Rant on musicality

[kingrob76]

I’ve always wondered how a 25-year-old Roger Bobo would do in today’s orchestral auditions.

When I read the original post I thought "I wonder what Roger would sound like if he grew up in today's world of larger equipment". After 5 minutes of pondering it I decided I couldn't decide and can make a case for pretty much anything, but he wouldn't sound exactly the same I don't believe.

I think that bigger equipment has always been a thing, even if using it was not universal.

A thing yes, but, arguably more prevalent, readily accessible and of a higher quality than say in 1963 (when Roger was 25). The more I think about this I keep coming back to the idea that he would probably end up on comparable gear today as he did throughout his career because it fit the sound in his head, but it is a curious mental exercise.

[kingrob76]

Here's Roger on the first Minecraft tuba:

[bloke]

Wood you be willowing to play that thing?

[bort2.0]

Gene was never a "6/4 tuba guy" until hired for a job steeped in 6/4 tradition.

Question on this - And this is an honest question, not an "Oh he's bringing up the Chicago Yorks" troll:

Are the actual Chicago Yorks so much better than the knock-offs that although someone would rather not play one of the knock-offs, they would love to play the actual Yorks?

"Better" is so subjective, there's not really an answer to your question. But my general impression is that old and/or iconic tubas seem to work best for the people who used them forever... simply because they have learned how to make that tuba work for them. Everything was new at some point. If we keep propping up these old relics, when do new tubas get the chance to get old? Which one-off tubas in use right now would we want to see still in existence and in use 50-100 years from now?

Tubas don't last forever, though. I forget what the phrase was, but Bob Tucci told me once about some metric that's used about the expected lifespan of a tuba -- that under daily heavy use, how many years would a tuba be expected to last? It's a good while, but it's not forever. I want to say it was like 20-25 years, but I forget. Now... take away the "daily" requirement... and the "heavy use" requirement, and that number of years increases dramatically. How about the tubas we-the-once-a-week crowd have and use? Or the "other" horns that we have, which see occasional use once a month, or less? Those things will last for hundreds of years, possibly indefinitely with a little preventative maintenance and minimal care.

But for the CSO York, which has existed already for 100 or so years, with heavy daily use, is it even reasonable to say that it should be used at all? Or can it finally be retired and put on display? THAT seems like an entirely appropriate thing for a tuba museum!

[bloke]

That York tuba - other than needing piston rebuild jobs every four decades or so - would probably be in perfectly fine condition - had someone not ruined it on a buffing machine. (Worn-though upper tuning slide bows can easily be capped.)

bloke "a broken record"

[Rick Denney]

You can keep anything going indefinitely. It's just a matter of how much you want to spend. The CSO York is owned by the orchestra and at some point they will have to make a business decision. But if Gene is using his Yamaha as the daily driver, that decision can be postponed indefinitely. Is he using the York routinely for anything these days? Dan Oberloh has shown pictures of the process of copper plating an instrument to build the metal back up, and that could be done for the York, too (as Joe mentioned). After copper plating, he can sand it to restore factory smoothness without taking away any of the original brass. Bring your checkbook.

Many of my tubas are old, but they have been maintained to what I call a "state of good repair" rather than "restored". The only replating on mine have been valves. None of mine, past or present, have been deeply buffed or sanded. "State of good repair" means I can pick it up and use it any time I want to and it works as designed. They look just like they should for their age and being in that state.

What trashes tubas is being flattened by trauma, reinflated, flattened again, inflated again, and maybe once more before things start cracking and breaking or require herculean efforts with annealing. Valve wear can be fixed. Red rot can be fixed. Wasn't the CSO York the victim of shipping destruction on the way to Switzerland to be measured up for replication? I seem to recall that it was overhauled after that to repair the damage, and that may have been when it was buffed from satin to gloss. Or was that Number 2?

With so many great grand orchestral tubas on the market now, trying to keep these old beasts in daily professional use seems to me a tough business decision. Back when the only alternative was the highly inconsistent and poorly assembled Holton 345, one went to considerable effort to preserve the scarce resource. Now and for the last several decades, there are lots more choices.

Rick "whose Hirsbrunner 193 is scarcer than grand orchestral tubas" Denney

[russiantuba]

In regards to the 6/4 style horns and sound, the only big audition I have taken, and the few people who advanced at the audition phase seemed to not play on overly-large tubas (and this was last decade). I think tubists are under some impression that XXX horn won YYY job (Remember the list of horns that won a job on our last home?). When I was starting off in college, the PT 6/PT6P seemed to be the popular horns. All it will take is someone using a smaller horn to win a major job or two to change the field (maybe I should practice more to start this).

No one that I studied with used a 6/4 horn, including the professor with a full time symphony job. He used an original York 4/4 factory built CC (the original one he had got stolen). Before that, he used a Cerveny Piggy, and had used a Kalison DS and Conn 54J with the same group. I never had issues hearing him, his projection was great, very powerful, and yet very clear. Sidebar--supposedly when Bob LeBlanc studied with Jacobs using that York 4/4CC, Jacobs wanted the horn so much he was willing to trade one of the 6/4 Yorks for it (and these horns had already began to become popular). Jacobs wanted the smaller horn. He got the 6/4 by chance, when his teacher claims to not have been able to use the horn due to ergonomics.

Listen to some Cleveland Orchestra recordings--I believe the slow Prokofiev 5 was an Alexander 163, and several of the recordings of Ron Bishop was done on a Miraphone 184CC. How about NYPO with Deck, the Mussorgsky Album with Sinopoli was on that Geib CC (Around the size of my 1291CC from what I was told), and I believe the Copland Symphony 3 recording was on the same horn (@DandyZ629 can confirm the horn). I feel more and more players are learning to play hard to play horns, and not learning how to play the music.

[bloke]

One thing that's sort-of amazing are those computer programs which come up with very workable compromises (factoring in given valve combinations and valveset bore sizes) for instruments' bow tapers.

The tiresome things are
- those instruments' designs which lack sonority
- the choices in bore sizes only being 17.5mm, 18.5, 19mm, 19.5mm, 21+mm or "go play in traffic" - and with certain bore sizes only being paired with certain styles of instruments, whereas (as an example) Martin offered some nearly-7/4 size B-flat instruments which featured a bore size of 18.25mm...which were astonishingly resonant, as well as easy to play in tune.

[humBell]

Wood you be willowing to play that thing?

Yes.

[TomLukowicz]

“Shameless self plug” post

I’m going to be giving a 90-minute lecture at GPRTEC about how I think we can make better use of etudes as students, teachers, and performers. It’s going to include different ways to have an intellectual approach to them and how that knowledge should shape our performance. I’ll be using short examples from VW, Bach, and Wagner…followed by etudes from Rochut/Bordogni, Tyrell, and Blazhevich on how apply this information into actual practice sessions.

It will be via Zoom because of my performance schedule, but I’m happy to record and post a version of it when the conference is done.