played in tune, due to the ear knowing where it belongs (as well as helping out the very low F-sharp, which tends to ride high). One of my betters (a celebrity to tuba players, and former studio teacher to me) is also doing a bunch of later in life B-flat tuba work, and we're emailing back and forth about misc. big B-flat discoveries or tricks, and they are testing out their possible validity at the same time I'm testing them out.

Just like Mr. Jeff Anderson out in San Francisco told me about fairly recently buying himself a 6/4 York-style C-tuba, he didn't need to buy that thing at all, and no one was asking him to buy it. Further, his pt6 was serving him perfectly. At this point, doing something really quite different is mostly just to keep things interesting. He described it as "going down another rabbit hole".

[bloke]

Rather than me relying on my own measurements, I emailed Christian Niedermaier at Miraphone and he reported to me the factory specs on the choke point in the model 98 mouthpipe. Based on how far back he told me that point is located, it looks like (with my mouthpiece shank - which is halfway between standard and euro) my setback is pretty close to a quarter inch...slightly less. When I was using the same model of mouthpiece with a standard shank, my setback was about 1/8 inch. I'm liking the approximate 1/4 inch setback better for the time being. It seems to be offering me more control/accuracy.

Christian speaks and writes superb English as his second or third or fourth or whatever language, and labeled that point as the "bottleneck". I thought that was kind of cool.

[arpthark]

I'd need a diagram or something to understand what you are talking about regarding choke-points and setbacks and whatnot.

I'm recalling a phone conversation we had where you patiently explained how tuba receivers worked regarding American and Euro shanks and gaps and all that. At the end I was still going "... uh huh."

arp "visual learner?" thark

[bloke]

Simply this:
The small end of my mouthpiece stops about 1/4" before the receiver (shrinking) part of the mouthpipe ends and the expanding mouthpipe part begins...

... so this particular mouthpiece insertion depth on this instrument leaves about 1/4 in of (shrinking bore) receiver exposed, before reaching the smallest point where the mouthpipe begins to expand in bore.

Since the back end of mouthpieces expand in size on the inside - and the receiver into which they are inserted shrinks in size before the expanding-bore mouthpipe begins, the setback always creates a turbulence point, which results in a player experiencing different amounts of resistance.

[bloke]

I still have several mechanical alterations to make to this instrument. The #3 circuit is barely long enough (almost no tubing overlap) the #4 circuit needs precision alignment - though probably will take a good bit more than an hour, I would like to take away length from the #4 center slide (of the three #4 circuit slides) add some to the #4 upper slide - for some very special purposes, I would like to put some harder rubber strike side bumpers on the rotors, when I work on the #4 circuit I would like to swap out both of those remaining OEM "make do" water keys (horizontal tuning slide water keys which have been bent at an angle) - some which were actually manufactured to be curved, and I might pick back over some hasty removal of some very minor dents.

As far as the very long upper #4 slide tubes are concerned, I would actually like to experiment with some *vocal-like portamentos - moving down or up a half step when that effect (albeit rarely) seems appropriate. If I don't like the results of those experiments, this alteration won't hurt the instrument a single bit.

All of that stuff having been typed into this text box - and all of these posts having been posted, it's getting easier and easier to play the more things I correct, and I'm also more and more getting the hang of playing it. I liked the "fist" in the sound of the instrument that I just sold after having played it for decades, but I'm also giggling at the commanding broadness of the sound of this hybrid instrument (kaiser orchestra B-flat, yet with a wide bell) - after having heard it in a couple of recordings of a couple of gigs.
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*

...so WTH are you talking about, bloke...!?!?

...as just one example, passages such as this one:

20230117_122032.jpg (102.48 KiB) Viewed 1990 times

[peterbas]

.

[bloke]

My laptop blew up...but I had forgotten the the computer whiz (who sold me this replacement) recovered all the files.

Here's a diagram (best I could manage - nothing to scale) of a SOLDER-ON receiver.

The drop-off in the back is because the one that I drew allows for the small end of a mouthpipe tube to be inserted, and (ideally) would end up flush on the inside.

The black area points out how mouthpieces with any exit wall thickness at all feature a "bump down" to the last portion of the receiver taper.

receiver #2a.png (1.7 KiB) Viewed 1967 times

As far as "me seeming to prefer a 1/4" setback vs. a 1/8" setback (from the "bottleneck") on this particular tuba...

...I offer no explanation...and who knows (??) if I'll like my choice tomorrow or a month from now...

[peterbas]

.

[Yorkboy]

Through trial and error, I tend to build the 3rd circuits on my BBb tubas to be a slight bit longer than what one would think would be logically correct. From what I’ve observed, older American makes, especially 3 bangers in particular, tended to make the 3rd circuit slightly longer as well.

I do also frequently play D (and low G below the staff) with the 3rd valve only.

To borrow from Mr Hovey’s excellent treatise on valve lengths, the third circuit would THEORETICALLY be:

216” x .2004 = 43.28”

I sometimes find this value to be a little too short for my purposes, but not by much.

(216” is the approximate length of a BBb tuba - otherwise known as 18’, YMMV depending on the acoustically correct length of your specific model).

http://galvanizedjazz.com/tuba.html

(I hope he won’t mind my reference here, but I’ve found it to be a great help when tubing the various circuits)

[bloke]

Obviously, those are really useful for getting pretty close on a build, but - with a pre-existing instrument - it's just a matter of "this circuit plays sharp/flat" etc.

[bloke]

I just realized that the only slide/circuit that I will not have changed on this instrument will have been the #2 slide, and that includes the main slide.

Some reading this might ascertain that the tuba is poorly designed. The tuba is absolutely fine/amazing, but the entire length and the length of various circuits might all be an inch or a little bit more or less off for my playing and tuning strategies. I don't have any problem figuring that stuff out, but I could neither figure out how to build the bell and main taper of this instrument and nor would I have the ability to do those things. The stuff I'm doing is just very highly skilled plumbing.

Further, as far as being able to hear the grass grow, that's not me either. I work very hard on tuning, as I've stated many times. Though I haven't been much of a diligent practicing person over the last several years, when I do sit down and practice I spend a great deal of time on tuning. Even more than a bel canto tone quality (ie. "world class sound" ), I believe that good tuning is the main thing that helps the soloists - who play their lines above ours - sound the best they can sound...that, along with precision timing.
Finally (since our work in symphony orchestras rarely involves solo lines, and - if anything - is usually little fragments here and there), I get a big kick out of using tuning to make chords really "pop" - whether it's the low brass, the entire brass, or the entire orchestra (and this "chord popping" has become easier and easier over the years, as American music conservatories and conservatory-level universities have flooded the market and the entire United States with highly trained players to fill out all the other sections of orchestras - down to towns the size of only 150,000 people or so).

[pjv]

Nice playing on your Mahler excerpt.
I couldn't help noticing that you pulled your first slide for the D. Are you playing it 1&2 on the 98, or where you just getting ready for the D# in the next bar? But most noticeably fully the first slide for the series Gb at the end. How are you playing THAT note?

[bloke]

Nice playing on your Mahler excerpt.
I couldn't help noticing that you pulled your first slide for the D. Are you playing it 1&2 on the 98, or where you just getting ready for the D# in the next bar? But most noticeably fully the first slide for the series Gb at the end. How are you playing THAT note?

D below the staff...3rd valve works OK...but that D and the "low" G require the same pull, so - for now - I'm forming the habit of playing them both with 1-2 and with the pull. Upper D (no valves) is perfect (unless I blow it sharp) "open". If I pulled while playing that upper D (??) it was possibly in preparation for something else. I'm ALSO trying to break the habit of pushing that slide back in right after pulling it for a particular pitch - and leaving it out if the next pitch involving the first circuit also needs a pull...but I've not perfected that (within myself) as of yet.

It's also a bit under-tempo (compared to several recordings).

I've never played anything perfectly, and continue to not.

Here are a few excerpts I recorded quite a few years ago (a few weeks after I purchased an early Gronitz PCK - CC, thinwall, and w/same valveset as Kalison used).
I'm not particularly satisfied with any of these, either. , but I recorded the same excerpt (c. 0:55) at a faster clip (yet possibly too fast - not leaving enough room to affect the accelerando. That having been said, I'd offer additional aspects of self-criticism of the way I played it "back then".
> echo: We bought a bank building (auction - "Savings and Loan crisis") with a vaulted ceiling and a bunch of marble in it where we ran our store from the 90's until around 2007.
> picture: a Holton BB345 that I fixed up, kept for a couple of years, and sold.
> if you listen to all of these: The Rite of Spring excerpt was recorded on my F tuba.
> crazy tempo on the Hindemith: I was just trying to ascertain whether that nutty tempo (in the old Torchinsky "20th Century Excerpts" book was actually doable.

[pjv]

The pull I was most curious about is Gb3 (top space) at the end when you rock between that Gb and the C3 (in the staff). You push for the C and pull for the Gb. Unintentional (learning this tuba) reflex?

By the way, about the handmade aspect.
I’m certain I remember Miraphone telling me that the 98 and the 497 both have hand made bottom bows and bells. I can’t remember if the rest was hand built or not. Apparently both models share many of the same parts.

There was a time that the 497 had two sharp knuckles in the short tubing between the valves but the last time I saw one that was replaced with the normal tubing.

[bloke]

Yes. I need to physically learn things such as keeping the #1 slide in for back and forth situations such as that. I'm getting pretty good at learning where the slide needs to be for all the different pitches on the instrument, but I haven't gotten to the point yet regarding anticipating efficiency and economy of motion.

With the c instrument, I had economy of motion - due to playing it for so many decades, but I'm still not there with b-flat.

Something that's not helping to encourage me to not waste motion - though - is the fact that the #1 slide works as well as any valve.

As far as thin/handmade is concerned, this 5 valve B flat only weighs two more pounds then my very compact Holton 5 valve B flat. I'm not able to measure surface area or anything like that, so I'm speaking out of mostly ignorance.
One thing I can comment about with a little bit of knowledge is that these nickel caps on the bottom and top bows are considerably thicker than those of the past, so they surely add some weight.

I still have a few things to do to this instrument so that it completely suits my liking. I will have either reconfigured or changed the length of every single circuit except #2, by the time I'm done. The instrument is amazing, and all the circuits were about right, but - at least for me - not quite right including the overall entire length of the instrument... but these are only little math and arithmetic issues.

Now that I've reconfigured the #5 so that it can be easily grasped and has room to pull out several inches, I've started to be able to master the "real" double low C on this instrument with the 5234 valve combination (as pitches in this range require a different approach on every individual instrument). Before that, I really wasn't encouraged to play that particular pitch with the second partial fingering.

[bloke]

I'm sure that some are really getting sick of me discussing pursuing the mastery of playing this instrument, but here's even more:

I'm thinking that F to C, C to B-flat, and BB-flat to GG ("contra") are all similar, in the the longer the bugle, the more player accuracy is required.

When I play the euphonium and the F tuba (and the E-flat tuba) I can lightly "touch" pitches in the mid-upper range, and they work...probably even if my lips don't quite vibrate at the correct frequency...and even if (most of the time) I don't quite offer enough front-end "vibration stimulation" to the air column.

With a giant BB-flat, this just isn't going to work, unless the player is dead-on accurate. The lip frequency needs to be dead-on to barely touch those pitches (very softly), AND/OR - if the instrument is the wrong length (by more than 3/4 of an inch or so (ie. slide in the wrong place, and the lips are buzzing in-tune) it's not going to work.

Finally, with an instrument this resonant, pianissimo (and I don't believe I'm making excuses for myself) is just going to be more vibrant and louder than a euphonium/clarinet/etc. pianissimo and maybe (??) I just need to accept that WHILE ALSO exploring yet-more-accurate playing which might (??) allow this instrument to respond (in that very resonant middle/high range) even more softly.

I've purposely been working on a multi-movement tuba solo work which (rarely - saving them for only a few phrases in the entire piece) mostly is medium-soft, soft, or very soft. If I'm exhausted/sleepy/needing coffee/brain-foggish/distracted by events or concerns/etc., that stuff just isn't going to work...but - when I'm on top of it (OK...and my BB-flat tuba valve combinations are working out - brain-wise) - This thing is pretty amazing. It IS extremely difficult to dance around at pianissimo in that range (a steam shovel as a ballerina or tap dancer...??), but (if I just allow the tuba to resonate SLIGHTLY more - as it is huge...oh yeah: and CONCENTRATE !!!) it's pretty amazing.

Super-duper short events (particularly in that range) just aren't going to be as super-short as with other smaller tubas and other types of instruments. "Long" (not LONG, but "long") after I've stopped vibrating energy through the air column, it continues to produce the given frequency...so "whatever"...and - when moving very quickly through a ton of "short" events, I just can't stop every single one of them with my tongue.

Something "nice" that this tuba does for me is that it offers "NON-squirrelly" pitches around the top of the staff (easily played in tune with either "beginner band book" fingerings or the "fewer-valves/ninth partial fingerings...ie. they work WELL, EITHER way).
...B-flat, B-natural (great, either with 1-2 or 2), C (great, either with 1 or 0), C-sharp (2 is just fine), D (0 is just fine), etc...

Anyway...
- I'm still learning a lot about this.
- I'm glad I bought it.
- There's more to learn.
- (Apparently) old men aren't super-fast learners.
- Epic playing precision is required when playing an instrument such as this - EVEN WHEN a particular instrument of this type (debatably/subject-to-opinion) may well be the easiest-to-play of this type of tuba ever designed/built.
- I have a ton of respect for the really fine central European players who perform on similar instruments, but - that having been said:
- When we hear really good recordings of them playing these things in orchestras - and the sound (sustained pitches, etc.) is amazing - you can probably credit the instruments just as much as the players. (trigger warning: The best of the 6/4 .750"-ish bore C tubas - playing B-flat below the staff...(OK) or most any pitch - is not going to be able to offer equal resonance compared to the best of this type of instrument, given the same player who's accustomed to playing both.)

Thanks for allowing me to continue to post on this topic. If you're actually READING it, that's pretty amazing. When discussing the attempted mastery of a model of tuba whereby only a few have been made, it seems to me that it could easily be a "who cares?" topic.

re: video on p. 10
I'm playing this thing better than that now, thankfully.

[bloke]

I was really lucky that we had one more brass quintet set of nursing home scrambles today - playing patriotic music and other music. I brought the F tuba and the deeper cup production prototype mouthpiece I've been playing with it and tested it out on a couple of numbers at the first venue, but the main thing I did was to play almost everything on the huge Miraphone 98 at both venues, along with using the new bench which is a combination seat and tuba rest. I'm into this tuba enough now so that I don't have to really concentrate to focus the attacks, I know where the tuning is, and blah blah blah, but today - in an actual performance - I got to push the lower limits of the instrument quite a few times in regards to volume of sound and blending/tuning chords in challenging acoustical environments. I'm not patting myself on the back at all, but I'm feeling more confident and much more confident than quite a few months ago when I began bringing it to a few jobs and hoping I wouldn't embarrass myself. All the patriotic stuff we played course was perfect with this instrument - which can be made to sound a lot like a sousaphone if that's the goal, but there were also some tight little jazz pieces that went throughout the range of the instrument, as well as some very subtle things such as arrangements of Aaron Copland works, very gentle ballads, and other things that required subtlety. This instrument's going to be a whole ot of fun, and I'm not sure that I can say that about any of the really large tubas that I've owned in the past.
Fun is good, and the particular ease of playing that this thing offers - once it's operator becomes accustomed to its length, size, and which buttons to mash - defines it as fun.

[bloke]

I'm going to talk about comparing two of my own mouthpieces in this post.
I'm not going to mention which ones, because I really don't want to be a carnival-barker or self-promoting shill (I can reserve self-promotion and carnival-barking for the dealer" forum)...so here goes:
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To date, I've been using a mouthpiece (with this huge tuba) that has done "just fine".
Yes. It's one of my models...a popular/good-selling one.

What hit me in the head like a ton of bricks is that another one of my mouthpieces (configured a particular way - and no: it isn't shallower, or anything like that) is one that I've found offers particular ease and clarity with larger tubas (particular tubas which are naturally going to "try" to sound a bit fluffy and might slightly be lacking in - so-called - "articulation" or "front").
This tuba's resonance and "front" characteristics have been really "good", but (again), I suddenly remembered about this other combination (ex: I've found that it works really well with those PT6-P tubas which - to me - are just a bit fluffy and not the strongest in regards to "front".)

OK...I tried this different mouthpiece today - and with various insertion depths (exterior shank sizes), and A/B-ing back-and-forth with various versions of the mouthpiece that I HAVE been using.

bottom line:
I'm immediately switching...everything OTHER THAN the rim contour/embouchure opening.
Mrs. bloke (who I trust) immediately voted "yes" to the change.

bonus:
Not only is the sound and attack (ie. "front") improved, but it's (the bonus) EASIER...
EVEN THOUGH my previous (C-length) instrument was a (VERY easy to play) one-size-down (so-called "5/4") tuba and with a 2-feet-shorter bugle (again: C), this wider/longer tuba (with this DIFFERENT mouthpiece) is now more reminiscent (in regards to ease of playing) of my previous instrument.

...It might (??) be time to re-record that Mahler excerpt...and a bit closer to tempo.