The Bobo CC bass horn

[imperialbari]

Due to the bell effect the single F horn has a main bugle slightly longer than that of an F tuba.

Low horn parts are taken down to concert G, albeit rarely so far. From Bb on they are played as pedals on the Bb side.

Low horns have no chance against trombones and tubas, so an ideal low horn part is the 4th horn of Mahler 4.

Klaus

[Todd S. Malicoate]

I would offer that the size of the receiver (and, of course, the shank size of the mouthpiece that fits it) has everything to do with the "classification" (horn, tuba, whatever) of a brass instrument. It's a big part of the reason that a horn (on the F side) playing in the low register doesn't sound like an F tuba on the exact same pitch even though both open bugles are about 12 feet long. It's also a big part of the reason an Eb tuba sounds very much like a Bb tuba in their middle registers.

Bobo's instrument is a tuba because it uses a tuba-sized mouthpiece. Jim Self's fluba is also a tuba for the same reason...not a "bass flugelhorn."

[J.c. Sherman]

It's all bore profile

As for the Fluba, it is indeed a tuba, but a flugelhorn is too (or a soprano/alto) saxhorn), folded into a trumpet-like shape. Having previously owned a 19th c upright Soprano Saxhorn, I can tell you the bore profile and timber were equivalent, as were "Over the Shoulder" saxhorns of the civil war era (in general). Tubas are basically in that family (especially English instruments), so Self's "Bass Flugelhorn" would in fact be a contrabass flugelhorn/saxhorn in Sax's nomenclature, but it's a bass tuba in its modern classification.

Nomenclature for the conical brasses is so varied that classification is often extremely troublesome, especially between continents and countries. One man's baritone is another's tenor horn is another man's...

As asserted, the instruments in the OP are tubas - sexy - but basically tubas. You could probably have fun and call them contrabass Mellophones, but Mellophones (tenor cors) are part of the tuba family as well.

We could have even more fun classifying "cimbasso"

J.c.S.

[J.c. Sherman]

Or are cimbassos upright serpents? Valved Ophicleides? BBb upright trombones?



As to the mellophone's classification, and other narrow-bore tubas (such as early Moritz tubas and early basso tubas from Italy), Clifford Bevan's book is the generally accepted authority, and classifies the Mellophone in the Tuba Family.

Horns are a classification of their own, and no brass instrument is like them because of the infinitesimal difference in bores and bell compared to the wide variety of instrument pitches and lengths. Trumpets practiced a similar procedure for centuries, but after the invention of the cornet, the shorter trumpets came about, relegating longer trumpets to "bass" and "alto" status, and thusly the bores and bells of those instruments began to enlarge with the new classification (to say nothing of the reverse action on the piccolo trumpet).

The Bobo instrument isn't anything like a horn, save for a rough - enlarged - resemblance to the wrap of the horn. Like the old Disney cartoon, I can wrap a valve trombone in the shape of the name "George" and it'll still be a valve trombone.

J.c.S.

[Tuba Guy]

This raises a question that I've been wondering for a while. What if you won an orchestral audition on an instrument that the spot wasn't for?
For example, (on a less significant level) early this year was an audition in Europe where they specified CC tuba. What if you used BBb? What if you used an Eb, but they thought it was a CC?
What if you were taking a bass trombone audition and used a cimbasso or valve trombone, but still made it the best performance there?
Obviously the audition committee has a lot of control, but if you can fill the spot on a different instrument and it sounds right (or even better), would you be allowed to stay?