TubaForum.net

Hi again, all,

Here is my ranking, by size, of the Subcontrabass Tubas I have been able to track down in my research. Do you know of any others that I have somehow missed - and can you verify their existence, whether now or in the past? Or do you have more reliable data on any of the ones listed?

Thanks so much!
Dave

To see photos of most of these, here is my blog post with the same information: http://tubapastor.blogspot.com/2021/01/ ... tubas.html. Enjoy - and let me know if you are aware of more of these monsters!

Last call for any additional subcontrabass tuba sightings - thanks!

And @bloke, what can you tell me about the Hoffnung tuba, having apparently seen it and played it?

Cerveny made a contra F tuba, and I think there is a tightly wrapped contra Eb tuba on a thread on TubeNet.

Dave Detwiler wrote: ↑Tue Feb 02, 2021 6:24 am Last call for any additional subcontrabass tuba sightings - thanks!

And @bloke, what can you tell me about the Hoffnung tuba, having apparently seen it and played it?

If that is the instrument that is in Texas, I spent just a long enough time with it to have my picture taken with it, and to discover that it’s a giant vacuum cleaner. Its own mouthpiece overshot my face, and I’m not a person with a small face.
Regardless of how much gigantism is involved in designing an instrument, the human end of it probably (??) needs to accommodate humans.

https://imgur.com/gallery/y70coEk

EEb subbass tuba. Compact wrap 26-27 feet long, .800" bore, 18 inch bell

iiipopes wrote: ↑Tue Feb 02, 2021 7:13 am Cerveny made a contra F tuba, and I think there is a tightly wrapped contra Eb tuba on a thread on TubeNet.

The contra F is really a subcontra Bb.

Thanks, Ian (@Mithosphere. But this raises a few questions:

1. If a 13-ft Eb tuba is considered a bass tuba, wouldn't a 26-ft Eb be a contrabass, and then a 52-ft Eb, such as the Saxhorn bourdon (no. 1 in my ranking above), be a subcontrabass? Or is "sub-bass" a category used with Eb tubas?

2. What is the make and year of your 26-ft Eb?

3. I have not yet found any hard evidence (articles or images) for a subcontrabass Cerveny. Bevan mentions one (or is it two?) in his book, but with no documentation. What more can you tell me?

Thanks again!
Dave

This was he same question I had - since it’s more or less a one-off instrument, it’s hard to figure out how it’s classified. At 26-27 feet long - double the length of a standard bass in E-flat, that would fall in the range of the contrabass. Although if week look at organ notation, as I was told by someone either on that other tuba forum or YouTube, it’s considered a subbass.... but then the Okemos, MI 26-27 foot E-flat helicon is called a subcontrabass...

I’ll have to find that old thread, if the posts haven’t been deleted, to see if I can find the University of Illinois concert program that lists this E-flat tuba in question, although I think they called it a contrabass. I know it was probably made by Bohland & Fuchs pre-1920.

Cerveny made really early tubas and I think someone had found an old catalog showing models like a subcontrabass, but I think we’re talking about the big rotary valve be that is the Amati in B-flat - there was all sorts of talk on what key it was in on the old old Tube—- I mean old tuba forum pre-2004.

Mithosphere wrote: ↑Wed Feb 03, 2021 1:14 pmthe Okemos, MI 26-27 foot E-flat helicon is called a subcontrabass...

Now that the Okemos building is gone, it could be assumed that the EEb subbass/subcontrabass helicon and all the other tubas that hung from the ceiling or rested in the basement are in the hands of the former owner of the defunct museum/restaurant.

Any info?