As known, bloke is C-R-A-Z-Y...

[bloke]

OK...
Now that I can (mostly) look at bass clef (regardless of sharps, double-sharps, or double-flats) and read stuff (while playing FatBastard-the-5-valve-B-flat-tuba), I'm going to start trying to "work my brain" so as to be able to obtain the clef/reading/transposing flexibility (or maybe close to - since I'm gettin' pretty old) as I possessed when playing C tubas...and also: tightening up high range security, just a bit.

Here's an example of a nutty exercise...

"A" slide inserted (so-as to become an "A tuba" - nope: NOT a double article adjective)

Playing one of the Schumann Romances (the first one - with which I haven't really spent time...#3 is the one I've mostly messed with, in the past - F tuba).

OK...The bloke-is-a-nut A-slide lowered the instrument a half step, I grabbed the A-clarinet/oboe d'amore part, and played the Romance with "trumpet" fingerings (reading treble clef, of course)...the resultant key being the correct one: A minor

first slide - I just adjusted all of the tuning tendencies OUTWARD (duh)
second slide - didn't seem to need much of a pull
third slide - couldn't remedy it, as it's "set up" with that return spring (set up for pushing it up with my L.H. wrist for - normally - 4th partial G-flat).
4th slide - didn't need it, because of the tessitura

NEXT (after posting this) - dump the "A" slide, and play the piece again - reading the treble clef oboe/violin part in "concert" key.

[bloke]

I also (to be nutty) played through the *"big" passage in Symphonic Metamorphosis with my F tuba... ,
then went back and played it on my big B-flat, but FORGOT to FIRST remove that A-tuba gadget.

(Actually, it came out pretty good...but considerably better AFTER I removed it.)



___________________________________________________________________________________
*you know: the one where the German theoretical classicist attempts to compose "jass musik - as Amerikaner play in hurenhäuser"

[Three Valves]

I had been away from playing the tuba for DECADES.

So I finally got me an inexpensive Chineseium one.

I played it next to a tuner and it kept on playing A#.

I kept pushing in the the MTS until it went no more and I was

Then I was

[arpthark]

*you know: the one where the German theoretical classicist attempts to compose "jass musik - as Amerikaner play in hurenhäuser"

In a past life, I was a music historian/theorist specializing in the works of Hindemith and did a lot of primary-source document study of his letters and sketches.

In some of his letters, he writes about how he wishes he could quit writing whatever opera or sonata it was that he was working on at the time -- I think this was in the midst of composing Mathis der Maler or Das Marienleben -- and instead just write foxtrots, rags, and the like all day (i.e. popular schlock of the day). His sketchbooks are full of unfinished/throwaway rags and dance tunes.

Not sure about the hurenhäuser aspect, but it is a funny thought, the stereotypical egghead of all stereotypical eggheads, just cranking out a random racy two-step whenever he gets bored of writing Gebrauchsmusik string quartets.

[Kirley]

I like your sandpaper/spit-valve contraption on your tuning slide. That's a clever solution I haven't seen before.

[bloke]

I like your sandpaper/spit-valve contraption on your tuning slide. That's a clever solution I haven't seen before.

thnx!
I prefer it to "messing up a perfectly-aligned/not-leaky-yet-slidey slide assembly".
When removing it (for dumping faster than the water key is capable of releasing) it's "right there" (where my thumb naturally finds it).