Why CC?

[Dan Schultz]

I've seen lots of discussions about CC vs BBb vs EEb vs F and the attention always seems to come back to 'you have to have a CC if you're going for a major in tuba performance'. I'm basically a hobbiest but occasionally do some professional (paid) work.
Assume for a bit that I am a 20-year-old tuba performance major and tell me why I need a CC tuba.

[Allen]

It seems to me that tubists are divided into four camps on tuba keys.

1) Those who insist a particular key (usually CC) is better. Their arguments generally fail to convince the other camps.

2) Those who might like to play CC tuba, but are deterred by either the generally high relative costs, or the supposed difficulty of learning another set of fingerings.

3) Those who don't care about key. They pick the tuba(s) that's best for the music they play (or a tuba picks them). If they have to learn new fingerings, they consider the effort small compared to learning all the other aspects of tuba playing.

4) Those who learned one key of tuba (usually BBb), are satisfied, and see no reason to change. [A sensible viewpoint, in my opinion.]

The teachers insisting on their students learning CC are in the first camp. Since I'm not, I am unconvinced by their arguments, which I consider to be mainly theological or faddish.

Myself, I'm in the third camp. I was a BBb (and some time Eb) player who went shopping and had a CC tuba pick him. I'm happy with it. I may yet buy another BBb horn in addition. I sometimes play a little Eb tuba. And, I tried an F tuba the other day that was tempting. Perhaps some day...

I suspect you will find that the popularity of CC tubas is due to three causes: academic fashion, leading players (idols) choosing CC, and the fact that leading manufacturers have placed significant efforts into making excellent CC tubas.

Allen Walker, who didn't check anything in the poll

[CJ Krause]

***

[Dan Schultz]

and the fact that leading manufacturers have placed significant efforts into making excellent CC tubas.

Miraphone and Meinl Weston make the same quality CC's as they BB's.

My Miraphone 191 is 7 yrs old and there is not one acid bleed on the tuba. the king 2341's that i see at schools are less than a year old and have quite a few.

I'm thinking that acid bleed has nothing to do with quality in terms of how a horn plays.

[smurphius]

WHY ARE WE TUBISTS SO DIFFICULT!!! We're the only instrument in the brass family who has this problem. Even trumpet players, who ALWAYS have to be better than eachother, don't have near the problem as we tubists and our argument of the "God given tuba key". They need to make convertable horns where you just stick a different lead pipe in and you have both. Then, we'd just have two horns: our Bb to CC convertable tuba and our Eb to F convertable tuba. Heck, make a "double sided tuba" like a horn and you can have it all. Teeheehee.

[Allen]

When I said that leading manufacturers have placed significant efforts into making excellent CC tubas, I did not mean that they did not also make efforts to make excellent tubas in other keys.

It does seem that one will find a larger amount and variety of good CC tubas compared to BBb tubas in the marketplace. Similarly, there appear to be more good F tubas for sale compared to Eb tubas. Although there are some notably fine BBb and Eb tubas for sale, there is not the sheer amount of choice. I do note that frequently good BBb tubas can be purchased for less than comparable CC tubas.

Still, the greater choice among CC tubas is going to count for some people.

Anyway, my preference is to concern myself about the tuba's quality and how it helps me to achieve the sound in my mind more than considering the key of the instrument.

Allen Walker

[Dan Schultz]

Ok guys!... I figured it wouldn't take long for this to go 'off topic'.

All I want to know is why I should buy a CC tuba in order to be accepted as a tuba performance student. I need just one convincing argument.

[Gorilla Tuba]

I can't believe I am entering this discussion! CC tubas are not automatically a better choice for most players. For playing in bands and most playing situations, a BBb is just fine.

I recommend CC tubas to my tuba majors. I do not blanketly tell them that they can't succeed on BBb, but I certainly do not know of any compelling reason not to buy a CC. Some of the reasons are as follows:
1. Unfortunately, you often must play CC to be taken seriously by the better grad schools.
2. Being two feet shorter, a CC is theoretically going to be more responsive than a similar model in BBb. My experience also shows that CC tubas seem to have more clarity in their sound.
3. Yes, you should be comfortable in all keys. However, orchestral licks in mega-sharp keys really are easier on CC.
4. Since 99% of professional tubists in the US use CC, you gotta believe that there is something there.
5. There just aren't that many truly professional level BBb tubas out there, although this is changing.

For someone whose aspirations are to play in community bands (even good ones) and put together a quintet for pay gigs such as weddings, there is no reason to to switch to CC. Even for most music education majors, the benefits of a CC are minimal at best. But for a performance major, the benefits, though minimal, are worth the time investment.

You can effectively counter that BBb tubas are just as good. Perhaps switching to CC is just about ego. None-the-less, when a tubist switches to CC, he or she is making a huge commitment to the study of the instrument. The time involved in getting comfortable in CC and the need to revisit the basics may account more for any musical growth than does the key of the instrument. It is when a student purchases their own CC tuba that I see a players jump to the next level.

Caveat: there are plenty of players who suck on BBb tuba. Chances are pretty good that they will also suck on CC. I have little patience for crappy players on fancy tubas that mommy bought them.

To conclude this long-winded post, it is very possible that most of the advantages of a CC tuba are merely perception. However, perceptions do matter.

[MartyNeilan]

FWIW, we don't see trombonists or euphers having this discussion. C versions of their instruments, particularly the trombones, are quite an anomoly. Wonder why tuba made the "switch" up a step and our smaller cousins never did?
Possible scenario - "Hey, Fritz - if we chop 2 feet off this tuba we can save two Marks in brass and charge those foolish Americans more for it"

[Jeff Miller]

WHY ARE WE TUBISTS SO DIFFICULT!!! We're the only instrument in the brass family who has this problem. Even trumpet players, who ALWAYS have to be better than eachother, don't have near the problem as we tubists and our argument of the "God given tuba key".

Most professional trumpet players I know will play at least 3 trumpets proficiently; the guys in my quintet won't think twice about trying a piece or passage on any one of 7 trumpets (if you include the Bb picc) and transposing it on the fly. I really don't know how they do it. I have a hard enough time remembering how to play whatever instrument I've brought to the gig.

Jeff Miller

[Z-Tuba Dude]

FWIW, we don't see trombonists or euphers having this discussion. C versions of their instruments, particularly the trombones, are quite an anomoly. Wonder why tuba made the "switch" up a step and our smaller cousins never did?"

Well, those instruments are so tiny, anyway, that there is no need to shorten their tubing!

I do believe that, of all of the CC & BBb tubas I have ever seen/played, on average, the CC's are a bit more responsive, and lighter sounding. Sometimes I prefer the sound of a BBb for a specific situation, though.

[Dan Schultz]

You can effectively counter that BBb tubas are just as good. Perhaps switching to CC is just about ego. None-the-less, when a tubist switches to CC, he or she is making a huge commitment to the study of the instrument. The time involved in getting comfortable in CC and the need to revisit the basics may account more for any musical growth than does the key of the instrument. It is when a student purchases their own CC tuba that I see a players jump to the next level.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. It's the commitment that makes the real difference. That's the most convincing statement yet. Thanks for exposing that thought.

[Stefan]

I think that you just have to choose a teacher you can work with - or want to work with. If you have no desire to switch to C, then you need to find a teacher who doesn't mind Bb. I am sure there are plenty out there.

It's kind of like wanting a job as a graphic designer. If you are only familiar with PC's and the company you want to work for only uses Macs, you better learn the Mac.

So I say, if you have aspirations for some sort of professional career, I think you should use the equipment that is generally accepted in that career.

Stefan

[Dan Schultz]

WHY ARE WE TUBISTS SO DIFFICULT!!! We're the only instrument in the brass family who has this problem. Even trumpet players, who ALWAYS have to be better than eachother, don't have near the problem as we tubists and our argument of the "God given tuba key".

I have a hard enough time remembering how to play whatever instrument I've brought to the gig.

Jeff Miller

We tuba players have a problem with instrument keys only because tubas are non-transposing instruments. If trumpet players had to learn different fingerings for C, Bb, and Eb trumpets, they would have a lot more problems that they already have! Of course, this mainly applies only to those of us in the US. You guys in the UK and Europe can play any key tuba you wish without having to learn new fingerings.
NO FAIR!

[tubacdk]

I've seen lots of discussions about CC vs BBb vs EEb vs F and the attention always seems to come back to 'you have to have a CC if you're going for a major in tuba performance'. I'm basically a hobbiest but occasionally do some professional (paid) work.
Assume for a bit that I am a 20-year-old tuba performance major and tell me why I need a CC tuba.

I think that the main difference between CC and BBb is clarity of tone. All things being equal, the CC is a shorter instrument, therefore offering easier tone production, with the result being a cleaner sound. Of course, there are some BBbs that produce a clearer sound than some CCs. Also, this is not to say that anyone playing a CC is going to sound cleaner than anyone playing a BBb. But, all things being equal, I believe this to be true. I myself think that clarity in one's sound is a good thing, so in general I prefer CC tubas to BBb.

That being said, I wouldn't require my students to play CC if they didn't want to. I would certainly encourage them to weigh their options if they were shopping for tubas, but it's not my decision to make for them.

[tubacdk]

But I switched to CC earlier this year (and I'm not even majoring in music) and love it. For the sacrafice in the low range, the gain in the high range for me was more than worth it.

I'm surprised you've found a sacrifice in the low range. I find that the low register on a CC takes less effort than it does on BBb. What kind of BBb were you playing on? It must have been great for you to have a harder time with the low reg on a 188.

-ck

[JB]

...But this could spin off into a whole new thread about unqualified performance majors and the evil, self-serving professors that rake them (and all of that money) in knowing that these kids will never play for a living. These jerks rationalize this unprofessional, inexcusable practice to continue and GROW by stating that most performance majors never intend on actually going into performance (that is a delusion) or that these THOUSANDS of naive kids will somehow "win the audition lottery" (also a delusion held by teachers who have never won an audition advertised in the International Musician and probably never will if they fool themselves into thinking that an audition is some sort of lottery - sheesh - those guys should be fired on the spot for teaching that nonsense . . . )

I encourage you to start that spin-off thread to which you refer. Think it might make for some interesting (and probably lively, at times) discussion.

[Jeff Miller]

WHY ARE WE TUBISTS SO DIFFICULT!!! We're the only instrument in the brass family who has this problem. Even trumpet players, who ALWAYS have to be better than eachother, don't have near the problem as we tubists and our argument of the "God given tuba key".

I have a hard enough time remembering how to play whatever instrument I've brought to the gig.

Jeff Miller

We tuba players have a problem with instrument keys only because tubas are non-transposing instruments. If trumpet players had to learn different fingerings for C, Bb, and Eb trumpets, they would have a lot more problems that they already have! Of course, this mainly applies only to those of us in the US. You guys in the UK and Europe can play any key tuba you wish without having to learn new fingerings.
NO FAIR!

Actually, what I meant was that the trumpet players in my group will happily play any piece of sheet music on any of 7 trumpets without blicking an eye. So, we might have a piece with a trumpet part in Bb, but they might think a D trumpet more appropriate.

This makes it even more annoying, as they might be playing A picc sheet music on an Eb trumpet, etc.

Granted in the brass bands, what you've said is true, but this isn't the case in classical orchestral or quintet playing.

Also, I'm amazed at how proficient they can be on each instrument - whenever I play a Bb or an Eb tuba, it takes me a while to get my chops/ear/head all in the same mode. I generally find this harder than the problem of fingering.

Jeff

[Allen]

...

Also, I'm amazed at how proficient they can be on each instrument - whenever I play a Bb or an Eb tuba, it takes me a while to get my chops/ear/head all in the same mode. I generally find this harder than the problem of fingering.

Jeff

I do a lot of switching between treble clef (at concert pitch minus an octave or two) and bass clef. My brain clashes gears sometimes as I start to read a piece in a clef different from the one I was just reading. What I find helpful is to name the first note aloud. Then, my brain finds the right groove for reading that clef.

Perhaps you could find some trick like that to assist your head in switching instruments.

Allen Walker

[tubacdk]

I have to say the sacrafice is mostly due to not practicing enough down there - I bought the tuba with several rather high pieces lined up to play, and in learning it put a lot a emphasis on being able to nail the high stuff and make it pretty (what I could not do on the Yamaha 321 I had been using) than barking out a stunning low octave. But I'm working on it.

I think you'll be happy with the response down there once you start putting some time in on it. I used to own a 188 and the low register on that tuba was just fantastic.