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If you consider yourself to be a somewhat accomplished player, find those long-lost books, take them outside, wipe off the mildew, grab your "big" tuba, and play through them - with your current standards (tuning/clarity/musicality-phrasing) at which you require yourself to play... Maybe even set an electronic tuning over off to the side (to glance at, occasionally).

That "boring old" Magic Flute solo (in the back of bk I) isn't as easy - when imagining oneself performing it (as a mature player) rather than poking around at the "easy" notes (as a 15-year-old, etc.), yes?

One of the advantages of age is that you can be surprised by things you probably once knew, but forgot, and forgot that you ever knew.

I have owned the Rubank Advanced books and the Wekselblatt Solos for the Tuba Player books for over 40 years, but just recently "noticed" that the Magic Flute solo is exactly the same in both books. Where the Rubank has cue notes, the Welkselblatt has the same thing embedded in its rather simple, chorale style accompaniment. Same key, even, which surprised me because the Wekselblatt book is full of orchestral excerpts in all those weird fiddle-player keys.

yes to all you said and/but…
- I probably never fooled with playing it, because I’m sure that (to my Wally Cleaver mind) it looked like a bunch of easy notes when I was a kid, and
- had I played it - it would’ve sounded like crap.

To kids, the only real music is “shredding“, yes?

bloke wrote: ↑Sun Jun 19, 2022 3:25 pm To kids, the only real music is “shredding“, yes?

Too true.

My only quibble with those books is the limited key signatures in them. They are outstanding books that I still use on occasion. The advanced ones are difficult. I don't buy a lot of *new* books as everything I have ever needed was in those books from Robert King, Southern Music, and the Arban, and other trumpet books. In fact, most of my books are either very old tuba texts or very old trumpet texts.

My high school band director used the Rubank Advanced Method, along with the Watkins-Farnum sight reading test, to test players for what we called "varsity" band (sophomore, junior, senior). Those who successfully completed the first ten units and scored a minimum of 40 on the W-F qualified to enroll in high school band. Those that did not had to play in the freshman band until they achieved the minimum standards. Why the first ten units? That encompassed the wide range of playing in key signatures for 99% of what we played in band. The W-F determined seating. Yes, I scored over 100 on the W-F and still sat second chair; the musicianship of my high school band was that good.

The Rubank Advanced Method is woefully underappreciated.

For me, the most useful part of Rubank Advanced is the section on “Studies in Melodic Interpretation”. Now THESE are etudes that actually SOUND like music, and you can do musical things with them. They have structure. They have form. The melodies make musical sense. And the vast majority of them are fun to play. Kopprasch is dull, sounds like exercises. Bordogni and Blazhevich? Well, some are musical and fun, others are not. Some of the melodies in Rubank are so cool, I can imagine fleshing them out and expanding them into ensemble pieces.

I don’t know about this book specifically, but I’ve heard that a books a bunch of those books that were developed during that era are anonymous tunes, duets, trios etc. found in Europe – probably written by people who died in WWII - either from being killed as a soldier, from being bombed, or from being exterminated.
(ie. no composer royalties)