Tubas Unlimited?

[mclaugh]

42.

[The Jackson]

If you take into account wind resistance, gravity, what I had for breakfast and the ratio of emoticons to emoticons, you would probably get somewhere around 6.02 x 10^23.


I guess the most accurate answer would be "Enough.", I guess.

[rocksanddirt]

If you take into account wind resistance, gravity, what I had for breakfast and the ratio of emoticons to emoticons, you would probably get somewhere around 6.02 x 10^23.


I guess the most accurate answer would be "Enough.", I guess.

never enough. just say'n

[The Jackson]

One is too many, but a thousand... -harumph- ...is never en- *fart*

[windshieldbug]

42.

[tubapete]

186 ?

[Naptown Tuba]

I'm assuming there's no real way to find an answer, unless someone has numbers.

I have numbers........... lots of numbers..........They're on my phone..............They're on my computer.............They're on my calendar...........They're in my calculator................They're everywhere...........What number would you like...................How about
1,308,682,977,207,295,204. And that would just include tubas from the beginning of time until 1967. I do believe there is 4.2 billion in the current stimulus bill to refurbish half of these tuba, guaranteeing continued employment for many of the nations repair technicians.

[Nick Pierce]

To take the question seriously...I'm not sure how many horns are actually leaving the pool. Several people on this board have horns from the 1920's or so, my own horn is a good twenty years old or so, my own horn is almost twenty years old, certain horns from certain decades are highly prized (1960's 186's, I think?), and so on. Come to think of it, how does a tuba "retire?" I doubt anyone here has ever said "this horn is to old, it's time has come and gone, it'd be best if I had it melted down." The real question I guess is, where do all the tuba's go? Tuba heaven?

[Matt G]

Like any other semi-durable consumer good, their will be an overall accumulation. In most cases previous supply becomes obsolete in the practical sense, as advancements in technology improve the product significantly when comparing examples from separate generations.

This does lead to a trade surplus. Because the demand for old technology will generally not be sought out, prices on those items will continue to drop. This allows the entry of a new market, the market for buyers who are not necessarily using the product as the consumer good was originally intended and are buying it more as an historical item.

Most of the horns that "age out" of the system will end up where they are normally found: Attics, restaurant walls, personal collections, etc.

[Mike-ICR]

I don't know how many tubas exist but I think I know where some go. Tuba rebuilds have become incredibly popular. BBbs are being cut to CCs and Ebs to Fs and a lot of those horns end up with new valve blocks or at least an extra valve. When it takes 2 horns to make 1, you're left with 'extra' parts. Those parts sit in shops, get thrown away or used for other projects. If these trends continue....

[Rick Denney]

Let's ponder.

We might guess that there is an adult community band for every...150,000 population. That number will vary, of course. But taken as an average, that means there are possibly 2000 community bands in the United States. Let's further assume that each adult community band has an average of 2.5 tuba players (2 doesn't seem like enough, and three seems like too many). That would add up to 5000 active adult tuba players in community bands.

I would guess that amateur orchestras are no more than one-tenth as common as community bands, and each will have only one tuba player (if they have that). That would add another 200 adult amateur tuba players.

And there are perhaps 400 professional tuba players, including all military, orchestral, and free-lance performers.

If each of these owns an average of 1.5 tubas (again, too many own more than one, but two sounds like too many), there are 8400 tubas in the hands of adult tuba players in the U.S. Special cases (Mike) have to be considered (Lynch) separately.

I expect this population is stable, though the average personal collection will increase to incorporate growth. So, this will grow as a matter of new adults coming into the tuba world, and also as a matter of current adults buying new instruments. I expect active current adults purchase on average four tubas over the course of their lives (some of us drive that average up). To maintain the average above, I expect that 3 of those will be sold to other adults. So, only one quarter of the tubas bought by adults will be new, and each adult will buy a new tuba about every 10 years on average. That means a new tuba must be made for every 40 years of adult tuba participation. If the average playing career is 40 years (probably high, or at least discontinuous, for most), then that would add up to 5600 new tubas for adults purchased every 10 years, or 560 per year, and three times that many used tubas that change hands.

I'm sure these numbers don't all add up (not to mention the wild assumptions on which they are based), but I'll leave figuring out any anomalies as an exercise for the reader.

Now, let's consider schools. There about 30,000 public secondary schools in the U.S., each of which will nearly always have some sort of a band program. I have no idea of the distribution, but the high school I attended owned four tubas for a school of 2000 students, and I expect that number is, if anything, low, and the modern 2000-student school now probably owns eight tubas (including concert and marching instruments). These schools teach about 15 million students. If the ratio of eight tubas per 2000 students is at all realistic, secondary schools will own about 60,000 tubas. I expect the rate of tuba ownership among private schools is lower, and private secondary schools enroll about half as many students nationwide as public schools. So, maybe private schools own another 10,000 tubas. (Whether the school or the student owns the tuba doesn't really matter for the question at hand.)

Attrition of school tubas is probably high. I expect school tubas must be replaced every 10 years, but it's probably more like 20 years that they are actually replaced. This wild guess is searching for a center point in the middle of assumed scatter. So, if 70,000 school tubas are replaced every 20 years, and assuming (broadly) that they are replaced with new instruments, that would require 3500 new tubas in the market each year.

So, to answer your question, I guess there are about 8400 tubas owned by adult tuba players, a number which is probably being enlarged by perhaps less than 10% per year as old tubas are retired (but kept or sold to other adults) and new tubas are bought. And there might be something like 70,000 owned by schools and school-aged tuba players, perhaps 5% of which are destroyed and replaced by new instruments each year. I would expect these numbers to be correct within an order of magnitude.

Now, prove me wrong.

Rick "leaving the extrapolation from the U.S. to the global total as another exercise for the reader" Denney

[Alex C]

I have no idea how many tubas there are but I share your mystification at all that big brass being somewhere.

But to put this question in a manageable format ask yourself how many people in the world need to own a 6/4 York-style CC tuba? Include the Holton, Hirsbrunner, Nirschl, Gronitz and others.

OK, start thinking.
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Now: How many 6/4 York-style CC tuba are there?
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Think now...
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The answer?
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I don't know!

I do know that Walter NIrschl alone has sold over 100 6/4 York-style CC tubas. I could easily see Hirsbrunner with a hundred. There has to be another fifty from the Holton alone - at a minimum.

Where the heck are all these horns? And how many more will be built? How many need to be built?

Good question from the O.P. for a lazy day.

[oedipoes]

Well, without doing the calculation all over again, in Belgium (10 000 000 people), there is a community band for every, let's say 30 000 people. 2 tuba's per band on average.
Maybe in the netherlands and germany it is even more.

Have some calculating fun.

Wim
(I'll calculate the exact figures when I will be retired from my engineering job, that's in 35 years...)

[Wyvern]

I remember reading an article by John Fletcher that he estimated (if I remember correct) that there were about 8000 tuba players in the UK - the vast majority playing in brass bands. So that makes quite a number of tubas in the country.

What happens to all the old tubas is a bit of a mystery. During the two world wars I know a lot would have been melted down for the war effort, but since then is anyone's guess? How many are in attics unused and forgotten?