Physical Range Limit

[Mark]

There is a definite lower limit to a tuba's range. What about an upper limit? Is the upper range always limited by the player or is there a physical limit to a tuba's high range?

[PlayTheTuba]

Upper range, I would guess, is mostly limited by player BUT I am guessing if someone goes high enough it will start turning into "false" tones. When I first got my beat up King 1241, when someone else played it he mentioned that the tuba seems to "stop" at the F (F-4) above the bass clef staph. And he can go higher than that quite easily too. I wonder if the large bell flare (22 inch pancake) has something to do with that. Or BBb tubas realistically can only really reach Bb-4 a half-step below C-5.

Of course I could also be totally wrong with everything I said above too. I'm sure other brass instrumentalists know the actual answer to that question too.

[peterbas]

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[bloke]

I think people are going to define upper limits in different ways. I define the upper end of what I'm willing to attempt on a particular instrument as to what is marketable. When it begins to become airy or squealy or thin or isn't making the instrument itself actually resonate, I'm past what I think I can sell it to a consumer as a marketable sound. I'm not particularly concerned (as that is a doubling instrument for me) about playing the euphonium above about a really high C-sharp or D, because I doubt that I'll ever be personally to play much higher than the concert B-natural, which is in Holst's Mars.

I'm not too hard on myself regarding upper useable range with contrabass tubas, because when there's high stuff written for a tuba I'm going to grab the F tuba... or if some idiot composer or arranger wrote some crazy high stuff in an otherwise contrabass tuba part, I'm just going to grab the euphonium and set it on stage to switch to that instrument for such passages. The only reason that I mess around in the really high range on the contrabass tuba is to solidify the range up to about E-flat or F, and even that range is sort of a dumb range to mess around on a contrabass tuba when selling one's services.

With the F tuba I try to have a resonant C above middle C and - with the cimbasso - I seem to be able (without devoting time to increase that range to even more never-needed pitches) to produce a resonant D just above that, simply because the instrument is smaller and offers more resistance.

I suppose I could spend a bunch of time and effort extending those ranges by a pitch or two or three, but it wouldn't do me any actual good, so...

More than being able to play at the very top of the range on any of those instruments, I'm way more interested in being able to knock the socks off of a double-low D such as the one at the smack dab beginning of Young People's Guide) - or slip the same pitch out on demand at pianissimo - when playing a contrabass tuba.

As far as higher (but not particularly high pitches) with contrabass tubas, I think most contrabass tuba players would trade a really secure 2-3 valve combination eighth partial pitch for I really wonderful F above middle C. (Last night, the first pitch that I had to play in the entire concert was a contrabass tuba1-2 valve combination 8th partial pitch at fortissimo, which which most people - I suspect - will admit requires just as much concentration/accuracy as just about any pitch on a contrabass tuba.)

[UncleBeer]

Here's me playing an E5 (top of treble clef) on my F tuba on a CD; neither pinched, airy nor strained IMHO. Is this part of the tubaists' job description? One never knows.

[arpthark]

Here's me playing an E5 (top of treble clef) on my F tuba on a CD; neither pinched, airy nor strained IMHO. Is this part of the tubaists' job description? One never knows.

Wowza! What tuba were you playing for that recording?

[bloke]

It's always possible to play out of some trombone or bassoon books for a few days and secure two or three more half steps in the high range - until quitting playing out of trombone books for a week or two, after which extreme abilities retreat to where they were before.

The thing is that these composers and arrangers with midi keyboards aren't exploring that range, but they're exploring the bottom end of the piano keyboard and writing stuff for us to play as if anything that they can write we can play...and they can't even play the stuff they write for us with their fingers on their keyboards.

If I decide that I want to distract the Sunday brunch eaters from their conversations, I'll play some blues chorus in the crazy low range. Not only do they look, but they laugh. Tuba low pitches are low. Tuba high pitches not high.

Something else about these composers with their MIDI keyboards:
There's just not going to be that much actual racket that can be made in the double low range. When the tuba player really let's go in that range all by themselves in a big hall, it sounds really impressive, but when they put forth the same effort with a full symphony orchestra on top of them also putting down all those individual gas pedals, that double low pitch played as loud as can be played is just sort of in there somewhere. The cimbasso can cut through an orchestra in that range, but what are mostly being heard are overtones with that instrument playing really low and really loud.

I was talking about this stuff with a bass trombone player a friend of mine who is really quite capable of making a lot of racket. He says, "The composer can write as many f's and issimos as they want to under those notes, but they're only going to be able to be played just so loud, in that range.

[UncleBeer]

Wowza! What tuba were you playing for that recording?

Home-built. I'll post a picture later.

[UncleBeer]

Wowza! What tuba were you playing for that recording?

Home-built. I'll post a picture later.

Here 'tis. First horn I ever put together, and it shows. It started as a 3 valve Amati Eb. I put on a York-ish MW piston set. Plays great!

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[bloke]

The fact that you fit all that stuff into such small spaces is evidence of a tremendous amount of talent.

[Mary Ann]

A brass instrument will resonate to whatever pitch the lips are capable of producing (high range.) Roger Lewis has some great info out there on how to do it. I suppose when you get high enough you aren't in a slot any more. I remember a Mnozil video I saw and can't find any more, in which the trumpet player kept switching to smaller and smaller instruments and playing higher and higher pitches until it was just made me laugh.

[bloke]

I think one of the limitations that tuba players face is that there's this overwhelming majority of so-called "professional grade" instruments out there that all feature the same valve section bore size.

Back in-or-around 1980 - when Hirsbrunner contracted Walter Nirschl to take his slant 19mm 3/4-in bore valve section and change the knuckle angles to imitate those of the one-off CSO York tuba valve section, once Mr. Nirschl was set up to do that Hirsbrunner pasted that same valve section on as many of their other former rotary models' bodies as they could manage.

Not too many years later, other European manufacturers built similar valve sections, and the same tendency and practice has followed - whereby they take that same 19mm bore valve section and paste it on as many tuba bodies as they can manage.

Holton (decades prior) reconfigured their own 3/4-in bore slant valve section (again: with different knuckles, but the same pistons) to imitate that of the CSO instrument as well, when they were needing to get the CSO principal brass players to endorse their instruments... The thing is, Holton never dragged out any of their old molds and mandrels to paste that valveset onto those shelved models, because I believe Holton was never particularly interested in offering a bunch of different models of tubas. ...I always thought of Holton as sort of the "Chrysler of American band instruments" (not meaning this as a particular compliment), and were really only into making Dodge-quality trumpets and trombones, entering the viable French horn market late in the game.

Since the topic of Howard Johnson has been brought into the mix - and I'm discussing the limited choices of bore sizes, I would like to point out that those Belgian-made tubas' bodies are right at a 4/4 size, but their bore size is only (French influence) 5/8 of an inch. If I need to express that size in ways that people can visualize easier, let me just say .625" / ie. less than 16mm.

Mr Johnson was one of the world's greatest talents, (I'm not going to use the word, "but") AND that instrument helped him solo in the style in which he soloed.

Additionally, I believe that when Markneukirchen created a knockoff of that Belgian tuba, they chickened out and made the bore size a millimeter larger, whereby the magic of that model was lost.

[PlayTheTuba]

If you do not mind @UncleBeer, maaaayy you please share more pictures of the tuba? I do enjoy seeing pictures tubas from other angles too

[iiipopes]

Above the 12th harmonic, (for example, treble clef 2nd line G on a typical CC tuba) the terminal pitch node is beyond the rim of the bell, and the horn effectively becomes a megaphone instead of a resonator. Above that, then, any pitch center is a function of the control of the player's embouchure and breath support, not of the horn.

[UncleBeer]

If you do not mind @UncleBeer, maaaayy you please share more pictures of the tuba? I do enjoy seeing pictures tubas from other angles too

"Horn porn", eh?

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[UncleBeer]

Above the 12th harmonic, (for example, treble clef 2nd line G on a typical CC tuba) the terminal pitch node is beyond the rim of the bell,

That's true throughout the frequency range of all aerophones. When building an instrument, you have to consider the "end effect": the effective acoustic end of the instrument. In the case of the tuba ('open pipe'), that's length + 1.22 x bell radius. For a 50cm diameter tuba bell, that's 30.5cm past the bell rim.

[Rick Denney]

Here 'tis. First horn I ever put together, and it shows. It started as a 3 valve Amati Eb. I put on a York-ish MW piston set. Plays great!


jpeg-optimizer_IMG_20240212_082842063_HDR.jpg

I remember when you posted a blog article (or something like that) about that project--must have been 25 years ago.

Rick "drew unhealthy (read: expensive) inspiration from that project" Denney

[Rick Denney]

Above the 12th harmonic, (for example, treble clef 2nd line G on a typical CC tuba) the terminal pitch node is beyond the rim of the bell,

That's true throughout the frequency range of all aerophones. When building an instrument, you have to consider the "end effect": the effective acoustic end of the instrument. In the case of the tuba ('open pipe'), that's length + 1.22 x bell radius. For a 50cm diameter tuba bell, that's 30.5cm past the bell rim.

And then there's the issue that the speed of sound is not constant over the length of a conical instrument.

The math of tubas isn't quite as obvious as it is sometimes portrayed.

Rick "bells are imperfect impedance matching devices" Denney

[Rick Denney]

I think Cliff Bevan said it well, above a certain point, a tuba loses its characteristic sound.

And Joe echoed a Jacobs aphorism: Playing high doesn't sound special to non-tuba players. Playing low does.

I've played up to about an F above the staff in actual playing conditions. Nobody has ever paid me to play Bydlo at all, let alone on a tuba (in the fantasy where I get to perform Pictures, I would use a euphonium).

Performing for tuba players is a whole other thing. That's not a fantasy for me; more like a nightmare, especially in my diminished state.

Rick "can't play low, either" Denney

[bloke]

yes...and no one pays me to play much beyond that partial on any of my (contrabass/bass/baritone/tenor)-voiced instruments.

My F tuba (without daily practice) offers reliable performance up to that (open) partial.
My F cimbasso (without daily practice) offer reliable performance up to the (D ie. 1-2) overtone series 16th partial.
(I could consistently "practice" messing around up there, and pick up another couple of pitches, but - again - for what?)

...so @Rick Denney, does a trombone-shaped/proportioned/sized bell solidify (as I experience) more reliable access to more overtones?

bloke "None of those pitches - as far as those to which humans are routinely exposed - are 'high', and - revenue-wise for tuba peeps - aren't really redeemable for cash."