TubaForum.net

OK, I'll bite - I have nothing to lose by admitting I know nothing about F tubas. To me, it seems a little lacking on the low end, for a tuba - but part of knowing nothing about F tubas, is knowing nothing about what players want them for. You can find people playing the same thing on a couple of MW models, 45slp and 2250, likely less skilled players with less expensive looking watches and supercilious expressions going at a faster pace, but I think managing to get a little more tonal body on F below the staff.

.

I particularly admire people who manage to do things well, while - at the same time - making it hard to do whatever-it-is well...

...for tubas: whether it's a funky instrument, a funky mouthpiece or - in this case - wiggling around all over the place.

Truth be told, I didn't watch/listen to more than a few seconds I just thought the valves were odd.

6 valves, 6 spatulas... so far so good


The 1st valve the air reaches has the stem facing away from the player, the next three are reversed, and the next two are away. O...K......?

1st valve, right hand... operates the 6th valve in order of placement
2nd valve right hand- Operates the 1st valve in order
3rd valve operates the 5th valve


This broke me. I'm done, Vienna valves are too dang weird

Taking a guestimated stab here:

Top to bottom, finger-wise:
LH
1, 2, 5
RH
3, 6, 4

Top to bottom, valve-wise:
6
1
2
5
4
3
6, 1, 2, 4 are in their normal positions (assuming Elektra layout) with only 3 and 5 (close enough) swapped.

Nice playing, kinda goofy video. Is that the cellar of an old vineyard?

I enjoyed this interpretation. Breathing and phrasing in this piece is the hardest part, since it's not idiomatic at all to wind instruments. IMO, we can get "kinda close," but nothing a tuba can do on this piece is gonna sound like a cello or carry the line even as a mediocre string player can do.

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My old Vienna system Alexander also had the valves set up LH 125/ RH 364. It became intuitive after a while. I managed to work up the Vaughan Williams on it, play it in a recital, and sell it to fund a cross-country move. Wonder where it is now.

(I still hold the unpopular opinion that a good Alex F tuba trumps even the best Symphonie, but that's just me )

But… As stated above, why make things harder on yourself? I can’t imagine that tuba is easy to play as your day-to-day instrument. It just seems too wacky to me.

But what do I know? I play an F tuba that’s the size of a 4/4 C

If you think that's wild, look up his video of Moto Perpetuo, played on a Rudy Meinl 6 valve Vienna F tuba, with two right thumb tubing slide triggers... which he uses constantly. Sounds great, looks goofy and his fingers are a blur!

My F tuba has 6 valves and 7 spatulas. One of them is to tune the fifth valve circuit so that 564 is spot on for A - instead of just really close, and all the way out so that I can play double low F with all six valves - instead of that somewhat unstable open fundamental.

If I felt the need to move the first slide - which I do not, I could reassign my right thumb to a trigger for that slide and move the fifth valve slide trigger over to the left thumb... I guess that would be eight spatulas, which is a lot fewer things to mash on than on a saxophone.

Again, when I wiggle around as much as that gentleman, I don't play as well as I do otherwise. It takes me a chorus or so to get accustomed to walking down the street with a sousaphone playing funky bass lines, after not having done it for a while.

Speaking of Wieder.

I love this

tofu wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2023 3:07 pm

What mouthpiece is he using? I don't recognize it.

Windhager

That entire album is incredible

LeMark wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2023 8:22 pm Speaking of Wieder.

I love this