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Makes playing 2p C & B a lot easier

pjv wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2024 6:22 am Makes playing 2p C & B a lot easier

It it makes if possible to play those pitches flatter (and maybe even more compliant with equal temperament), but not easier (as it requires doing something additional). I post a lot about tuning, but I don't post much about tuning when heading down the middle of a street in the southern USA with a fiberglass sousaphone during a Mardi Gras parade. Sometimes, playing in tune might (??) actually detract.

(I've done that to two sousaphones, and never found myself reaching up there to mess with that slide. I fixed up the old Buescher C helicon with one - as well as upper #3 - and I used it/those all the time, but that instrument fit on my body left to right - instead of front to back, and I didn't march with it.)

Also...
How am I supposed to mess with that slide AND carry my funky-bass-lines cheat sheet with the same hand...??

I don't have the luxury of a reachable first valve slide..... but the King Sousa player I gig with uses the first valve slide on one note only B natural below the staff. It is actually very frustrating because he is in tune with the rest of the band while me and the straight trombones are doing our best to lip it down.

It's all a question of what you (think you) want.
I prefer to pull NO slides and have tuba's that come close to this requirement.
Fortunately I have work/gigs
Unfortunately way too many on sousaphone.

I have a fantastic 50's Martin medium with recently revised valves and awesomely lined slides. (when you pull on a slide vacuum sucks it back in.)
And it's heavy.
And I'm 61.

Since I purchased a 60's 22K I've noticed that the slide pulling activity weighs out against the weight,
plus something else has happened quite unexpected in the last 6 months.

I've never really put much effort into having large bore tubas. I don't need the wider sound for the work I do. They can also be very out of tune.

Then I traded my Hagen 496 in for a 497B simply because the 497 is a lot better made. Way better. The response is super easy and quite effortless. Very air efficient. The 5th valve is also a large plus point.

What I didn't expect is that my technical prowess would improve so much. It seems like little things that used to take much more time to smooth out were gone. Of coarse not everything but the gain is consitantly present.
I believe this has to do with the superior build quality, but I also suspect that there's something about a larger bore tuba that makes tuba playing easier for me. It just seems to fit me (at least for now).

So the 22K is in a way a downgrade from the Martin but the wider sound makes a lot of other things easier; an upgrade. Who knows, maybe it's related to the playing feel being closer to the 497 than the Martin is; air distribution, etc.

(And if you're interested, yes I've owned a Mammoth sous. And a Jumbo. My bodies glad I sold them).