...but (and I know I keep raving about it, but) I'm just delighted with the compact (basically: York 33-size) Holton B-flat tuba that I put together, over the last year. I'm using it - once again - on my assigned Christmas Eve evening and late (into Christmas morning) masses, and it's just behaving wonderfully/effortlessly for me...and (mostly) I'm referring to intonation/response/resonance (but - I guess - that's "most stuff", isn't it...??)
This year, the trombone/horn tuba are on the OTHER side of the organ console (one of those typical "up in the back" choir lofts), so I'm playing out INTO the cathedral (rather than into the organ pipes)...and (well...) I'm necessarily (my own judgment) backing off, just a little bit.
The entire church complex received a zillions-of-dollars facelift/redo (even the organ) so the organ's tuning (and resonance/response, etc.) are all better than in past years, and (with a nice in-tune tuba playing along with a nice in-tune organ) it's stupid-easy.
LUCKY:
I neither designed the tuba's bugle, nor fabricated any of the parts.
I only (well...occasionally cut and) stuck preexisting stuff (discarded surplussed junk) together, and most everything was ... affordable.
Though several inches shorter in statue, it's quite similar to a "new style" King, but (with all due respect to that design, and to those who are delighted with their new-style King tubas) there's just something in this Holton instrument that's "just a bit more", as well as "just a bit more defined".
The ONLY thing that I slightly OVERestimated was my (retained from teenage years) ability to read and play B-flat tuba "on the fly".
About the only B-flat playing I've done (since that time) has been play-testing repaired instruments and no-sheet-music stand-up sousaphone gigs.
where I've been, for quite a long time:
F- strongest (During the 1980's and into the 1990's, it was the only thing I owned.
)C- just about as strong (from all of them kolij eetoodie books, etc.)
*B-flat - obviously, needs just a bit of polishing up
E-flat - OK...Let me look at the part ahead of time, unless it's something that "everyone (including bloke) knows how it goes" (ie. watching the notes go by, but - mostly - playing by ear...OR resorting to treble B-flat trumpet fingerings)
...and (repeating this far too often, on this website) those of you with 5-valve B-flat tubas that feature an FF-whole-step circuit length ("just because that's the way it's done on C tubas") are missing out on the amazing advantage of forgoing a (so-called) "5th valve" and - instead - enjoying a (shorter) "6th valve" (FF semitone circuit)
- Unlike C tubas - B-flat tubas already have a (oft-written in tuba music) "low F" at the ready.
- It's remarkably luxurious to mash 5-4 and play no-lip/no-pull B and E naturals = whereas (longer 5th circuit) the ol' "5-2-3" thing - hardly ever - quite passes muster.
- If someone (rarely or occasionally) writes a double-low E-flat, pulling upper #4 a bit and playing 5-2-4 accomplishes that.
- "Double low C" is all valves down. If "double low B-natural" is written, you won't recognize it (for all of the ledger lines) anyway.
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*
' same as with E-flat tuba...C-sharp is THE WORST damned note...Last night - at the rehearsal, I mashed 1-2 for one of the C-sharps in the staff (but - thankfully - only once)...oh yeah: and it failed to produce a C-sharp, just fwiw.
