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… something that is often included in the rhetoric of an ad for a three valve tuba.

Truth be told, false tones rarely are good, and often require a really strong embouchure to play them with good resonance and with good intonation.

A couple of exceptions are the (long discontinued size) 4/4 Conn sousaphones and (even smaller bore and body size) King sousaphones.
The Elkhart Conn fiberglass 4/4 - that I played in high school - offered such a good ones, that (until most of the way through 12th grade) I really didn’t know they were not legitimate overtone pitches… but – again – many three-valve tuba for-sale ads (seemingly/particularly: E-flat) overpromise.

What – legitimately, and no BS, please – are some OTHER models of sousaphones and tubas that actually offer such a good “false tones“ that they don’t particularly require any serious practice nor mastery? …ie. they just work, resonate very much like the “real“ pictures just above them, and do not tend to ride sharp.

I played a king sousa in College that had amazing false tones. (and I actually used them on a start of a show) Can't really hear it on this recording, but I was playing the opening Db drone down an octave. I was told it sounded great from the stands




Haven't really had a horn since that could compare.

The best privilege tones I ever encountered was on a @1930 Conn 38K souzy. Seamless. I mean absolutely seamless. Big, round, no graininess at all. You could not tell going over the break from 1+3 low F to open privilege Eb, then all the way down to true pedal BBb.

WHY are false tones on sousas so good compared to concert horns (even piston valve concert horns)

LeMark wrote: ↑Tue Aug 16, 2022 10:56 am WHY are false tones on sousas so good compared to concert horns (even piston valve concert horns)

unknown as to the why, but truth

I seem to remember false tones being pretty good on the old King 2340. But that was in 10th grade and the first half of 11th... a zillion years ago and it was the only option I had. I played false tones on 3 valve 3 sousaphone (Kings or Signet) all the way through my senior year in college. I never seemed to have trouble with them on piston horns but didn't like the sound on rotary horns. But, I think the German players use them quite a bit. Maybe, it's just a combination of mindset, practice and necessity?

When playing five valve C or B flat tubas, the most alluring false tone is the low D or the low C, because the best choice fingering, 5234, is so inadequate, and requires so much adjustment of a fairly inconvenient slide.

In high school or 8th grade, I was asked to be a ringer for an all-district or all-regional band that I did not audition for (they needed tubas). Of course, as I didn't audition, I sat last chair (3rd). I remember the second chair player had an enormous bell-front Conn -- in retrospect, a 20J. To me, he was some hick kid from Eastern Kentucky with an old, junky 3-valve school horn. I had a nice shiny Cerveny.

We played through some Bach chorales and for the final notes he was providing some extremely resonant false tone pitches that to my ears at the time sounded very, very nice. I hadn't yet figured out how to do that and it astonished me -- he only had 3 valves! Didn't you need 4 valves to play those low notes?

The director was impressed and complimented our sound, but I think it was mostly due to that player tastefully providing some very in-tune false tones an octave lower than written. Humbled me a bit that day.

The best false tones I ever found were on the Holton 345 owned by the late Jerry McEver. That was the best horn of any type I've ever played. Second best were on a '60's Reynolds sousaphone. They were two very dissimilar, but very good instruments. On both of those horns, you could transition from the standard range to the open Eb-Bb range and keep the tone almost exactly the same.

When I bought the 1240, Matt at Dillon spent some time explaining to me how it was actually pretty good for false tones. I don't really have any personal experience with other horns to make a comparison, but with what little I've tried I can get down to a D. I won't say it's good, but that's probably more me than the horn.

LeMark wrote: ↑Tue Aug 16, 2022 10:56 am WHY are false tones on sousas so good compared to concert horns (even piston valve concert horns)

My guess is the impedance drop at the bell end of the bugle.

Similar schema for a few horns that I’ve had with great false tones:

Old “monster” Eb: small bore and large bell

Old Holton 6/4 with short action valves: smallish bore and large bell/bell throat

Also similar to some of the sousaphones with solid false tones: somewhat difficult intonation in the staff.

Those are just my anecdotes.

And as good as the false tones were on that Holton 6/4, if I had kept it, a 4/5 valve cluster would’ve been grafted on.

Lee Stofer has a 4-valve Holton recording bass in his in-process list in case anyone wants to explore the false tones on a 4v big-belled horn. Couple other possibles on there as well.

LeMark wrote: ↑Tue Aug 16, 2022 9:53 am I played a king sousa in College that had amazing false tones. (and I actually used them on a start of a show) Can't really hear it on this recording, but I was playing the opening Db drone down an octave. I was told it sounded great from the stands



Haven't really had a horn since that could compare.

Tangent: Always liked the "Planet Krypton" segment of JW's Superman score. Still hope I get a chance to play it at some point.

My Medium* King Eb has pretty chunky false tones and a strong low Bb/A; it's a shame about that wide octave. I was able to keep up fairly ok with 2 strong Bb players and a bass trombonist in brass band on my old, small Conn Eb (I have another of the same model that looks much nicer but doesn't play as well). My band's Conn sousas were great, I borrowed a King Bb sousa for a ceremony in Alaska that was tolerable. The conductor smiled when I played the low Eb in Stars and Stripes Forever.
On the other end, my Eb bass trombonium has pretty bad false tones; interestingly enough they can all be played 123 and not really anything else. I suppose it's more of a lip down than anything. Bb and A take some focus, I need to try different mps on this. Contrabass trombone is too small.

In my experience, traditional European rotary Bb (think 186/187 and similarly sized Rudy's) tubas don't really have false tones, maybe the bigger ones are better.



*About the size of a 621F, JC Sherman has/had a Small Eb that's barely bigger than an American baritone.

Bob Kolada wrote: ↑Tue Aug 16, 2022 6:51 pm
In my experience, traditional European rotary Bb (think 186/187 and similarly sized Rudy's) tubas don't really have false tones, maybe the bigger ones are better.

I don't think i've ever played a Euro Rotary horn in any key that had a false tone that was worth a darn.

If you use a Tru-tone mouthpiece to play false tones, do they cancel each other out?

...

I never heard of or saw a 4 valve tuba until my senior year of high school. We'd moved to a new town and first chair received the new Besson. Before that, though, I'd just accidentally discovered false tones on our 20J's, they seemed pretty easy. I thought it was an earth-shaking discovery (in more ways than one) and showed the rest of the section how. Our director liked it.
Tim

MN_TimTuba wrote: ↑Tue Aug 16, 2022 9:07 pm I never heard of or saw a 4 valve tuba until my senior year of high school. We'd moved to a new town and first chair received the new Besson. Before that, though, I'd just accidentally discovered false tones on our 20J's, they seemed pretty easy. I thought it was an earth-shaking discovery (in more ways than one) and showed the rest of the section how. Our director liked it.
Tim

King basses and Conn 20J's seem to do them pretty well, because they're basically the same instruments as those makers' sousaphones - in the shapes of tubas.

4 valve tubas:
It's sorta funny how the only useful pitch (below the 3-valve range, and without frantic slide adjustments) is the serendipitous 2-3-4 pitch...
...and yes they "help" the 1-2-3 pitches (with 2-4) but only "somewhat".

.