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As much as I advocate for musical nuance, and truly believe it is important in solo, chamber, and orchestra settings, my favorite memory of tuba playing is doing Gliere's 3rd symphony with my college orchestra on my Rudy 5/4 (CC....it wasn't QUITE as big as @bort2.0 's).

At the end, the orchestra plays the main theme in chunks, and in between each chunk, the tuba gets to punctuate with BRICKS. It is probably the loudest I've ever played in concert. It was on a Rudy. And when I listened to the recording afterwards, I burst out laughing. I truly do believe there was musical value in doing it this way, and in the moment, our conductor (Sidney Harth, who was a highly respected violinist and conductor, and not at all in the bag for the brass...) was utterly encouraging. He asked for more each time.

I appreciate and strive for musical nuance. But sometimes you get to be a personal wall of sound. Lord was it fun.

We don’t do all that much musical phrasing in symphony orchestras. More than half the time, we are basically a brass instrument version of percussion, whereby we can sustain our sounds for several seconds, rather than those sounds beginning to diminish immediately (as with percussion).

Wind timpani.

The Rudy 5/4 CC, IIRC, is basically the same size as the BBb, but the top bow is a little bit shorter. Either way, both are large and have the same monster bore size (side note... When I measured with calipers, the .866 bore seems to be the outside diameter of the inner 2nd valve slides... Not the inner diameter? Am I measuring the wrong place?)

Anyway, that sounds like fun. Sometimes, a LOT of tuba is desired, and we get to show up on command and remind people that we've been there all along. And don't provoke us, because we could do this all day long if given the opportunity.

The huge bore of the Rudy -- for me -- doesn't make it an air hog. It make it so that you are physically unable to overblow it, and the top-end of the sound is limited only by the player.

The biggest loudest notes in my recent memory was at a band rehearsal playing O Magnum Mysterium, at the climax there's a low Bb crescendo to pedal Eb sustained FF. Played once, director cut off and asked for more tuba. Played again, still asked for more. Third time I gave it all I had -- and it was massive. Director cut off again, laughed, and said, "okay... maybe that's too much." He never mentioned it again. This was on the Willson 3050RZ and a Tilz WH-B2 enormo-mouthpiece.

bort2.0 wrote: ↑Thu May 05, 2022 2:51 pm

The huge bore of the Rudy -- for me -- doesn't make it an air hog. It make it so that you are physically unable to overblow it, and the top-end of the sound is limited only by the player.

I agree it couldn't be overblown. Mine felt like an airhog when I played it back to back with the PT6 I ultimately switched to. But boy was it worth it. The entire Gliere symphony was a blast on it.

In a different concert, I wasn't even playing THAT loud (it was Nimrod, so not "loud" but "big and warm") and a trombone player who I'd never played with turned to me and said "That's a hell of a subwoofer you got there." Felt good. Felt real good.

The thing that makes most any brass instrument an “air hog” is a too-large capillary portion of the mouthpipe.

I forgot, mine has a different leadpipe on it... Maybe that helps? Maybe that does nothing? It's a Miraphone 190 BBb leadpipe

tubanh84 wrote: ↑Thu May 05, 2022 3:04 pm

bort2.0 wrote: ↑Thu May 05, 2022 2:51 pm

The huge bore of the Rudy -- for me -- doesn't make it an air hog. It make it so that you are physically unable to overblow it, and the top-end of the sound is limited only by the player.

I agree it couldn't be overblown. Mine felt like an airhog when I played it back to back with the PT6 I ultimately switched to. But boy was it worth it. The entire Gliere symphony was a blast on it.

In a different concert, I wasn't even playing THAT loud (it was Nimrod, so not "loud" but "big and warm") and a trombone player who I'd never played with turned to me and said "That's a hell of a subwoofer you got there." Felt good. Felt real good.

I bet it did...

tubanh84 wrote: ↑Thu May 05, 2022 2:12 pm As much as I advocate for musical nuance, and truly believe it is important in solo, chamber, and orchestra settings, my favorite memory of tuba playing is doing Gliere's 3rd symphony with my college orchestra on my Rudy 5/4 (CC....it wasn't QUITE as big as @bort2.0 's).

At the end, the orchestra plays the main theme in chunks, and in between each chunk, the tuba gets to punctuate with BRICKS. It is probably the loudest I've ever played in concert. It was on a Rudy. And when I listened to the recording afterwards, I burst out laughing. I truly do believe there was musical value in doing it this way, and in the moment, our conductor (Sidney Harth, who was a highly respected violinist and conductor, and not at all in the bag for the brass...) was utterly encouraging. He asked for more each time.

I appreciate and strive for musical nuance. But sometimes you get to be a personal wall of sound. Lord was it fun.

I rarely got the hand from Sidney Harth when I played under him in college during the Texas Music Festival.

Tuba1153 wrote: ↑Fri May 06, 2022 8:52 am

tubanh84 wrote: ↑Thu May 05, 2022 2:12 pm As much as I advocate for musical nuance, and truly believe it is important in solo, chamber, and orchestra settings, my favorite memory of tuba playing is doing Gliere's 3rd symphony with my college orchestra on my Rudy 5/4 (CC....it wasn't QUITE as big as @bort2.0 's).

At the end, the orchestra plays the main theme in chunks, and in between each chunk, the tuba gets to punctuate with BRICKS. It is probably the loudest I've ever played in concert. It was on a Rudy. And when I listened to the recording afterwards, I burst out laughing. I truly do believe there was musical value in doing it this way, and in the moment, our conductor (Sidney Harth, who was a highly respected violinist and conductor, and not at all in the bag for the brass...) was utterly encouraging. He asked for more each time.

I appreciate and strive for musical nuance. But sometimes you get to be a personal wall of sound. Lord was it fun.

I rarely got the hand from Sidney Harth when I played under him in college during the Texas Music Festival.

He definitely let us go when it was called for. Especially studying in Pittsburgh, it was unavoidable that we would seek to emulate the PSO brass. But we had to pick our moments.

My point was just that playing as loud as I was in that moment could definitely be seen more as an athletic feat than music, but the maestro kept it going and didn’t indicate that he thought it was abrasive.

tubanh84 wrote: ↑Thu May 05, 2022 2:12 pm
He definitely let us go when it was called for. Especially studying in Pittsburgh, it was unavoidable that we would seek to emulate the PSO brass. But we had to pick our moments.

My point was just that playing as loud as I was in that moment could definitely be seen more as an athletic feat than music, but the maestro kept it going and didn’t indicate that he thought it was abrasive.

He was very much about doing what was the most musical. He let us loose on Tchaik 5 & 6. It was great getting to play with such fantastic low brass sections.