seating options - drum throne?

[Rick Denney]

...Don't use a stand... Don't sit on a phone book... Don't perch the horn on the edge of a chair... Put it in your lap where it belongs! Just my humble opinion.

Where is it written that the tuba should be held in the lap?

Do string-bass and cello players hold their instruments in their lap? No. They use an adjustible pin rest.

I suspect that many tubas were designed to be rested on the chair. I'm six feet tall and my Miraphone 186 (BBb, which is relevant here) will put the mouthpiece in the middle of my forehead if I rest the isntrument on my lap. Sure, I can part my legs to drop the instrument down further, but then I have to tense up my hip flexors to keep it there. Who needs that tension? Why is that the "right way"?

And that $100 stand will work on all my tubas, saving me the cost (well over $100 for each instrument) and potential effects on how the instruments play to modify the three tubas with which I use the stand.

Rick "not wanting to mess around with leadpipe bends and tapers on an instrument that already works" Denney

[Dan Schultz]

...Don't use a stand... Don't sit on a phone book... Don't perch the horn on the edge of a chair... Put it in your lap where it belongs! Just my humble opinion.

Where is it written that the tuba should be held in the lap?

Do string-bass and cello players hold their instruments in their lap? No. They use an adjustible pin rest.

I suspect that many tubas were designed to be rested on the chair. I'm six feet tall and my Miraphone 186 (BBb, which is relevant here) will put the mouthpiece in the middle of my forehead if I rest the isntrument on my lap. Sure, I can part my legs to drop the instrument down further, but then I have to tense up my hip flexors to keep it there. Who needs that tension? Why is that the "right way"?

And that $100 stand will work on all my tubas, saving me the cost (well over $100 for each instrument) and potential effects on how the instruments play to modify the three tubas with which I use the stand.

Rick "not wanting to mess around with leadpipe bends and tapers on an instrument that already works" Denney

WHATEVER!... I DID say it was just my opinion. MY tuba belongs in MY lap. If yours belongs on a stand... so be it.

[Leland]

... and it was Gene Pokorny who waved one around at the recent Army conference suggesting that as we age, maybe we ought to start taking care of our backs.

...and feet, and knees, and probably ankles, too. That's a substantial amount of weight to ask your legs to support, and it's really not in a natural position at all.

If I spent more time with a concert tuba, I'd probably go with a stand, although with my first tuba I did get the leadpipe adjusted so I could set it on the edge of a chair.

[CJ Krause]

***

[Chuck(G)]

[But tuba players often count long rests and spend lots of rehearsal time listening to clarinetists practice technical parts. That's when I lean back.

Good posture is not tiring, even to geezers like me.

With a tuba stand, you still haven't solved the problem of the venue-supplied chair, which can be anything from a plastic folder designed for 12 year old kids (it's happened) to an upholstered office swivel chair complete with nice high arms. Maybe you'll get one of those slanted-seat "cello chairs".

I'll agree that a tuba stand is useful when you know what you'll be getting, but my quintet has been to a gig where the reaction of the host is "I thought that you all played standing, so I didn't think you needed chairs".

[Rick Denney]

WHATEVER!... I DID say it was just my opinion. MY tuba belongs in MY lap. If yours belongs on a stand... so be it.

Dan, I owe you an apology. When I caught up on this thread, I responded to posts as I saw them. In the old forum, each response would have appeared in the sub-thread attached to what I was responding to. In the new forum, they are all in a row, and it becomes "piling on."

Further, I made the same mistake in how I read your posts, seeing all the opinions expressed at once instead of each in response to specific previous posts, so it hit me all at once instead of spread out as you wrote them.

One response would have been sufficient, and would not have shown the increasing level of argumentativeness. No offsense intended.

Rick "apologetic" Denney

[Rick Denney]

[But tuba players often count long rests and spend lots of rehearsal time listening to clarinetists practice technical parts. That's when I lean back.

Good posture is not tiring, even to geezers like me.

With a tuba stand, you still haven't solved the problem of the venue-supplied chair, which can be anything from a plastic folder designed for 12 year old kids (it's happened) to an upholstered office swivel chair complete with nice high arms. Maybe you'll get one of those slanted-seat "cello chairs".

I'll agree that a tuba stand is useful when you know what you'll be getting, but my quintet has been to a gig where the reaction of the host is "I thought that you all played standing, so I didn't think you needed chairs".

There's nothign to suggest that leaning back is bad for posture. Most of us must lean forward a bit to play the instrument in any case, because of what seems to have appeared around our middle. Yes, we could solve that problem, but there it is.

I take your point about not knowing what sort of chair will be provided, but I find that the venues where chairs are least likely to be acceptable are the ones that require the longest schlep from the car. Carring that folded-up piano bench is a lot harder than carrying a stand. I've sat in uncomfortable chairs before, and even a (very) few with arms, but at least 95% of the chairs I've found at venues were, because of having a back, more comfortable than a bench. That doesn't mean I like the chairs I've had to sit in, by any means. But your point does reinforce the point of not wanting to rest the tuba on the chair, and I'd use that piano bench any day before depending on a venue chair if I had to rest the instrument on it.

Rick "whose Holton would require me to use a telephone book on that piano bench" Denney

[Dan Schultz]

WHATEVER!... I DID say it was just my opinion. MY tuba belongs in MY lap. If yours belongs on a stand... so be it.

Dan, I owe you an apology.

No problem, Rick. Active discussions like this one are just good fun... on top of being very informative. I've only had to move the lead pipe on one of my horns... a old GDR stencil (B & S I think). The darned thing was a full 4" too high! I moved it myself for two reasons... 1) because I could. 2) because I wanted the experience. Removing the pipe, making the required bends, and remounting the pipe is not an quick 'n easy task. Especially if you do it right and rebend the pipe using pitch and jigs. Now, the horn plays as good as ever and I don't have to fight it to keep it in front of my face. One of the fellows I play with asked me to give him a price to move the leadpipe on his Sanders and I suggested to him that he try a stand first.

PS.... I would use a stand if I had to. Fortunately all of my horns 'fit'.

[Chuck(G)]

[There's nothign to suggest that leaning back is bad for posture. Most of us must lean forward a bit to play the instrument in any case, because of what seems to have appeared around our middle. Yes, we could solve that problem, but there it is.

Absolutely nothing wrong with leaning back, if you do it correctly. Most band-type chairs have no lumbar support, so if you're like most people, you'll automatically rotate your hips so that the cavity formed by the small of your back disappears. Not good for your back at all. Better to be sitting upright.

I know you're not as tall as some of us are--and a normal chair for someone who's much over 6' is not a good thing. You're forced to tuck your legs under the chair to somehow get the knees low enough.

Recently, I was in my office having to show a visitor something on the PC. Lacking an extra chair, I gave my Herman Miller-adjusts-every-which-way chair to my guest and grabbed the keyboard bench parked in the corner. After my visitor had left, I remained seated on the bench and noticed that I didn't feel as tired at the end of the day.

For nearly the last month, Herman's been in the corner and my back feels great.

Here's a web site on sitting from the University of Oklahoma:

http://w3.ouhsc.edu/ehso/Ergo.htm

It's essentially a duplicate of the NIOSH web site on the same topic.

[gwwilk]

Thanks, guys, for this thread. After following it I realized that my drafting chair solution to the K&M-stand-won't-go-low-enough-to use-an-ordinary-chair problem was suboptimal. I looked around on the web for what seemed to be the best solution, and here's what I found: http://www.idahopercussion.com/Merchant ... /HT741.gif

FedEx delivered it this afternoon, and it's a winner in my book. It's rock stable, easy on the tush, and provides wonderful lumbar support for somebody like me with a cranky back since a skiing accident 15 years ago. It's heavy, but it easily disassembles for portability if need be. (It's the Tama Ergo-Rider Quartet, HT741. The Quartet has four doubly braced legs instead of three as in the Trio.)

Using it with my K&M tuba playing stand improves my posture and allows me to get the bottom of the horn closer to my body which feels much more natural. Unfortunately it hasn't improved my playing. But it will make practice easier, so there's still hope.

Thanks again!

Jerry
(My tuba is the 'little' one of the two pictured outside Lee Stofer's garage this April that you can view at http://www.gwwilk.com/tubas )