Does that happen when you practice, and - if so - do you have a theory as to why?

[bloke]

1. A standard valve combination of a particular tends a bit sharp.
2. An alternate valve combination is awkward/cumbrous, yet in tune (electronic tuner/equal temperament).
3. Going back-and-forth between the alternate and standard valve combinations causes the two versions to be one - tuning-wise.
4. In fact, after running a drill of alternating between the two (both side-by-side, and approaching them from other pitches), the standard valve combination is no longer sharp, and it actually becomes difficult to (even) favor the standard fingering sharp of equal temperament tuning.

[the elephant]

cum·brous /ˈkəmbrəs/ adjective

A literary term for cumbersome.






LITERARY?

[iiipopes]

My real answer was going to be "Yes," but you didn't have that in your poll. I checked "My tuba always plays perfectly in tune," because, as you know better than I do, it is the player that makes a tuba play in tune. So why does this happen? I dunno: finally getting warmed up, dropping the jaw, subconsciously from experience knowing how to match pitch, the horn finally warming up, or any number of other reasons. I know that when community band starts back up for the new season in a couple of weeks, and in spite of keeping up with warmups and some other practice in the meantime since before Christmas, I know I will have significant intonation issues until I work back into it on a regular basis.

[bloke]

I'm pretty sure that I would have to call myself an "F tuba player who doubles on other tubas". It's the instrument that I can pick up and (and obviously I'm not going to be anywhere close to the top 10,000 of world's best at this, but) read spots off the page and play the widest range with the least effort.
I spent several years only owning that one instrument during my busiest playing years (where I had a minimum of one playing job every day and often more), and I don't think I'll ever sell it until I can no longer play. When I do well playing that instrument, I always credit the instrument - ten to one - over my own playing ability. It plays easily in tune on any pitch without reaching over and moving any slides, and any pitches that don't perfectly center on where they need to be are so flexible that it's just not even noticed that I'm moving them where they need to be. If I haven't played it for months, the tuning is darn good, and if I spend a few days playing it again, it's almost as if the darn thing has some sort of auto-tune thing built into it.

I'm picky about the tuning characteristics of tubas that I own (decades ago, having been one of these "the sound is everything" people, but wearing myself out playing badly-out-of- tune instruments in tune) but none of the rest ever end up matching that one - regarding ease of good tuning. All the others are the ones that I spend considerable time while playing at home) working on tuning. Ths new-to-me big B-flat thing is just about the best huge thing that I've ever played - regarding ease of tuning, but there are things that I must work on regularly with it. It's that instrument whereby I've encountered (this odd phenomenon of going back and forth with an alternate seeming to "cure" the tuning of the primary valve combination) described in the first post.

...Gramma (b. 1883) used "cumbrous/encumbered/cumber". She lived with us for a few years. I'm not sure how that made it into her vocabulary, but she grew up in Wisconsin speaking German. I checked the German word for that, and it has nothing to do with it...

I selected "shut up bloke".

[2nd tenor]

Honestly, I wish that I played well enough to need to be concerned about perfecting pitch. Anyway, my job in the Band is to mostly to make a low pitched rhythmic noise and folk don’t seem to notice too much when I’m not pitch perfect. Unless they’re compensated valved brass instruments don’t play perfectly in pitch, well that’s what I find, and if you want perfectly in pitch then you need a good set of ears and a slide (like a Trombone has).

Is tuning effected by playing and trying alternative fingering? I think so. A warm instrument plays differently, warmed up chops play differently and with some combinations of mouthpiece and instrument it becomes easier to ‘bend’ (?) notes to pitch.

[bloke]

Let me just clarify that I don't consider my own tuning abilities to be worth a crap, but I recognize amazing abilities in others:



Further, I'm much more amazed by people who can make a controlled difference between frequencies around 1200 vibrations per second vs. 1201, as opposed to people like me who are working to dial in differences between frequencies which are only around 100 vibrations per second versus 101 or 102

[the elephant]

… having been one of these "the sound is everything" people, but wearing myself out playing badly-out-of- tune instruments in tune…

Same.

I worked my butt off for twelve years with my Alexander. It was not a bad Alex, either (so far as CC 163s go) and I could play it extremely well in tune, but I got tired of working so hard.

I looked for years for better alternatives, but eventually gave up because those searches take a big pile of money in order to make long driving trips, which are hundreds of dollars, each time, and you have to have more money than you think you need to make purchases; I have never, at any time, had a pile of money. (Read: savings.)

I finally found horns that were "good enough" and have been fixing them up as best I can in order to get what I want. Let me tell you: Once you start that process it can become a real rabbit hole, because, from an acoustical standpoint, most tubas suck.

Many of those high-zoot tubas are about as acoustically worked out as a good Olds Ambassador student model trumpet from the 1950s. Tubas do not sell enough to merit the same level of R&D that big makers apply to more profitable instruments.

"Here are our carefully researched and tested trumpet, horn, trombone, and euphonium. Oh, and we also offer <ahem> a "very fine" tuba. With three valves. And a .656" bore. And no upper slide access. It's <ahem> very fine."

Things have changed, and now the expensive software used to map out instruments is being used to create new tubas, some of which are really great. But we are still DECADES behind the curve in intonation and response compared to instruments that actually make money for the builders.

Most of the tubas I enjoy playing are inexcusably out of tune. Most have genuine response issues when compared with other instruments.

So if you all could just buy two or three hundred new tubas each in order to spur new R&D that'd be grrrreat…

[Mary Ann]

Unfortunately that is where I'm ending up with my 184 --- it is simply difficult to play in tune. I suppose my last one was too, but maybe not as bad as this one. I'm not having trouble with the 183, except for the high register that I never have to play being flat, which might be fixed by a shallower cup, but I don't like the sound I get with a shallower cup.

So I'm actually thinking about a different CC, and having found out that it is only certain arrangements of front valves (like the Yamahas and Werils) that cause me wrist distress, a whole new category has opened up. Tomorrow I am going to get to try a friend's Yamaha 832, which I believe may be more or less the same as an Eastman 832? Which I played in a local music store recently. Too big for me but I think was quite a bit easier to play than my 184. So there is the Eastman 632 which is, I believe, smaller, and which might actually be made to work, but I have to find one to try without shipping. Maybe same music store will get one in.

So -- yeah after I have messed with the flat E in the staff and pitches between it and the next C down, they all start sounding the same in-tune, but then when I go back the next day, I'm back where I started --- so, I guess it's also shut up, Mary Ann.

And bloke, don't try to sell me another BBb. If you do, it will be shut up, bloke.

[Three Valves]

In band keys no.

In orchestra keys, sometimes.

But however far off it is, it's close enough!

[YorkNumber3.0]

.

[bloke]

@bloke and his op…

The in-tune fingering gives your ears and brain (and everything else) a target. Your “Wind” (and everything else) then accommodates the “Song.”

As you already knew.

I get that...and no arguments/contradictions...but the confounding thing is not even easily being able to "lip" (after having gone through that contrived routine) the regular valve combination sharp...(Perhaps, it's just fatigue...??)

[arpthark]

Tomorrow I am going to get to try a friend's Yamaha 832, which I believe may be more or less the same as an Eastman 832? Which I played in a local music store recently. Too big for me but I think was quite a bit easier to play than my 184. So there is the Eastman 632 which is, I believe, smaller, and which might actually be made to work, but I have to find one to try without shipping. Maybe same music store will get one in.

There's no Yamaha 832, but the Yamaha 822 CC is a mediumish 4/4 size tuba, I think based on a York owned by Jim Self. I own an Eastman 832 and I don't think the Yamaha is very similar. The Yamaha has been around about 20 years longer.

I went to Dillon to try out Eastman CCs and the 632 is almost exactly the same size as the 832, they just have different valve sections and maybe a slightly different taper in the inner bows. Both big-belled King-ish tubas. Both great, but I settled on the 832.

edit: the 632 bell is about an inch smaller, but otherwise they are extremely similar.

[Mary Ann]

Tomorrow I am going to get to try a friend's Yamaha 832, which I believe may be more or less the same as an Eastman 832? Which I played in a local music store recently. Too big for me but I think was quite a bit easier to play than my 184. So there is the Eastman 632 which is, I believe, smaller, and which might actually be made to work, but I have to find one to try without shipping. Maybe same music store will get one in.

The Yamaha YCB-822 is nothing like the ECB-832. The ECB-832 and the ECB-632 are the same basic bugle with most of the chnages in the valve slide layout. The 832 is more "York-like".

The Yamaha is a much larger bore through the valves (0.768" vs. 0.689") and the ergonomics of the valve cluster aren't great, in my experience. I've owned a YCB-822 and my current 4/4 horn is effectively a prototype for the ECB-632. Sound concepts might be the same, but the Eastman will be more compact. My Yamaha was also a bit tricky to play in tune.

edit: echoing what @arpthark posted...

[iiipopes]

I dunno: finally getting warmed up, dropping the jaw, subconsciously from experience knowing how to match pitch, the horn finally warming up, or any number of other reasons.

I suspect this is where reality lies. Fingerings warming up at different speeds seems plausible. Even if someone is playing a chromatic scale to warm up, the valve lengths and therefore displacement are completely different and some valves are encountered more frequently than others.

The face can take a little time to settle in as well, and we do make small adjustments to pitch and response, moreso when changing the key of tuba.

Tangent: My old 186 BBb had a low C with 4th valve that sounded like ripping sheet metal when the instrument was dead cold and played loudly. After warming up a bit, it would mellow out some. Horns need to warm up, too!

[Mary Ann]

Well it's possible I heard him wrong, but he told me it was a Yammie 832, which I had never heard of. So probably it is an 822. He has zero trouble with it and is one of the best local tuba players I have heard. So now I'll query him on whether I heard him wrong, but the Eastman 632 may be a candidate. The one I played at the music store, the guy said it was "York like." So that was the big one. Oomph to maneuver it --- that one ain't gonna happen, but the smaller one, maybe, if I can find one to try.

[matt g]

Well it's possible I heard him wrong, but he told me it was a Yammie 832, which I had never heard of. So probably it is an 822. He has zero trouble with it and is one of the best local tuba players I have heard. So now I'll query him on whether I heard him wrong, but the Eastman 632 may be a candidate. The one I played at the music store, the guy said it was "York like." So that was the big one. Oomph to maneuver it --- that one ain't gonna happen, but the smaller one, maybe, if I can find one to try.

The ECB-836 is the 6/4 York copy. The ECB-832 looks like a shrunken version due to the changes in the valve cluster.

[Mary Ann]

So you like your current 4/4 CC? The bore on the 184 is larger (by just a bit, .703 or something) and they call it a 3/4. I don't understand sizing except maybe it is squished together more.

What I am noticing with front piston tubas, is the "angle of the buttons" varies. The ones I tried (found pictures of the yamaha 621 CC) the pinky button is (looking at a picture from the front) more to the left than the top button. In the E 632, the pinky button is not that far to the left, and that is going to affect wrist angle. On the E 832 I played, I did not have that instantaneous "I can't make my hand go in that position to play the valves" that I had with the long-ago Yamaha 621. However, I have learned my lesson about shipping tubas just to find out my hand can't play them. (I'm not having ergonomic problems with the MFone 184.)

[arpthark]

So you like your current 4/4 CC? The bore on the 184 is larger (by just a bit, .703 or something) and they call it a 3/4. I don't understand sizing except maybe it is squished together more.

What I am noticing with front piston tubas, is the "angle of the buttons" varies. The ones I tried (found pictures of the yamaha 621 CC) the pinky button is (looking at a picture from the front) more to the left than the top button. In the E 632, the pinky button is not that far to the left, and that is going to affect wrist angle. On the E 832 I played, I did not have that instantaneous "I can't make my hand go in that position to play the valves" that I had with the long-ago Yamaha 621. However, I have learned my lesson about shipping tubas just to find out my hand can't play them. (I'm not having ergonomic problems with the MFone 184.)

I love my Eastman 832. Even though the bore is smaller, the bows are much fatter and the bell is much larger than your 184, hence the size difference. I have not noticed any impediment with the bore against the amount of or quality of sound I am able to produce.

I think Yammie 621 valves are extremely awkward. I have large hands and the angle was odd for me on the 621.

I haven't had that ergonomic issue with the Eastman. The slides are all lapped in very well and the valves came vented. I have to do minimal slide manipulating - oddly, everything except middle Bb is almost exactly spot-on. That Bb requires a (unintuitive to me) PUSH on the first valve slide. The open bugle series is very well in tune. It's very comfortable for me to hold. I am a short guy (5'6") and it is no problem.

It's got a big bell but it's fairly compact. The footprint is much larger than your 184, so that would be an adjustment - just more tuba to cart around.

[bloke]

front-action:

- vertical rotary orientation (paddles typically finger-length accommodating)
- (rare: ex: Marzan and a few others - incl. a Miraphone or two) slant rotary orientation
- slant piston orientation (usually: recycled sousaphone set-ups)
- vertical piston orientation (with one or two of the pistons being curved inward toward the hand)
- recycled top-action pistons wonked into front-action (some Yamaha/Kanstul/Yamaha knock-offs/etc.)

[bloke]

Hey...I could have SWORN that there were 6 (not just 5) "shut up bloke"s.