Why no F Sousaphones?

[LoyalTubist]

First of all, I am not in Indiana. I am in California. Eb sousaphones abound east of the Mississippi River and at Masonic Lodges in Texas. I don't know why.

Mirafone made CC sousaphones during a limited period just before they moved their operations from Santa Clarita (Valencia), California, to San Antonio, Texas. You can check back issues of The Instrumentalist Magazine for details.

When I made the remark about Eb sousaphones, I checked and only Besson was on my list of current manufacterers. Which means no one is making them now...

[LoyalTubist]

I thought the Mirafone CC sousaphone I tried at a convention way back when was the best sousaphone I ever played.

[iiipopes]

...the ubiquitous Conn and King sousaphones...

There are 4 reasons why they are ubiquitous:
1) best tone
2) best playing
3) most durable
4) easiest to fix

Band instrument companies do not experiment much now. But if you look into the century plus history of these two companies, at least pre-cyborg for King and pre-Texas for Conn, and definitely before WWII for both of them, you will find that they experimented with a lot of offerings of "unique" instruments that did not go anywhere. So if there was even a single thought that a viable F sousaphone had any chance of selling, especially in the early days of recording technology, then between each company's respective founding and WWII one or both would have tried it.

[windshieldbug]

Where could you find vocalists who could sing and march at the same time?

[LoyalTubist]

Touché!

[imperialbari]

Aside from specialty jazz purposes would there at all be a market for a seriously made F sousaphone? (I only have tried the Amati in the BBb version, and that didn’ point in a serious direction).

The Eb as the lowest bass was at least up to 1880 a phenomenon in the French/British tradition based on the Saxhorn family and in the US tradition with its upright, OTS, and helicon variants. The Bb bass was exactly in Bb and not in BBb. Years ago Chuck Guzis documented that on the old TubeNet by means of material from the US Congress library (a spin-off was of that documentation was my interest in setting the Helicon Schottische for varying ensemble permutations).

The Germans and Czechs were out earlier with their BBb Kaiser tubas and helicons. As the Germans never were really strong in making playable bass trombones until within the last few decades, they used F helicons to play the octave over the BBb contrabasses in marching contexts.

The US used the Eb sousaphones for beginning tubists for the reasons of size and because of the "playing Eb with trumpet fingerings"-trick. But according to one source here on TubeNet (forgot the name) real production of Eb sousaphones never happened in the US after WWII. The models only existed in the catalogues until the stocks of spare parts had been emptied.

I certainly like Eb sousaphones for certain purposes (I have 2 Conn’s, the 26K and the 28K), but when it comes to laying down the bass foundation of marches, I find the BBb sousaphones much more effective.

And with the modern large bass trombones the F or Eb sousaphones are no longer the most effective tools to put the octave on top of the contrabass sousaphones.

The areas, where I find the Eb sousaphones most effective, are those, where the player determines the music himself.

Joe S uses Eb for his Dixie work. I had a fun duo with my late section mate, Ove, where he played 2nd on his B&S 5 valve Symphonie F tuba and I played lead on the 26K. Either we played my arrangements, or we took old band books, where Ove played the tuba part and I played the 1st cornet part an octave down in the euphonium range (transposing at sight is a quite handy tool to own).

Having a "for real" F sousaphone made today hardly is for anybody playing in a lesser league than Jim Self.

But then there may be a shortcut in the real sense of that word. Let a genius re-builder in the class of Joe S take a look at the old Conn Eb sousas. There is an obvious place to cut them to F. It may take the making of a new main tuning slide with a faster expanding conical bow.

I can’t give any guarantees about how well such an instrument will be in tune with itself, but one matter stays cut in stone: the experiments will not happen with my personal samples.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre

PS: There is a little corner story to this.

If I remember RD right, he didn’t bring the bell of his school provided BBb plastophone home for practising. Just a matter of transport logistics. Hence he practiced in CC and played for real in BBb.

I have played the 26K in F by taking off the bell. The sound only resembles something I have heard in two other contexts:

Really old fashioned German tuba playing.

The tiniest of the Jupiter BBb tubas, when I had a chance to test one just for the fun of it.

Let’s just say, that the sound was VERY dry with no mitigating circumstances.

[imperialbari]

An F sousaphone would be perfect for doing a Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem halftime show.

I guess the corps would have to use shoulder-mount contr...uhh...I guess I mean "basses".

There have been marching string double basses in one certain corner of the world: Tyrol on both sides of the Austrian-Italian border.

The Tyrolean basses used to be in high esteem in classical orchestras. Our Royal Orchestra used to have some of them (maybe still has them). They had wooden knobs attached to their bodies on top and bottom. These knops had a similar function to the metal ones seen on any electrical guitar or bass guitar found today: the attachment of a shoulder strap.

There even have been marching cellos. I have once seen one used for a very original, but not the original, purpose: a musical clown act in a circus.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre

[iiipopes]

So that's what those knobs are for!

[LoyalTubist]

If you want to see a picture of what an Eb sousaphone is supposed to look like, look in Bill Bell's Foundation to Tuba and Sousaphone Playing and you will see Mr. Bell with a sousaphone that looks like it's a little tight around him. It looks pretty good.

[dwaskew]

PS: There is a little corner story to this.

If I remember RD right, he didn’t bring the bell of his school provided BBb plastophone home for practising. Just a matter of transport logistics. Hence he practiced in CC and played for real in BBb.

I did this same type thing in the mid-70's with a brass one--as an elem. kid walking home, the bell made it too unwieldy--but, it was really more in BB natural than CC, at least according to the piano we had at home at the time. wow--this brought back some memories that probably should've stayed in the back of my mind....

D. AsKew

[tubatooter1940]

If you want to see a picture of what an Eb sousaphone is supposed to look like, look in Bill Bell's Foundation to Tuba and Sousaphone Playing and you will see Mr. Bell with a sousaphone that looks like it's a little tight around him. It looks pretty good.

I was wondering how a fat tuba guy could insert his mega-torso within the wrap of an F sousaphone.

[windshieldbug]

An F sousaphone would be perfect for doing a Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem halftime show

I'm thinking Pictures at an Intermission.

The formations for Ballet of the Unattached Chicks and the Hut vending Fowl's Legs could be killer...

[jacobg]

Rotary F Helicons are still in wide use in Eastern Europe, especially in Serbian brass bands. Many guys use 3 valve versions. This has got to be one of the lightest-weight wrap-around bass instruments in existence. That's important when you consider that they often play gigs lasting from sunup to sundown.
Many of these players are large and don't seem to have problems putting the helicons on. They tend to let them sit on their stomachs.
The F Helicon is very bright and punchy and blends in a particular way with Bb tenor horns. Most bands have 2 to 4 tenor horns which play "rhythm section" parts in conjunction with the bass parts of the helicon. Since the helicons are relatively small bore (compared to a sousaphone) and are pitched only a 4th below the tenor horns, the section gets a uniformity unlike that of other brass bands which often have a contrabass sousaphone pitched an octave below the tenor brass instruments (think Mexican bandas and New Orleans bands, among many).

[Donn]

Many of these players are large and don't seem to have problems putting the helicons on. They tend to let them sit on their stomachs.

Mine doesn't wrap into a closed circle, it wraps around the front - like many if not most Eb sousaphones. So there's plenty of room, and thanks to the more oval shape, it's very stable no hands.

I like my Eb helicon better, but that's a full round wrap and like a sousaphone, tends to slide around if not held with one hand. And it doesn't have that bright bass tuba sound.

[imperialbari]

Many of these players are large and don't seem to have problems putting the helicons on. They tend to let them sit on their stomachs.

Mine doesn't wrap into a closed circle, it wraps around the front - like many if not most Eb sousaphones. So there's plenty of room, and thanks to the more oval shape, it's very stable no hands.

I like my Eb helicon better, but that's a full round wrap and like a sousaphone, tends to slide around if not held with one hand. And it doesn't have that bright bass tuba sound.

As I read you, your Eb helicon is of US origins. And the US Eb helicons were made to act as the lowest brasses of their time. Adolphe Sax named his bottom member of the family Saxhorn contrebasse en Mi bemol (= contrabass Saxhorn in Eb). The Saxhorn basse en Si bemol (= bass Saxhorn in Bb) was the instrument, which with a slightly changed wrap developed into the euphonium.

So it is small wonder that your Eb helicon doesn’t sound like a bright carrier of the BASS line. It was intended to fulfil the function of a CONTRABASS as much as its range would allow for.

With improvements in technology the making of the upright and circular true contrabasses became possible in the US, where the usage of much heavier gauge brass sheets had become common.

And there the problems with the functionality of the old US-made Eb sousaphones and helicons enter the picture. They were intended as contrabasses, but were bottomed out by the BBb’s. So you cannot really blame them, when they sound too fat when put up an octave above the BBb contrabasses.

The Czech/German tradition right from the outset, at least since the patents of Cerveny, had the clear division between the BBb contrabasses and the F basses. So small wonder, when the F basses blend well with the oval Bb Tenorhörner & Baritöne. They were intended to do so by design.

The one thing, which I noted about Jim Self’s F sousaphone illustrated earlier in this thread, was, that it is a small bore instrument. I don’t think, that JS is in need of a “for-kidsâ€

[Donn]

As I read you, your Eb helicon is of US origins. And the US Eb helicons were made to act as the lowest brasses of their time.

Actually, it is of Czech origin like the other, and in fact has an identical valve section. I should have mentioned that the F really has a rather large bore for its size, 18.2mm/.720in - hence the punchy sound.

I guess the Eb may be roughly the same as one in the Cerveny catalogue, and indeed it is more of a contrabass tuba,
in the Monster Bass style, but there's something to be said for that. With a Schilke 62 mouthpiece it has a rich, focused tone like nothing I'll ever get from my sousaphone.

Bass recorder was my first instrument, by the way.