Flat Half Step 5th Valve Purpose

[russiantuba]

One of my newer college students purchased a Cerveny 686 CC tuba, and when working with an alternate fingering, I quickly realized it was a flat half step after playing it (making sure student wasn’t just super sharp).

I don’t get the purpose of a flat half step. Older Miraphones had the flat two tone, Gronitz and others have had the Tritone fifth, and the standard is the flat whole step, which makes the horn fully chromatic. I can see uses for all the other ones.

Flat half steps—lower notes are still sharp and you can’t play fully chromatic. Does anyone have historical use or a purpose I’m missing on this?

[Kevbach33]

For a CC tuba, perhaps the reasoning was how often low Db above pedal C is written; it's the one note that's missing (without pulling a bunch of slides) on a flat half step 5 valve C tuba. The Db and low Gb above are in tune, and low F would be 245 with some pull.

I believe I once read that Cerveny supplied an extra flat whole step slide for their tubas so equipped. Or maybe that was only an option...

Eb tuba? Pretty much useless. Low E is too common.

F? It better also have a flat whole step valve (ideally) or simply be a flat whole step itself.

A flat half step is more applicable for a BBb tuba, which already has a solid low Gb and F. Having B and the low E in tune is critical, and the low Eb is more manageable. And how often is one going to encounter the B above pedal Bb?

[LeMark]

my question has always been "what does a flat half step get you that a flat whole step does not"

for instruments with a sharp 2-4 combination, 235 is always an option

[dp]

Should have come with a 2nd long whole step slide

[bloke]

I installed a 5th valve circuit this long on a B-flat tuba that I built for myself a few short years ago and still own. Once and for all, it solves the problem of 2-4 being not long enough, and 5-2-3 being too long. With a tuba pitched in C, it offers a C-sharp and an F-sharp that are actually on the nose in tune. To play low F, you will depress 5-2-4 and pull the # 4 slide perhaps 3 in if it's easy to reach. (With my B-flat instrument, of course it is B-natural and E-natural.)

Yes, it's sort of leaves double-low C-sharp off of a C instrument and double-low B-natural off of a B-flat instrument. I'm not asked to play either of those particularly often, and can pull some more stuff if actually I'm asked to play the pitch above the fundamental, or - otherwise - mash 2-3 (which I would be more likely to do anyway, being truthful).

I'm not defending my choice, but just answering your question. If you want to hear me playing a 5-4 B-natural on that instrument as loud as I possibly can, find my YouTube channel and scroll through it until you find some outtakes from a live performance of Concerto for Orchestra. Those who've played it are familiar with that note in the frantic final movement. I was able to blow right through the middle of that pitch with everything I could muster, because the instrument was precisely the right length.

As is known, a great many F tubas feature both a long whole step valve and a long half step valve. The reason for this being that the low range on an F tuba is not particularly low, and thus tuning is more critical in that equivalent range than with a contrabass tuba.

[russiantuba]

I want to throw this in there based on the comments---

Especially with rotor tubas, I have found that 4 valve horns play better than 5 valve versions. Take a flat whole step--makes it fully chromatic, does fix some issues in tuning on harder to reach slides (but does it actually fix the issues or does the extra weight and tubing modifications cause the tuning issues?).

My student is going to contact the store where it was purchased as it is listed on the site (and thank you for posting this and the chats). I was more thinking about any pedagogical use of this. I would rather just have a 4 valve horn OR a flat whole step personally.

[bloke]

We're already wondering off into what Wade referred to in the off topic forum; "off topic" always being so apropos.

At the dinner table, the three of us when we were about age 19, 17, and 7 (me) would do something very similar that is done in most all of these threads, which was to grab one insignificant word in whatever the last person said and jump to a totally different topic based on that one word that was uttered by the previous person. We would go on with that nonsense for about a minute and a half, and my Dad (whose patience was already tried all day every day at work) would tell us to shut up.

[LeMark]

Between my 1st cerveny 68, my piggy, and my 601, I played 4 valve cerveny CC tubas for decades. How? Because for whatever reason, 1-2-4 gave me a near perfect F, E was 2-3-4, and if I mashed 1234 and just didn't try too hard to get the low note, I could play a nice Eb. D was difficult but possible if I lipped down and pulled the 1st slide, and Db could be lipped up from a CC, but far from ideal.

I eventually bought a Cerveny valve and added it as a modular add on to my 601 for a pixar concert i played that had a few Db's, and later added that valve to my newer 68 in the leadpipe.

[bloke]

I'm playing a job tomorrow on a fiberglass King 3-valve sousaphone. I'm sure I'll play some really low E-Flat's, probably Some D's, maybe a C or two...

' anyone got any two or one valve contra reminisces to offer?

Speaking of which, Is anyone else watching this old movie right now called "The Legend of Bagger Vance"?