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According to many band directors:

- Silver sounds best for marching.
- Nickel plated rotary + 24AW for "concert".
- 5th graders can not learn without 4 valves.
- The very best music is that which is rated at "Grade VI", but isn't fast.

Uh . . Yeah. Hilarious!

Personally I'd rather see beginners learn on 4 valve instruments if possible. If for no other reason, they will all be on 4 valve instruments by the next year (at least around here) and it's a whole lot easier to get them to use the 4th valve if they do it from the beginning.

- 4th valve, circuit, and bracing adds considerable weight - a lot for 10-year-olds.
- 4 valve instruments are much more damage-prone, and much more costly for taxpayers (including the majority of those who have little to no interest in school bands) to purchase and maintain.
- most marching instruments feature 3 valves, and most of band (July - December, and May) is marching.
- Mid-January through (minus "spring break") April is "concert" season, with May (other than learning the four phrases of the Elgar #1 - roughly two minutes in - transposed to B-flat) being the introduction of the following year's marching music.

I don't like being coerced into funding super-duper deluxe professional-team stadiums, arenas, and (what equal profession stadiums and arenas of the 1970's) high school stadiums for a few children and adults to play games - the playing of which don't interest me in the least, so I should be like-minded and not expect other taxpayers to be coerced (who are not the least bit interested in century-throwback school bands) into purchasing super-deluxe equipment for high school and middle school bands.

Conservatism and libertarianism are to be consistent - if they are to exist, and not to be picked and chosen from a buffet, depending upon one's own hobbies and interests.

LeMark wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 12:37 pm Personally I'd rather see beginners learn on 4 valve instruments if possible. If for no other reason, they will all be on 4 valve instruments by the next year (at least around here) and it's a whole lot easier to get them to use the 4th valve if they do it from the beginning.

I don't know many schools that March 10 year Olds. By the time the kids get to high school at get handed a 3 valve instrument, they ca adapt.. In 33 years of teaching, I've never seen a kid forget to use the 4th valve on his concert horn just because he played a Sousa for marching season

It's not like they don't touch a concert horn, they play them both every week.

According to some college professors:

You need a CC tuba to join the studio because it will increase your professional opportunities in the future.

That makes perfect sense, as long as you ignore one or two of the main points of my previous post.
I repair tons of four valve middle school instruments, and yet many of the high school instruments’ fourth valves are stuck with lime.

Again, bigger kids spend a great deal of time with three valve instruments outdoors, and little kids are too little to carry heavy horns which are more delicate and loaded down with optional equipment.

Were there anything to argue for effectively, it would be for manufacturers to resume the manufacturing of three valve compensating instruments.

LeMark wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 3:31 pm I don't know many schools that March 10 year Olds. By the time the kids get to high school at get handed a 3 valve instrument, they ca adapt.. In 33 years of teaching, I've never seen a kid forget to use the 4th valve on his concert horn just because he played a Sousa for marching season

It's not like they don't touch a concert horn, they play them both every week.

three valve or four valve ?

Casca Grossa wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 3:35 pm According to some college professors:

You need a CC tuba to join the studio because it will increase your professional opportunities in the future.

I'm glad I live in Texas, land of high expectations. It's kept me employed for over 30 years. The kids I teach know how to use the instruments, play them well, and for the most part, take care of them.

LeMark wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 3:53 pm I'm glad I live in Texas, land of high expectations. It's kept me employed for over 30 years. The kids I teach know how to use the instruments, play them well, and for the most part, take care of them.

Many big programs are self funded (admissions/concessions/fundraisers/DONORS) I see that as motivated parenting an not inconsistent with free thinking values.

bloke wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 3:45 pm three valve or four valve ?

Casca Grossa wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 3:35 pm According to some college professors:

You need a CC tuba to join the studio because it will increase your professional opportunities in the future.

Three Valves wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 5:36 pm

LeMark wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 3:53 pm I'm glad I live in Texas, land of high expectations. It's kept me employed for over 30 years. The kids I teach know how to use the instruments, play them well, and for the most part, take care of them.

Many big programs are self funded (admissions/concessions/fundraisers/DONORS) I see that as motivated parenting an not inconsistent with free thinking values.

I teach for a school that has bought 6 tubas in the last three years just with money raised from the booster club.
Three packers, three miraphones

I really don't believe that students are much different, on average, and - on average, I don't believe Texas to be loaded down the Lake Wobegon/all-good-lookin'-and-above-average types.
I suspect you're living - and have been living - off the creme.
(Just as with the live music we play: ALMOST NO ONE pays for that, but we play music for the 1% of the 1% of the 1% who do.)
The "whey" schools (in Texas and elsewhere) still need their stuff fixed, and still need stuff for kids to blow through and make a racket...

...and - when the creme schools tear up their stuff - that's not your dept.; someone like me comes in the side door, and deals with all of that mess.

Take my word for it: The yamabot directors (who buy all the triple-priced "good enough but never the best" stuff...and possibly even impress themselves by buying a dozen-or-so "boutique" horns...maybe a B&S something, maybe a few Fox-not-even-"Renard" things, maybe some Chinese versions of boutiquey trombones, maybe even a Danish/Swiss baritone, and a sea of French wood clarinets...) - whose "creme" schools are surrounded by seas of McMansions -
...They hand me stuff to fix that is JUST as F.U.B.A.R. as is the stuff at the "whey" schools.

If you want to know who actually WORE OUT (and would NEVER have dared to tear up) instruments, you need to look back to the American junior/senior high school experience up-into-but-ending-by the (depending on how much societal decade in any particular locale, by then) early-to-late 1970's. After that, it was all over, and - by the mid 1980's - I was seeing way more malicious damage, as opposed to wear-and-tear.

Yeah...We just finished un-trashing a fancy yama-tenor and one of those (possibly, about the best there is, which is an exception for) yammy pinnacle model bari saxes. Just as with 4th valves..."OF COURSE, we 'need' bari saxes (with high F-sharps and low-A's - and the tip-tip-top model made yammy) for marchin', so forget using those crummy ol' Conn, Bundy, King, and Armstrong ones outdoors - and just let that "old crap" collect dust on the top shelf. Oh yeah, and - now that it's February - and these professional bari-saxes, wood bass clarinets, wood piccolos (and gimmick-valved F-attachment trombones) are all torn up again from marchin', we need 'em re-repaired, because all of these kids are gonna make "all-state". Oh yeah...and my "star" tuba player just trashed our new 186...again.

bloke "again, you're talking to someone who's own high school had a fleet of four Conn fiberglass 36K - along with one worn-out-valves King 1240, and one of those fiberglass sousaphones always stuck out like a sore thumb in the front of the section at the Tennessee all-state band thingie...We were SO ign'ant - AND the "fake notes" play SO VERY WELL on 36K sousaphones - that we thought those were "REAL" notes, and (simply) THE way to play them... It usually ain't the horn...well...EXCEPT for the fact that 36K sousaphones are d@mn good, and plenty good enough for 17-year-old boys to use - free of charge."

By the way, I was teaching a lesson today and the high school kid sprang it on me that his school just bought an Eastman 6/4 CC. I was stunned. That's a new one for me.

Kid sounded pretty Damm good on it, even better than the brand new miraphone 1291 he usually plays

bloke wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 10:06 am - Silver sounds best for marching.
- Nickel plated rotary + 24AW for "concert".
- 5th graders can not learn without 4 valves.

I taught in small Texas towns for most of my career, some rich and some poor. I have had teachers (and players) almost get physical with me when I said 24AW was the worst mouthpiece, particularly for articulation. Not sure why that set them off.

Never taught 5th graders, but with my 6th grade beginners, I was too focused on tone production and correct pitch to fight them on using a 4th valve. The beginner books all use (or at least did) 1-3 and have no 4th valve fingerings. When/if they moved into Jr. High, they were introduced to the 4th valve by their tuba-playing band director. The smarter ones caught on easily; the others had to be reminded constantly but got it eventually.

My preference for marching was that everyone have the same color, whether brass or silver (excluding the white Sousaphones, of course).

bloke wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 3:45 pm three valve or four valve ?

Casca Grossa wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 3:35 pm According to some college professors:

You need a CC tuba to join the studio because it will increase your professional opportunities in the future.

5 valve. Gotta have it.

Casca Grossa wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 3:35 pm According to some college professors:

You need a CC tuba to join the studio because it will increase your professional opportunities in the future.

It's amazing to me that some teachers will not accept you into their studio unless you play CC. We have one highly revered teacher in our state who has such a mandate. I'm not sure of the supposed "logic" behind that mandate. I guess the "if you only want to play in an American orchestra with an American sound and follow American academic tradition" idea is justification...?

Doc wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:41 am

Casca Grossa wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 3:35 pm According to some college professors:

You need a CC tuba to join the studio because it will increase your professional opportunities in the future.

It's amazing to me that some teachers will not accept you into their studio unless you play CC. We have one highly revered teacher in our state who has such a mandate. I'm not sure of the supposed "logic" behind that mandate.

Why do they do it?

Because they can.

windshieldbug wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:49 am

Doc wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:41 am

Casca Grossa wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 3:35 pm According to some college professors:

You need a CC tuba to join the studio because it will increase your professional opportunities in the future.

It's amazing to me that some teachers will not accept you into their studio unless you play CC. We have one highly revered teacher in our state who has such a mandate. I'm not sure of the supposed "logic" behind that mandate.

Why do they do it?

Because they can.

Bug,
Surely, it can't be as simple as, "I want what I want, and I get what I want, because I'm the king teacher and they are the serfs students."

Doc wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:41 am I guess the "if you only want to play in an American orchestra with an American sound and follow American academic tradition" idea is justification...?

USA!! USA!! USA!!