a community band concert, tomorrow

[bloke]

It seems as though there will be only one tuba player there. That person is a fine player -Well capable of balancing their 50 or 60 piece band, but they seem to really wish that I would come and play with them, at the concert. They are also a remarkably nice person, and the band is very nice people, so I think I’m going to do it. After all, I can drag out the behemoth and give it a run.
All of that having been said, I just found out that it’s an outdoor concert, so I will probably go up in the attic and see if I’ve got some sort of dusty old three valve compensating Besson with a recording bell - to use instead.

[bort2.0]

Take an F or Eb. Community bands, in my experience, almost never get to benefit from hearing a bass / contrabass tuba setup in action. If the current player is more than sufficient, add color to the sound instead of mass.

[bloke]

Take an F or Eb. Community bands, in my experience, almost never get to benefit from hearing a bass / contrabass tuba setup in action. If the current player is more than sufficient, add color to the sound instead of mass.

Again, outdoors -and with (surely) the only microphone - if any - being by the podium. With only two of us - and outdoors - my buddy (as well as my old-old buddy who waves the stick) are going to want quantity of sound.

Further - by habit - when reading band parts - my eyes always move to the LOWER octave (if/when there are parts in octaves), because (as band orchestration/instrumentation/scoring - again - is so "mezzo" oriented) there are going to be PLENTY of other instruments (baritone horns, baritone saxes, third trombones, bassoons, etc.) playing any upper-octave "Basses" parts.

bloke "A customer is on his way to pick up his repaired Tonight-Show-vintage Getzen Eterna 'Severisen Model' "SK"-serial number trumpet...but I'm going to run up into the barn's attic, to see if there's a bell-front Besson, up there."

[bloke]

...so I budgeted only TWO hours, scrounged around in the attic, found some not-to-badly-beat-up random B-flat Besson body parts (and a creased-up 24" recording bell), straightened out some other parts (when all I could find was a "smashed" part), and stuck this 3-valve compensating Besson together out of various scrips and scraps. (The NOT-cleaned-up soldering is quite obvious, yes?)

It plays fine. I don't have a small shank mouthpiece that's appropriate for this instrument, but I can get a standard shank one to go in far enough and (well...) these Besson's are sharp-natured anyway, so every little bit of extra length helps. With the standard shank mouthpiece in the small-shank receiver (plus a 2-inch pull), I'm getting A=440 tuning at 72 degrees. (Yes, I turned on the AC.)

I guess I'm showing up tomorrow at that community band's outdoor concert at some who-knows-what festival (near my old neighborhood - back when I lived in Memphis). I just texted the tuba-guy asking for an address and a show-up time.

I found a blue golf shirt that matches the color of blue of theirs (an old shirt that the Blessing Company gave to me - it has a "Blessing" logo on it), and I found a pair of khaki pants (I don't like khaki pants, so I didn't previously own any) at our sparsely-populated county's charity thrift store for $3. They even have their own baseball caps, but - years ago - they gave me one as a gift...and I found it in the closest...so I guess I'm all set with a "B-flat recording bass" to play a non-amplified outdoor band concert.




I ALSO reminded myself that there's a COMPLETE Besson B-flat 3+1 compensating valveset (and some upgrade NICKEL inside-outside slide tubes, @the elephant ) that I can use (someday...??) to really jazz this thing up...and I also have a DETACHABLE 17" bell (the original size for the UPRIGHT version of these) with a genuine Besson male collar on it...so (someday...??) I might REALLY slick this out, put the 3+1 comp. valveset on it, and (if I actually do all of that?) I could end up with a 3+1 fully-chromatic 5/4 compensating B-flat with BOTH a 24" recording bell AND a (1950's-1960's style, but detachable) 17" UPRIGHT bell. These things slur very easily, play in-tune easily and (even though the player can't hear much - due to the recording bell...sounds mf to me - behind it, and fff to Mrs. bloke - in front of it) sound really nice - to those IN FRONT OF the bell. ...cool beenz.

bloke "what it's like to be bloke (yeah...He's nuts.)"

[bloke]

17" Imperial-style upright bell:


19" Sovereign-style upright bell:

[hrender]

Very nice!

[bloke]

I saw what looked to be a hundred pop-up tents of arts and crafts on either side of a curved shady street hidden back in the middle of a busy part of Memphis. Mrs. bloke came along. I think she had cabin fever… I didn’t even ask her if she wanted to go.
I suspect that I gave into temptation – due to the lack of feedback from the recording bell, and probably played a notch louder than I thought I was playing, but that’s probably OK for an amplified outdoor concert, where there’s only a couple of tubas.
The entire concert was “good old band music”, no inane medleys nor other trash music.

This thing is low on the list, but someday it will be a really straight 3+1 compensating instrument with a nice choice of bells.

[Heavy_Metal]

Is that the Besson that you said some time ago, on the other board "sounds like the voice of God"?

[bloke]

Yeah… Any of these, as long as the valves aren’t worn out.
From behind them, one only hears about 40% of the sound, so they’re pretty easy to overplay.
If playing outdoors in a “bowl“ or “shell“ type of situation – where are the patrons’ seating extends steeply uphill – only then does any of the sound bounce back. Of course, the sound never bounces back outdoors (unless some sort of partial roof) with any upright bell.
It will probably be quite some time, but again – sometime - I plan to really smooth out this instrument, align everything really nicely, and transplant a 3+1 compensating valve set onto it that I have in a box. It would be nice to slick out my E-flat in the same way and have a pair of matching instruments - both with auxiliary upright bells.
The only noticeable intonation flaw with these is the same as with the euphoniums from that era - as well as some from the current era: The E-flats are too far apart.
At least, I’ve got it together and playing.

My most pressing project, though, is to complete that B-flat bass trombone cimbasso project (4+2), as I have this arrangement with one of my per-service orchestras where – when there are no tuba parts – I get to move up to bass trombone, and the bass trombone player moves up to second. I feel like I’ve done a good job with the F cimbasso (Schubert/video) but I also feel like I could do a little bit easier job with a B-flat one.
I suppose I always tend to migrate towards ~easy~. As a teenager, the whole reason that I worked up a cocktail-party nylon-string-guitar repertoire was because that was an ~easier~ way to make money than working 12 hours + 12 hours at a car wash every Saturday/Sunday for $1.65 an hour.

Is that the Besson that you said some time ago, on the other board "sounds like the voice of God"?