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In many orchestras in Great Britain, top action tubas were often used (aka Besson / Boosey Eb's.)
In what other countries or cultures has this been commonplace?
In this country, if you showed up with something where the bell pointed the "wrong way," I am guessing you would get everything from funny looks to shown the door.

Didn't Wes Jacobs use a Yamaha 321 EEb occasionally in the Detroit Symphony? I kinda remember reading that somewhere, but I could be wrong. Didn't Robert Coulter do an equipment survey a lot of years ago? I remember it having Besson EEbs listed in it.

I would expect that anyplace that was a colony of Great Britain might also have a similar brass band tradition, then the Besson type EEbs might be used.

I would guess Australia; perhaps New Zealand as well. I happily await being corrected.

Interesting post Marty. If you watch that vintage video of the CSO under Hindemith playing Music for Brass, Strings and Percussion, you'll notice that Mr. Jacobs is on the other side of the Brass with his bell facing the "wrong" way. I have the Chelsea Sym set up that way. Due to space constraints, I'd be blowing directly into a wall if they didn't! I think having your sound go into the room instead of off to the side has a lot of advantages for blend and projection. Also, I believe, Paul Scott used to use one of his top action Martin BBb's in orchestras and always got raves from section players who liked hearing more of him.

My two cents,
Frank Ortega

Not really regular use, but I think it counts:

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Getzeng50s wrote:I did, in-fact, play this horn in the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra on a few pops concerts.
Easy to play, intonation is not hard to work with at all.
YSO seems to be turning into a chamber orchestra. Anything bigger was overkill by the music directors standards.

bloke wrote:I didn't even know that GB plays the tuba...!?!?

In the nude, at that!

Again i think it is a matter of tuba players worrying about bell direction much more than anyone else. Except perhaps for a bell front tuba, I truly doubt that anyone would notice or care one way or the other. I always thought it was strange that the tuba player would want his sound blowing right into the wings of most stages. I like using my Eb in orchestra. My sound goes out over the orchestra instead of into the wings.

ken k wrote:Again i think it is a matter of tuba players worrying about bell direction much more than anyone else. Except perhaps for a bell front tuba, I truly doubt that anyone would notice or care one way or the other. I always thought it was strange that the tuba player would want his sound blowing right into the wings of most stages.

I have rarely had anyone comment on the bell direction of my Neptune being the opposite of top valve Eb's common in these parts. If they comment at all it is on the tone, or size of the tuba.

It depends on the seating which way the sound goes - if the tuba is on the side to right of conductor then a left facing bell can project out to the audience and not into the wings. Mind you not sure how much difference of sound out in the hall? At a recent concert I was moved at half time interval from side to middle, yet listening to my H2 recording of concert, no difference to tuba sound with either seating was evident.