What is your instrument history?

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Sousaswag
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Re: What is your instrument history?

Post by Sousaswag »

I actually started out as a euphonium player, and when I was going through school had the usual suspects. Yamaha 3 valves and later the 321 4 valve.

Around my sophomore or junior year of HS, I purchased my first two instruments with the help of my parents, of course. The euphonium I chose was an old old Besson New Standard that had, well, just awful intonation. Lovely sound but there were so many triggers on that horn that I wish I would have wondered why they were there, and NOT purchased it. The tuba I chose was a VMI 3302 5v BBb that stayed with me until I needed a CC horn.

I sold both of those instruments in the same week, somehow. Very lucky! Took a loss on the Besson but that's what I needed to do to sell it. I purchased a Miraphone 1293 CC with that money and kept it for just over a year. I loved that horn and the sound it made, but really disliked the angle of the mouthpipe and overall the horn was much too short for me. I have quite a long torso and the Miraphone eventually hurt my back to play, because I was really hunched over.

In August of 2020 I sold the Miraphone and purchased a Meinl Weston 5450 from a member of this forum. This one is quite special, as it sports the Accent engraving, and was owned by Nat McIntosh when Youngblood Brass Band was sponsored by Accent. It's amazing how well that tuba plays. It's my forever CC tuba. I'm confident I will never love any horn more than this one.
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MKTuba
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Re: What is your instrument history?

Post by MKTuba »

I will keep it just to low brass instruments, as if we included string instruments my list would be over 50 instruments long...

Accent tenor trombone in 6th grade
School owned yamaha yep 201 for a few months
Rented yamaha 201 from 6th grade to eighth grade
Wessex dolce in eigth grade
Wessex Champion eb tuba Borrowed from my brass band
Jiggs P bone
School Owned yamaha 321 BBb tuba
Wessex British 3 valve baritone borrowed from brass band
School owned Yamaha 421g single rotor bass trombone
Mack 410 CC (First Tuba I ever bought!)
Bach 50b3lo bass trombone
Bach tb300 ( I think) tenor (via ebay)
Conn director tenor trombone (via ebay)
Wessex Berg F tuba (first f tuba I ever bought!)

This is a longer list than I anticipated, however it has taken place over 8 years, and I now only own 2 tubas and nothing else. I bought my Mack 410 in my sophomore year of high school and it is the instrument I have put the most hours in by far. This was a trip down memory lane for sure!
B&S 3198 (PT6P)
Wilson 3200s

BM Tuba Performance @ Michigan State
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circusboy
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Re: What is your instrument history?

Post by circusboy »

Conn "Director" cornet for 4th-9th grade.
[long pause]
York "Monster" Eb, probably from the 1920s
Miraphone F, probably from the 1950s
Mirafone 184 CC, probably from the 1970s
Yamaha YCB-621s from the 1990s
Cerveny 601 Kaiser BBb, probably from the late 1970s/early1980s - my current and only horn

For those middle three, I was convinced that I could get the sound I wanted from a small package. I finally got so discouraged that when I sold the Yamaha, I told myself that I was quitting. Three months later, I missed playing and happened to see an ad for the Cerveny. It called to me. It is, for me, finally, a "real" tuba with the huge, bellowing, colorful sound that I just was never able to produce on the smaller horns. I still suck at playing, of course, but I've got a big smile on my face when I do, now.

A couple of other notes: That Mira F had a beautiful, rich, colorful sound for such a small horn. I could just never play the dang thing in tune! When looking for a small CC, the folks on here overwhelmingly recommended the 184 over the 621. Turns out they were wrong. The 621 is really a fine horn with better intonation and generally more nimble to play. It makes a great horn for jazz, in particular.
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