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You are right, Jonathan, there comes a point where you have so many instruments, that it does make it challenging to keep up with them.

I try to "rotate the stock", when playing in pro bono organizations, to help keep my hand in.

One other consideration that I recently discovered, is the difficulty keeping them all properly serviced (quite time consuming!).

I think if you use them for different applications then, no. But if you have a bunch of hors that do the same thing (ie. more than 2 or so 4/4 horns, unless they have some sort of historical or personal value). I have 4 (5) now, but they all serve a very different purpose:

PT6 (main horn){orchestral, band some quintet, quartet}
PT10 (main F){solo, Quintet, tuba quartet}
Willson Eb (brass band, I may start using it for some beefy solo stuff or in between BQ stuff}
Conn 36J BBb (huge tuba for brass band, some orchestral stuff)
Martin Stencil sousa BBb (sousaphone stuff)

Since they have different applications, I don't feel bad about having a bunch and I use most of them on a weekly basis (the BBb doesn't get played as much, but I'm going to be doing some more Bras Band stuff on BBb). I keep them lined up in their gig bags open, so I can reach in before I go play and wiggle the valves on each of them before I go practice (so none of them freeze up).
Have fun,
Bill

I always have a dozen or so tubas around here so I have plenty to choose from... ranging from sousas to monster Eb to Eb pea-shooters to rotary BBb to big piston BBb horns. To say nothing of the plethora or other brass instruments. It's fun switching around.

However, all that being said, I think I would be a better player is I stuck with just one horn. Well... maybe a BBb and an Eb... and maybe a sousa!

I could easily get by with 1 good 4/4 tuba....served by a old 70's B&S.

.......but I have really enjoyed having a Conn BBb Helicon for stand-up gigs and honky-tonk music.

.......and then, its awfully nice to have that cool '37 York that sorta sits at a large 4/4 size, but has a completely different timbre than the B&S. A BIG fat sound that can be heard in a larger ensemble and truly puts the bottom on a hymn chord.

......or it is definitely cool to have a little pea-shooter F tuba to sing-out the melody lines. The Cerveny can't play C to save it's self, but what a pretty tuba in the middle and upper staff.

oops...that's 4 tubas...I guess that's prolly enough as long as we don't count the Euphoniums as tubas.

HA! Freudian slip n slide


but just remember
Pimpin' aint easy:

I don't get it, but it looked kinda funny.

Bill

Doc wrote:Finances notwithstanding, tubas are like guns, knives, fishing gear, classic sportscars...

Add guitars, golf gear, kitchen gadgets, etc. to the list as well!

Oric wrote:I think three or four is a good number. Although there always comes the fantasy of becoming rich and famous and having a "tuba hall", just a huge majestic room lined with tubas, polished daily and maintained by servants.

That's one fantasy I don't believe I have ever had.

TubaRay wrote:

Oric wrote:I think three or four is a good number. Although there always comes the fantasy of becoming rich and famous and having a "tuba hall", just a huge majestic room lined with tubas, polished daily and maintained by servants.

That's one fantasy I don't believe I have ever had.

Oh, I have. Only the servants were actually the Swedish Bikini team.


Here they are waxing my board! Imagine what they could do with that hall full of tubas!

Just for the record, I have had more than one fantasy about servants who resemble the Swedish Bikini team. In fact, I have had many of those.

to answer the original ?, no

A wise man was once asked: "How long should a man's legs be?". He replied: "Long enough to reach the ground.".

I am often asked, "How many tubas do you need?" My answer is ALWAYS, "Just one more... "

(BTW: Imagine the SBT in TubeNet thongs! No trouble going through airport security!)

Yo

Jonathan - I've a Meinl 2145 (used it for the Karl Jenkins Mass for Peace last time out), a St Pete BBb (came out for some military band type stuff), a 3 valve Reynolds Bb (great for Christmas Carols and anywhere I have to stand up and play) and a Miraphone F (the great Norwich Philharmonic are doing Les Francs Juges next term so out it comes) - so I'd say its most definately horses for courses, sometimes composers wrote for specific instruments and it can be murder doing a piece on the "wrong" instrument.
I did Shostakovich 10 earlier in the year and used the St Pete BBb, and believe you me it was a darn sight easier on that instrument than the time I used a Yamaha EEb.
Mike raises a very good point - swap mouthpieces as per the piece, have you tried the Perantucci range? For me they work really well, I've a 65 for the F and a 68 for the C.

pip pip

Andrew M

Who thinks Norwich City have got off to a good start

I am not a professional, but I don't think that it's possible to have too many tubas. I have 2 (Eb and BBb) that I use regularly that I keep downstairs to make it easier to get to rehearsal. I use 2 that I keep upstairs in my practice/tuba room for practicing. They are different models, but I don't see any problems with switching between different Eb or BBb tubas. I know each horn well enough to know how to deal with the intonation quirks of each.

I have a sousaphone that I use when I go back for my college reunion alumni band. The rest of my horns I have for collectables and to be able to bring something interesting to Tuba Christmas each year. I don't see why a professional would have any problem switching between whatever horns they choose to use. That said, I don't see how anyone really needs more than 2 or 3 horns to cover the vast majority of playing situations, and most could probably get away with one good all around tuba.

To ask my wife one should be more than enough and since I don't get to play for pay very often I can't really argue her logic. For my thoughts two would be plenty for what I do. I have the BBb and would like to get an Eb for chamber, solo, and brass band and I would like to say that I would be content, but I think we all know better than that .

Outside of the BBb I have my euphonium and just this last hour ordered my new bass trombone. The unfortunate side of all of this is that the trombone is the one that will probably see the most use since the big band is what gigs the most. The tuba second most and the euph probably never except for my own pleasure. Maybe I'll do a recital just for fun so that I can play my euph out.

If I had as many tubas as I have golf clubs, stereos, etc...well I guess I'd find time to play 'em while my wife gripes about all my "toys"

At this time, my horns do the following for me:

MW46 F tuba: High tuba part in polka band, playing "aus´m Hut" (German expression for playing memorised folk songs and old, classic pop music as called for by a quite intoxicated audience).
Unfortunately no more quintet work. This is the horn that will accompany me anywhere, including cottages accessible on foot (snow shoes) only.

B&S 4097 CC tuba: Low, loud, and voluminous playing. I have yet to figure out how to get this one to play with varying sound characteristics other than different dynamics. Hymns and chorals, symphionic band.

Glier BBb Helicon: This is for raw fun only. (especially Fasching-parades. Just GOOGLE "Guggamusig" for explanations. Anything else would require a €€€ overhaul including the resurrection of its valve set. The best tool to scare off any "Guggamusig" - tubist-wannabe "wearing" an Eb fibreglass sousaphone-looking object.

Unfortunately not needed at all at this time of my life: state-of-the-art F tuba for serious ensemble- and solo work. (Would be nice, though).
Needed during summer (symphonic band season): 5-valved Huge-o-phone in CC. Neptune, maybe, or a Rudy. I´d have to inherit these or the means to acquire them, though).

Everything else would turn me from a tuba lover into a collector, which I wouldn´t like to happen at all.

Would I sell my MW46 in order to help pay that nice Firebird or SLZ or 2040/5? Nope. I wouldn´t dare entering a beerfest tent filled with more than 1000 drunks with one of those. Wouldn´t dare to carry it up a mountain to have it team up with my colleagues´flugelhorns, tenorhorns, and clarinets to do some polkaing for the crowd, neither. Too many fond memories.

The thing is: I´m convinced I´ll never get what my horns are worth TO ME if I decided to sell them. I live in an area where others spend their holidays, so I´m not inclined to really travel anywhere right now. Better save that money others spend scuba diving the barrier rief. The next horn is only two years away.

More tubas are a dream for most of us.
My old Eb 1940 King is a player and can cut it but my worry as I enter a hall with hundreds of drunk people is getting a good sound out to them without being blaringly loud.
My solution is 6 Eon 300 watt self-powered 15 inch speakers with a Mackie board. My inclination is buying so many instruments for an upcoming project ( like the Jimbai drum I would love to have on our next C.D.). If I show my wife that I can play tuba, guitar and the Jimbai all at the same time she will probably let me buy it.

Jonathantuba wrote:If we have too many tubas then we will not play individual ones frequently enough to be really familiar with their characteristics (intonation, feel, etc.) and their valves dry up and become liable to stick.

Jay Bertolet has espoused the use of four instruments on many occasions on Tubenet. He has bigger and biggest contrabass tubas, and small and large bass tubas. This was when he was playing full time in an orchestra and teaching.

For me, that's the outside of what I can really keep in my head for the relatively small amount of playing that I do. I have three Bb and two F tubas that I play regularly, but a couple of those do not require particularly special treatment. The only trouble I have is confusing the fingerings of the low register on the two F tubas.

Rick "who has more tubas, of course, but not for regular use" Denney

I play EEb for everything. Quintet - Orchestra. I really don't see the "almost" obsession with bigger, better, deeper tuba's and messing around with mouthpieces too much. If it work's don't try and fix it. Do people honestly get enough work to warrant more than one tuba unless they are in an orchestral job?