TubeNet

We all talk about how the tuba sounds: dark, bright,woofy,thin,etc. I don't think I'm the only one that really doesn't know what any of these sound like for sure. TNFJ....could some of you please post clips (or links to clips) of tuba playing and then decribe how you would define that player's tone. I think a lot of us know what we want to sound like....but some of us have no word for it.

I've never been successful and hearing much of the perceived difference in recordings. As much as anything, many of these differences affect how the sound moves in the room and is perceived by the listener.

A recording of Bobo will present one variation on the Power Sound. That sound is intense and penetrating.

The original "Out of This World" CD on Philips, featuring the Boston Pops and, in particular, Chester Schmitz playing the Jabba the Hut solo, is another variation on the Power Sound. That sound is also commanding and represents the Alexander sound well.

The recording of the CSO low brass will demonstrate the color of the York sound, but not the presence in the room. That does not come through on any recordings, and is perhaps the most important characteristic of it. (The CSO Alexander Nevsky recording might come closest.) The excerpts CD by Gene Pokorny is another variation on that sound concept. Any recording by the St. Louis Symphony from the last 15 years or so that has Mike Sanders on it will provide yet another variation.

Telling these apart on recordings is hard. Telling them apart in person is easy, particularly in a concert hall. That's where you'll hear it more than in clips posted on the web.

I once demonstrated several of my tubas for some curious guests at my house, and below about F at the bottom of the staff they could not tell the difference between them. Couldn't tell the difference between a 6/4 Holton and a B&S F tuba on, say, a low A or G? Nope. The problem was that the room was too small for those notes to develop properly. The differences need the room effects to really come out, and part of the perception of it is based on directionality and path diversity. You can't hear that through speakers.

Another example: In his 1973 Master Class, Jacobs demonstrates the effects of different mouthpieces on his York. Clearly, he thought the differences significant. But on that recording, they are invisible.

I love Mike Davis's latest sig quote from Steve Martin: Talking about music is like dancing about architecture. It's good to want real examples, but the best place to get them is in your nearest concert hall.

Rick "who, unfortunately, sound like Rick on all tubas" Denney

Rick Denney wrote:I love Mike Davis's latest sig quote from Steve Martin: Talking about music is like dancing about architecture. It's good to want real examples, but the best place to get them is in your nearest concert hall.

Who is this Davis guy? Why is he stealing my signature line? And why is he killing all the great chefs of Europe?

Mike KELLER

windshieldbug wrote:

Rick Denney wrote:I love Mike Davis's latest sig quote from Steve Martin: Talking about music is like dancing about architecture. It's good to want real examples, but the best place to get them is in your nearest concert hall.

Who is this Davis guy? Why is he stealing my signature line? And why is he killing all the great chefs of Europe?

Mike KELLER

Fingers not connected to brain, and the usual lack of proofing. Sorry, Mike.

Rick "er..." Jones

Chester's recording of the "Jabba" solo was done on his Yorkbrunner.

Mike wrote:Chester's recording of the "Jabba" solo was done on his Yorkbrunner.

So, there you go. It's hard to tell anything on recordings.

Rick "who thought it was old enough to predate the Yorkbrunner" Denney

Rick Denney wrote: I once demonstrated several of my tubas for some curious guests at my house, and below about F at the bottom of the staff they could not tell the difference between them. Couldn't tell the difference between a 6/4 Holton and a B&S F tuba on, say, a low A or G? Nope.

That I find surprising. When I have visitors, they frequently ask why I have different tubas and I demonstrate their different sounds. None have had trouble distinguishing the difference even between even the PT-20 and Neptune in the low register - with comments on the latter such as "that is a much fatter sound", or "that has a lot more grunt".

Maybe my room is bigger at about 20 foot long?

I agree, more difficult to tell on recordings - another reason to go to live concerts.

I love Mike Davis's latest sig quote from Steve Martin: Talking about music is like dancing about architecture. It's good to want real examples, but the best place to get them is in your nearest concert hall.

I actually first heard that attributed to Thelonius Monk, in a New Yorker article, many years ago. But it is a great line!

Neptune wrote:That I find surprising. When I have visitors, they frequently ask why I have different tubas and I demonstrate their different sounds. None have had trouble distinguishing the difference even between even the PT-20 and Neptune in the low register - with comments on the latter such as "that is a much fatter sound", or "that has a lot more grunt".

My room is big enough for me to hear, and even feel the difference. Maybe it was just that batch of visitors. But in the small space (the room I use is 15x24, with a ceiling that slopes from 8 feet to go over a loft office area that overlooks the room from the second floor, to a peak of perhaps 22 feet), the sound can be pretty overwhelming. It may be overloading their non-tuba-trained sensibilities.

But when Mike Sanders switched from his Alex to his Yorkbrunner, the change in sound quality in that big concert hall was palpable, even to non-tuba-trained listeners. A friend of mine and I had season tickets to San Antonio even when we both lived in Austin, and had plenty of samples before and after the switch. He was not a tuba player, and I started going to those concerts even before I returned to the tuba (in fact, listening to Mike was one thing that forced me to start playing again, now 24 years ago). But I would describe that change in words wholly unsuited to the task, such as "friendly" and "present" rather than "commanding" and "intimidating", and as I think back on it, I think the difference had more to do with how the sound approached me than its particular harmonic characteristics.

One of the things that we sometimes forget is that we have two ears. Those two ears are very good at sensing the subtle changes in phase shift that allow our brain to distinguish direction. My notion of "present" is that the sound seems to come to me from all directions at once as if I was in the same small room with it, rather than coming directly to me from "way down there" (I sat in the back of the mezzanine--a good distance from the stage). It seemed more intimate because of that, and that may be what leads to the sense of it being more friendly, whereas the Alex seemed to say "you can't get away from me even way back there in the mezzanine". I doubt seriously that such an effect could be captured in any recording, and certainly not a stereo recording. (I run into the same issue with photography. There is no way a photograph can capture the sense of space present in the scene, and the best it can do is portray that sense of space using what constitutes illusion. Our brains have to reconstruct that sense of space in our heads, and thus we require the memory of it before the recording can do any good.) The propagation characteristic may be the most important distinguishing element between a fat tuba and a tall tuba. If all that is more than just post-mortem fantasy, then it could explain why my small and big tubas didn't display the difference expected in the small room.

Rick "always thinking about dispersion and propagation" Denney

bill wrote:

I love Mike Davis's latest sig quote from Steve Martin: Talking about music is like dancing about architecture. It's good to want real examples, but the best place to get them is in your nearest concert hall.

I actually first heard that attributed to Thelonius Monk, in a New Yorker article, many years ago. But it is a great line!

It's also been attributed to Frank Zappa, Elvis Costello and others. I believe the original quotation goes back a bit further:

"Talking about love is like dancing about architecture." -- Immanuel Kant