the unwritten rules of tuba playing:

[bloke]

..

[DonO.]

You made me look!

[iiipopes]

Unfortunately, that is the way my brain feels right now getting ready for the season's first rehearsal tomorrow evening.

[Stryk]

I agree with #1, but in #2 you say, and i quote " " - I call the BS flag on that.

[Casca Grossa]

I get what Bloke is doing but...

1. You have to play CC tuba to get a job as a professional tuba player
2. You need to buy the big bucks 6/4 CC your college professor recommends while being a broke college student with no paying gigs
3. Asking for any tuba related advice should always be done on the internet first
4. Raw brass, piston tubas always sound the best
5. There is always room for another CSO York copy in the tuba market
6. An AGR will vastly imrove your playing
7. Only focusing on orchestral playing will open up lots of job opportunities when you graduate
8. If you can't get a job as a professional orchestral player, the soloist route is your next best option
9. You are still a better tuba plyer than the really talented, local bassist or trombone player that decided to get a sousaphone and is getting all of the jobs you are trying to get because now that you have graduated, you need to pay for your 3 performance degrees and the 2 tubas you spent $35,000 on in college

Feel free to start writing down these unwritten rules and adding to the list.

[bloke]

37. If a tuba sounds at least 47% as good as the one currently owned - and weights 1.3 lbs. less - that's a much better tuba for a person with a lame back or sore knees/feet.

82. "Good enough" is always "better than needed", when it comes to playing the tuba.

[WC8KCY]

38. If you find two different mouthpieces that play equally well, always go with the one that weighs more.

[bloke]

176. Because my sound is world class, that automatically defines my tuning as perfect, particularly when I play louder than I should, and - thus - cannot hear all of those instruments which are playing "out-of-tune" (due to the fact that they are not "in tune" with me).

bloke "I didn't realize that this might actually become a topical thread."

[Doc]

40. Pros play CC and F. Amateurs play BBb. Eb is a British thing.
41. BBb tubas only need 4 valves
42. Get a big, oversized piston F tuba, as all rotary valve F tubas have a horrible low C.

[WC8KCY]

43. Metal sousaphones always, always sound better than fiberglass.

[bloke]

40. Pros play CC and F. Amateurs play BBb. Eb is a British thing.
41. BBb tubas only need 4 valves
42. Get a big, oversized piston F tuba, as all rotary valve F tubas have a horrible low C.

"C just below the bass clef staff" is the ONLY pitch ever played on F tubas, and needs to be overblown and unfocused.

[GC]

3.1415926536 The perfect mouthpiece will be the next one you buy. None of the old ones count.

[Yorkboy]

40. Pros play CC and F. Amateurs play BBb. Eb is a British thing.
41. BBb tubas only need 4 valves
42. Get a big, oversized piston F tuba, as all rotary valve F tubas have a horrible low C.

Man, you got my attention with this……

[Yorkboy]

3.1415926536 The perfect mouthpiece will be the next one you buy. None of the old ones count.

Easy as pi(e)

[bort2.0]

When you buy a tuba, you MUST hold onto it for a long time. No frequent buying and selling, no keeping it for a few weeks/months and selling, no different tuba every few years. You bought it, you keep it for a long damn time.

(I am a rebellious rule-breaker.)

[the elephant]

Rule #64 (en Español)

¡NO MAMES!

[russiantuba]

Rule No. 112: When given the choice of solos at an orchestral audition, one must choose the Vaughan Williams Concerto for Bass Tuba

Rule No. 113: 8vb everything

[Dan Tuba]

9 3/4) If/when playing in community band, always take anything great than a half note down the octave
10) If/when playing in community band, wait to do the above until you hear one of your section mates do this, then take everything possible down the octave

[bloke]

Rule No. 112: When given the choice of solos at an orchestral audition, one must choose the Vaughan Williams Concerto for Bass Tuba

Quite a few years ago, I was told that I was expected to "audition" for a job which (I was under the impression that) I thought I already had been awarded.

I had two choices:

- Tell them to go fark themselves (which would have broken some friendship/business ties (with "the arkustruh job" itself having been of secondary or tertiary importance).

- Agree to audition, but ABSOLUTELY not allow anyone else to prevail (which would have been as embarrassing as hell ).

...so I chose the latter.

I actually PURPOSEFULLY chose to play (as my solo-crap) quite a few excerpts from "the Vaughan Williams", because I figured that's what MOST EVERYONE ELSE would choose, and it was the EASIEST WAY (at least, in my way of thinking - particularly, if I played portions from each movement - thus probably playing "most everything that most other applicants would have played") to demonstrate that they all sucked, and that I did not suck.

I was actually working (plus I had to play somewhere right after work) on that day, so I walked in and (as they had agreed to, previously) was shoehorned in to the lineup (so that I could play, leave, and get back to work). With the personnel manager waiving a clipboard around, I noticed that there was one person I recognized (who held a doctor of tuba performance type of degree from a highly-regarded conservatory). As I was packing up my sh!t, I heard that person do their last "thingie" (sight-reading). It was the Kodály: Háry János Suite - "The Battle And Defeat Of Napoleon" ditty, and I heard them play a big phat B-flat - where a B-natural belonged. As I was headed out the door, the personnel manager ran to catch up with me, and told me that I had the job, to which I replied, "I know".

Kodaly tuba excerpt.png (148.14 KiB) Viewed 976 times

[Doc]

Rule #64 (en Español)

¡NO MAMES!

¡Pinche wey, es la verdad!