perception accuracy in "blind" testing

[imperialbari]

Is he still a friend?

A whole lot of years ago I scored 100% in a blind test telling maker and bore between 1 Selmer trumpet and 3 Bach plain brass Stradivarius trumpets in L, ML, and M. My ears, and often my playing, have been used in selecting lots of instruments for teachers and players. I stand by the recent report on being able to hear the high E strings of a 12-string guitar being less than a cent apart.

And then this happens in my very own home on Saturday the 11th of October:

Søren visits me bringing a whole bunch of low brasses for a mutual tryout, among these a Jos. Martin of Würzburg contrabass tuba allegedly in high pitch BBb. I take that one and pull the main slide to match my own Conn 40K, which Søren takes for a run of my warm-up routine. The pitch matches nowhere, and I take Søren’s King 2341, old style, forward bell, which goes along fine with the 40K.

Later on I blow a few notes on the Jos. Martin, which works fine, and I hear Søren play it to my liking, but no tuner test is done, as I will have to add some tubing anyway to get modern BBb. Søren offers me a bundle of 3 instruments, including this tuba, at a price level, which is relevant.

The next weeks I used it for some lip drills and not much more. This Sunday, I want to find out about why this tuba puzzles me. The tuner reveals, that this is a CC tuba in modern pitch, and the 4th valve isn’t a fourth valve, but a major third valve. Embarrassing to my ears, but the buy doesn’t become bad for that reason. No reason to change the pitch. My phobia against CC tubas has been broken, as things add up now, that I know what is going on. I will have to learn reading in a new way, which should be a lesser problem, and I will have to adjust to the not so common 4th valve interval, which may be harder.

Happy ending to an occurrence of which I am not too proud.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre