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OK, we all know the first tubas were F bass tubas and then a little later the BBb contrabass tubas sprang up. My question is, where and when was the very first CC tuba made? Donatello's York 6/4 CC and its twin are credited with helping to start a "revolution" of sorts, but they were obviously not the very first contrabass horns in CC. Who originally thought up the idea of hacking off 2 feet and why?

I don't know who first made them, but I seem to remember hearing about a CC Conn tuba used by August Helleberg with the Sousa band around the turn of the century.

MartyNeilan wrote:OK, we all know the first tubas were F bass tubas and then a little later the BBb contrabass tubas sprang up. My question is, where and when was the very first CC tuba made? Donatello's York 6/4 CC and its twin are credited with helping to start a "revolution" of sorts, but they were obviously not the very first contrabass horns in CC. Who originally thought up the idea of hacking off 2 feet and why?

I've asked this question before without ever getting an authoritative answer. But Lew is correct that Helleberg was playing on a CC before the turn of the century. The CC York was nowhere near the first CC. Donatelli went back to a BBb Conn (or so Abe Torchinsky thinks), but Bell played a CC King with rotary valves before that time, right? And Torchinsky (and several others) played very similar instruments from the 30's.

Rick "suspecting that the first CC might be traced to Cerveny" Denney

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Thanks for the excellent link, Charley, it says Bb and Cb. Now by Cb do they mean CC or ContraBass tubas? I find it hard to believe that BBb and CC tubas were invented in the same year, unless I can find more sources to back that up.

Ya know, if it IS true, it will give a very different perspective to the BBb vs CC debate, especially to all those who see CC tubas and CC tuba players as a bunch of Johnny-Come-Latelys.

MartyNeilan wrote:Ya know, if it IS true, it will give a very different perspective to the BBb vs CC debate, especially to all those who see CC tubas and CC tuba players as a bunch of Johnny-Come-Latelys.

I suspect that "Cb" is Amati-speak for "CC" after the translation from Czech.

But I didn't read their website to say that Cerveny invented anything in 1845. It just said he was making Bb and C contrabass tubas by that time. They probably also don't know when he started. That would have been ten years after Wieprecht, when the Wieprecht basstuba would have made the rounds of the exhibitions, along with the saxhorns. I seem to recall that Cerveny was the first to apply the rotary valve to the tuba. The Wieprecht instrument used Berlinerpumpen. I don't recall what Sax used in those days--wasn't that before the advent of the Perinet valve?

The notion that tubas would be pitched in Eb and Bb was, I suspect, a saxian concept. The saxhorn family were all tuned to those pitches ranging up and down the octaves, as part of a system of instruments. The system concept was very much in vogue in those days, as instrument makers attempted to capitalize on the possibilities resulting from the invention of the valve. The Wieprecht instrument was pitched in F, and C would make a good pitch for a contrabass tuba following the same system. The rotary Cervenys very much derived from the Wieprecht instrument in layout and function, with the main difference being the rotary action of the valves (the valves themselves are not that much different in concept between rotaries and Berlinerpumpen).

What interests me is that Wieprecht marketed the Prussian and German-speaking markets heavily, while Sax concentrated on the French and English-speaking markets. I wonder how it was that by the end of the 19th Century, the standard instruments in Germany are F and Bb, while the small C tuba was standard in France and the small F tuba was standard in England. I suspect these were the instruments that replaced the ophicleides in orchestras. American orchestras, who seemed to import their conductors largely from Germany and surrounds, seemed to go with the instruments used by German orchestras, at least by the turn of the century.

I have this feeling that Helleberg was really the instigator of the CC tuba application in orchestras in the United States. His instrument was German/Bohemian to the core. The King that William Bell used in the 20's was modeled on it, including the rotary valves. Torchinsky (one of Bell's students) played a similar instrument. Jacobs, whose lineage does not go through Bell, also played a CC without comment, so he neither felt the need to explain his use of a CC nor was he breaking new ground. Helleberg probably had more influence on professional tuba playing in the first two decades of the 20th than anyone else. I wonder who influenced Helleberg?

In any case, I don't know how the CC could be considered a recent innovation. Their application in orchestras seems to date at least back to the turn of the 20th Century, though I'll bet there was a lot less dogma associated with its application at that time.

Rick "recalling a 19th-century picture of the Boston Symphony with the tuba player holding what might have been an Eb saxhorn-type instrument" Denney

mandrake wrote:

jonth wrote:

MartyNeilan wrote:Some European countries have different name for scale. E.g. in Norway Bb is called B and B is called H.

Is that one of those things that's Scandanavian and then turned to be German later?

Believe it's the other way around...

I did, and I also invented pants and knew Basie before he could count, ain't I a gas?

Chuck"going crazy because he got his time to go back to school letter from my principal and have been searching everywhere trying to find where the hell my summer went"Jackson

Just getting READY to go back to school. Today was our second day of school. My summer ended in late July. It is a real bummer when we get that letter, isn't it?

Bummer is a mild statement on a good day. Hey Ray, have you seen my summer running around Texas anywhere? I still can't find it.

Chuck"I actually saw some Halloween stuff being put out in a Walgreens and I'm about ready to start mainlining heroin"Jackson