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I used to be a military bandsman (1977 - 1985). But on leaving the army found very few playing opportunities. This, coupled with a loathing of most of the literature I'd played in the army, led me to give up the tuba in favour of the bass guitar. However about 5 years back I got a hankering to revisit the low brass domain. I found it a bit of a nightmare finding a cheap EEb but stumbled across a listing on our favourite auction site for a (very) unfamiliar looking BBb & took the plunge. It turned out to be a Besson (paris) instrument of a type I'd never seen before. I checked on the old Besson website for the serial number (32672) & it appears to be dated to 1869! The instrument is playable but has a pitch somewhere between A-Ab!!! It did the job of getting me back to playing though & I used it to practice on until I got my Lidl BBb helicon. Since then I have found an EEb which I love & both old basses have been made into wall decorations but maintained in playing condition should that eventuality occur.
I brought the besson down to clean & oil the other day & took the opportunity to take some pics to share. It has a really unusual valve slide wrap that I thought you'd like to see.
Closer view of the valve slide wrap
I'll post some more pics when I get the chance

Cheers

Russ

I find the French Besson numbers list it between 1884-1887
http://www.horn-u-copia.net/Bessonlist.html" target="_blank

Still, that's a wild-looking wrap, with the end valve tubing going out one side and into the other ala berlin valves!

Would it not be around A-Bb if that loop were taken out of the tuning slide?

Cheers,
Mike

High pitch/Low pitch, most likely...

J.c.S.

The standard of A=435 was established by a French Commission in 1859, and in 1887 this was formally adopted by the Vienna Congress, an international conference on musical pitch (A=440 came later).

But that is nowhere near a half step- whole step.

Mike... Thanks for the head's up on the date.... Must bookmark that site this time!!

As to the pitch. I'm not sure that the lead pipe hasn't been altered at some time (for who know's WHAT reason!). I do know that the valves are FAR later in the wrap than modern instruments, much more akin to a rotary valve layout. Also the leadpipe enters the 3rd valve & exits the first. It has tuning slides BOTH sides of the valves, although the one sandwiched between the first valve & the bell is a bugger to get to. You can just see it behind the main part of the wrap at the top of the last pic I posted. The mouthpiece reciever is HUGE. I don't own a mouthpiece with a shank large enough to touch the sides. The valves themselves are tiny in comparison to modern bessons however in both height & width. I took some pics comparing the instrument & valves to my boosey EEb comp. I'll post them tomorrow when I get home.

Cheers

Russ

windshieldbug wrote:The standard of A=435 was established by a French Commission in 1859, and in 1887 this was formally adopted by the Vienna Congress, an international conference on musical pitch (A=440 came later).

But that is nowhere near a half step- whole step.

And High Pitch was often used in Miliatary bands on both continents, which could range as High as A=457; nearly a half step.

J.c.S.

It's not 1869. What you have, though, is rare: it is a fine example of the Besson Enharmonic system, which was developed to compete with Blaikley's (now standard) "automatic compensating" system. It's more likely from 1880's, since Boosey put the Blakley system into production in the mid-1870's.

Here's how it works: the 3rd valve is a change valve. When the valve is not depressed, flow is through to the "shorter" valve slide set to get the usual open, 2nd & 1st valve positions. When you depress the 3rd valve, the flow is routed to the other set of valve slides which are longer in proportion to get 2+3 and 1+3 in tune.

Bottom line G and other notes we now play conventionally as 1+2, except for 2nd line B nat, is preferred 3rd valve alone on this tuba.

If there are problems with flat pitch, it could be valve misalignment or improper corking & felting, obstructing the complex ports. It should play in relatively decent tune.

Great tuba. Is it as heavy as has been traditionally reported? The weight, along with the relative complexity and occasionally stuffiness you report are the reasons it fell out of favor and was overtaken by the now-standard comp system.

There is another possibility for being flat: it could have been a low pitch horn to begin with that lost its main tuning slide, and a longer "conversion" tuning slide from a converted high pitch horn was fitted to it. Since the difference between old high pitch and low pitch was not quite a half step, this could explain why the horn seems to play in between the pitches on the low side.