more on: See Tuba For Kolij (chapter 7: "The Old Days")

[bloke]

Imagine - back in the 1960's or 1970's - being a professor/advocate, and recommending to a hapless empty-sponge-like-mind (gullible/trusting) college child that they buy a C tuba for college "because", and then have them buy something that requires valve combinations this wretched?

Yeah...I've become pretty intolerant of any of this sort of mess, as there ARE instruments - thankfully, now also a few built in C) - that don't require any these tortuous valve combinations:

(I was just emailed this - sure: played it many-many times, as have many of you (this 5-part version sucks BAD, as it leaves out to many essential chord tones) - to play at a gig tomorrow. I'd wager that this part (which had a library # scribbled at the top of the original) had all of these horrible finger-joint-busting fingerings written in sometime betten 1968 and 1980...' agreed...??

Most of the stuff emailed to me is "competing with the organ" bass lines - which I'll be playing on my 6/4 B-flat...

...this French tuba part...?? I'll be playing it on my large-bore/extra-large bell compensating euphonium (not a bass line - simply: the lowest-pitched voice).

[Diego A. Stine]

While I certainly take your point that you shouldn't buy a particular instrument "just because", if a music major is struggling with this very standard brass work, they have much larger problems. Other instruments don't get to use the excuse of fingerings being awkward, why should we? We perpetuate the stereotypes of tuba players being lazy idiots by complaining about the bare minimum of playing the right notes with the equipment we have. If we want the tuba to be taken as a serious instrument, we ought to raise our standards beyond "oh no, our fingerings are uncomfortable".

[Rick Denney]

I’ve played La Peri on Bb and F at various times, and don’t recall that any of it goes by fast enough for fingerings or tuning to be an issue.

Nailing that opening high Ab requires pitch memory and accuracy, and I’ve played Bb tubas that required more precision that others.

It’s hard to make five instruments sound like 12, especially with the voicing Dukas used. But it’s still a good piece. I seem to recall arranging this for tuba quartet, which is even more compromised.

Rick “hasn’t played it in a long time” Denney

[Dents Be Gone!]

I agree, guys. This is the way to go.

[Sousaswag]

This seems more of a “right tool for the job” vs “make what you have work for the job” type deal.

I willingly admit I’m way more of an F player than C these days, and I bring my F to most everything that isn’t my big group. Students should feel empowered to make their own choice. They’re plenty old enough. The professor’s job is just to steer them in a direction that’s right for them.

I agree, C for some things isn’t the best choice, but if it’s what you have, make it work.

[matt g]

La Peri isn’t one I’d put up for consideration on the ease of fingerings. It’s easy enough on Bb or C.

When I was a young lad in college, this was easier for me on my 188 vice my 186 (Bb). Now, was it the increase in practice or the change of key? The world may never know…

If I were to play this again, I’d probably use an F, provided that I owned one.

[arpthark]

Reminds me of the in-tune fingerings on my old Alex 163, except I would also play the upper G as 1-3.

[LargeTuba]

Nowadays a large amount of the kids auditioning at the most competitive schools already have both a C and a F

[matt g]

Nowadays a large amount of the kids auditioning at the most competitive schools already have both a C and a F

This is true. Scanning Instagram, not only do these young people have an F and CC, but a 6/4 CC is common. Chinese production of the American BAT has made it quite prolific.

Between Eastman, Wessex, ZO, and BMB, there’s probably been at least 5,000 of York copies made over the last few years.

[bloke]

@matt g

I'm not sure that you got my point.

My point wasn't that the person who played this piece (whenever they played it) - and wrote in those fingerings - hadn't learned the fingerings yet.

My point was that they had to use the wretched fingerings that they wrote down under the notes to play those pitches in tune. If I had to do all that stuff to play a C tuba in tune, that would certainly be a non-starter (for me). I'm trying to think if there are very many B-flat tubes that are that jacked up, but I think even the model 97 Kaiser isn't quite that jacked up.
...123 required to play D flat in the staff in tune on a c tuba...?? geezus.


...yet a whole bunch of those fingerings are still required to play some of the C tubas in tune sold today.

==================

Okay... sideways slight change of topic:

I played this fanfare with my euphonium today (no extended partials fingerings nor triggering required), and played all of the upper pitches. It sounds much better than playing any of the lower ones and the chords don't stink as bad, even though there are chord tones missing from the original brass choir version - rendering the remaining pitches in some of the chords as just seemingly no more than sound clusters...

... so I learned something about helping this bad/truncated-harmonies arrangement to not be as bad, and I'm passing it on to others.

[bloke]

@bloke, gotcha now.

I will say that the current crop of C tubas is way better than it once was, Chinese stuff included.

Db using 123 is wild.

[jtm]

I didn’t pick up a C tuba till well after college. If I’d tried one that needed that kind of accommodations, after plenty of time with no-nonsense Bb tubas, I might just not have bothered.

[Jperry1466]

The local university tuba teacher has been pushing students toward CC, but now has decided to wait until their junior year to encourage that. He has a couple of students, including one Texas all-state student who has struggled to pass his test of learning and memorizing all major and minor scales and feels they would be better served passing them on the BBb. Then learning their scale fingering patterns on a horn they are already familiar with will adapt nicely to other keyed tubas. Come to think of it, I didn't learn CC until my junior year, which was slightly over 50 years ago.

[bloke]

La Peri isn’t one I’d put up for consideration on the ease of fingerings. It’s easy enough on Bb or C.

When I was a young lad in college, this was easier for me on my 188 vice my 186 (Bb). Now, was it the increase in practice or the change of key? The world may never know…

If I were to play this again, I’d probably use an F, provided that I owned one.

I've never liked playing that quintet reduction using a large tuba (whether contrabass or bass - regardless of whether they were C or F).

Today was the first time that I didn't mind playing it, I used my euphonium, and played all the upper octave choices.

The first time I ever played this Fanfare, I think I was 18 years old, played it in a brass choir basically a full orchestral brass section, just in case a few young people reading this thread don't know really what a brass choir is) and all of the chord tones were there. I believe (even though all the players were just college students) that ruined playing the quintet version for me, which I didn't play until several years later.

I don't know why playing it with a lighter-sounding instrument (euphonium) doesn't sound as bad to me playing the quintet version that I've played so many times and dislike - with some of the pitches missing from several of the chords, but for some reason it does.

[bloke]

I’ve also played the 10/12 or whatever* piece brass choir version. The 5tet version was always off. Probably the lack of horns? I think with more voices in the middle, playing the lower 8va likely sounds better. With the 5tet, it’s probably too heavy handed?

*I looked it up and it’s 13 parts.

Also, principal trumpet playing has changed a good bit over the last 30/40 years…

[jtm]

The local university tuba teacher has been pushing students toward CC, but now has decided to wait until their junior year to encourage that. He has a couple of students, including one Texas all-state student who has struggled to pass his test of learning and memorizing all major and minor scales and feels they would be better served passing them on the BBb. Then learning their scale fingering patterns on a horn they are already familiar with will adapt nicely to other keyed tubas. Come to think of it, I didn't learn CC until my junior year, which was slightly over 50 years ago.

I lucked into my first C tuba -- a really well behaved B&S Musica stencil -- because a nearby high school student had been told that if he was serious about playing in college he'd better learn C. He'd decided he liked the school issued big rotary Bb tuba better (I didn't spot what it was, but it likely was better for high school band stuff), so I got a great deal.

[GC]

I've played it on BBb and Eb. I prefer Eb, but it works well on either.

[bloke]

...student who has struggled to pass his test of learning and memorizing all major and minor scales and feels they would be better served passing them on the BBb

I still see a remarkable amount of bias (not from the person who posted, but the person to whom they were referring), here...along with (as we accuse continental Europeans of this very same thing) "We do it this way because we do it this way."
ie...
"The better/talented/more-motivated students are encouraged to play C, and B-flats are OK for the stragglers."

I would like to see the pursed lips and (somehow...??) hear the (politely withheld) response to this being suggested so someone such as this:


again:
"I hear those model M-W model 97's are a challenge to play in tune",

YET...

(again) a C tuba requiring the button-mashing demonstrated in the posted scan, above.
yes...some newer models are pretty dialed in, but some currently manufactured are not much better than the one hinted by from the old written-in valve combinations.


back, again, to the piece itself:

If you are a competent euphonium player (no...not a soloist) with a good (and large) euphonium, try this reduction of this piece - the next time you play it - on your euphonium, and try playing all the upper-option pitches. Until the early part of many of our lifetimes, the instrument used in France to play this French piece (with the full instrumentation) was no larger than a big-@$$ euphonium.

ALSO...
Consider trying some of the better Robert King editions (whereby the fifth part is marked "BARITONE") on an actual euphonium, rather than hooting those parts out on a B-flat, C, E-flat, or F tuba...

...many of Robert Kings Renaissance arrangements, or pieces such as this... (anything whereby part 5 is not particularly a "bass" part)...

[LargeTuba]

Sorry to get side tracked again, but isn’t there a really beautiful recording of the Older CSO brass playing this piece?

[bloke]

I don't think there's any sidetracking this thread, because I myself have gone in various directions. Since I just posted a second piece, to which piece are you referring?