Yamaha 623

[bloke]

Obviously one shouldn't pick it up by a slide, but how is that slide positioned as a possible tune-any-note slide?
(Also, how compelled might a very particular player be to use that slide to tune any note, such as open pitches which might suffer, has so many latest/greatest instruments have been found to be really challenging to play in tune)?

I'm not a slide puller

There are two tubas whereby I do not pull slides:
One of them is my F tuba. It plays remarkably well in tune, features six valves, and the so-called slots are barn door wide so that any minor lipping has no audible effect.

The other one is my 3 + 1 compensating E flat tuba from 1958 with the detachable recording bell. It is also very flexible and slippery, and there are no slides that I can easily reach, and I'm never playing it louder than to supply a bass line or a tuba solo in a small jazz combo, so anything from very soft up to regular forte is pretty easy to move, as far as pitch is concerned.

I pull slides for tone, and not for tuning.

Not sure what percentage of people understand what the person quoted just above meant, when he said this.
What he was trying to explain is that he can probably lip most any pitch in tune, but it's so much nicer to play pitches on an air column that is just the right length for that pitch, because so much more resonance occurs...


...and I'm going to stick my neck out and say that whether that particular person realizes it or not (and surely they do) it's much more likely that they're going to play a pitch in tune when the tubing is the correct length. I believe we all TEND to become accustomed to out of tune pitches on our instruments and tend to accept them and eventually they sound perfectly fine to us, and this would probably include fifth partial pitches and third partial pitches which may be flat, as well as a fourth partial 2-3 pitch which is so often flat, second partial open pitches which are often sharp and 6th partial pitches are often sharp with 8th partial pitches often being flat. I believe we can even become accustomed to the sound of our out-of-tune pitches grinding against and an in-tune bass trombone and/or an entire ensemble. Since I don't believe that I can hear the grass grow, my number one emphasis in practice time is to play in tune, and to know exactly where slides optimally belong for every pitch on a given instrument. With my F and E-flat tubas - whereby I do not pull slides, I know just how flat or sharp various pitches lie on those instruments without correction. Finally, I tend to default tune to just under optimal tuning, because it's so much easier to push pitches up than to relax them down, particularly when playing at volume level extremes at either end of the loudness spectrum.

Good tone with good pitch is wonderful, but good tone with bad pitch is just bad.

[bone-a-phone]

As a trombone player, I can't imagine playing a valved instrument and not pulling slides. As soon as you use any valve combination, you're automatically sharp, and then all the partials don't line up perfectly. Even if you just used your tuba like a valveless bugle, you'd still have to adjust some pitches.

On trombone, I use 4-5 different locations for 1st position. I tune Bb about 1/2" down from the bumpers. trigger F is right up to the bumpers, Bb is where it was tuned. Trigger C is about an inch down, F and Bb are neutral. D is again right up at the bumper, F is about 1.5" down, Ab is too flat for 1st position, so we play it in 3rd. Bb is often about 1" down, along with C and high D is usually in sharp 3rd because its too flat in 1st. And of course all of this is different depending on what horn you're playing.

To me it makes little sense to move a valve slide, because there is no valve that is used in every valve combination, so you might have to use 1st or 3rd or maybe 4th valve slides. It makes more sense to move that main tuning slide. I like the setup on the Conn 24i baritone, with a thumb ring on the MTS.

As for lipping the pitch, it just moves you out of the good part of the pitch slot, so you get the dreaded sub-optimal tone.

I'm not a sophisticated enough tuba player to worry about moving slides in my own playing, I'm lucky to get the right combination of fingers and land on the right partial at the same time. When I play valves, I use single valves as often as I can. Rarely would I use 1+2 or 1+3 (on a 4 valve instrument). Maybe that's weird, but it eliminates some of the pitch problems right away.

[bloke]

A few pitches sorta "work out", though (but you're correct, in that it's not very many).

examples:

2-4 (third partial) - The 4th valve third partial pitch (and - often - along with the rest of third partial pitches) is often flat (which is why I play that pitch with 1-3 and a serious pull of #1), so adding the (would otherwise be inadequately short) 2nd valve to the 4th valve often defines that valve combination (on that partial) as "just about right".

1-2 (fifth partial) - As fifth partial is often flat, it seems as though the more cylindrical tubing that's added to lower that partial, the "less flat" the fifth partial (sometimes) becomes (ie. descending pitches on that partial). By the time one reaches 1-2, it's often just about right.

OTOH...my Miraphone 98 (as with quite a few German kaiser tubas) behaves in the opposite manner (and I'm sure it has something to do with the typical/classic kaiser body taper). The open version of the fifth partial is just fine, but - as additional half-steps of tubing are added on that partial) the pitch sags. I shortened the two 90-degree elbows on the #1 circuit of my Miraphone 98 so that I could drop the #1 slide assembly down about 1/2 inch (x 2 sides) so that the 1st valve C could be played in tune with the #1 slide all the way in (and nearly-undetectable smidge out from there for 1-2 B-natural).

I'm sure that many here view me as being preoccupied with pitch/tuning, but I prefer to neither be called out, nor not asked back, nor fired outright...and the brass really are nice to me when I give them something reliable/correct to "lean on".