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Did anyone have a chance to play the Tu-Bone at TBA? It looks like a cimbasso, but is in the key of BBb.

I played it at school several months ago during a visit by a Shires dealer. It was very stuffy and the tone suffered tremendously as a result. I would venture that it will need some significant improvement before becoming a legitimate option for "serious" performers.

BTW, the Shires bass bones I played were phenomenal.

you could try contacting Newell Sheridan. His website is http://www.sheridanbrass.com/ and there is a link off the main page with his contact info.

Mr. Sheridan had one at Arkansas All-State last February. A group of us each played while the others listened. Although the design of the horn and its stated purpose was thought provoking, none of us could get a good mouthpiece-horn match and eliminate the aforementioned stuffiness. The tuba player in the group could not get it to respond to his liking, the bass trombone professional could not get the horn to open up, and I had no luck in playing in either mind set.

This leads me to believe that playing it well might be like trying to play contrabass trombone. If we had access to a true contra mouthpiece, maybe it might have been better.

I agree that every Shire bass trombone there would have played better.

Tom Mason

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I'm not trying to argue here, and I have not tried the horn since the mentioned changes within the last 2 months, but the model I tried had way too much stuffiness.

As I posted earlier, I was in a group of three that tried the horn. The other two were the principal tuba and bass trombone players of the Arkansas Symphony. Not the most mentioned symphony, but three experienced players. My two partners tried the horn in respect to their own discipline, and I was a party who played tuba and bass bone professionally. At the time, the stuffiness was too much for any of us, as mentioned by both me and the other bass bone player.

The horn was so stuffy that it hindered my low range more tham the high range. It felt more like playing a baraphonium in the pedal range, but worse. We tried a set of 7 or 8 mouthpieces, including what Mr. Sheridan had, and our personal setups for BBb, Eb, F tuba and bass trombone. I recall that Mr. Sheridan had 1 contrabass setup with a shallow cup in his collection.

I would love to try the horn as modified. I also feel that the horn could be made to work decently with a mouthpiece that we didn't have at the time.

Tom Mason