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I am a freelance bass trombone player in the DC area and lately, I have been working a decent amount in the musical theater genre. I know a number of shows call for a bass trombone/tuba doubler.

I have been entertaining the idea of buying a tuba to make myself more marketable in that arena. I have heard of players doing this on Eb tubas. Does anybody have any thoughts or experience in this area?

I been a doubler for about 10 years now. I started on Eb and gravitated to a small BBb. I don't think it matters really. You just have to look around until you find the combination that fits you and the kind of playing you do. They create those double parts because they want both sounds in different places and they don't want to pay two players. Be sure you get to a place where you sound like a tuba player on tuba and a bass trombone on bass trombone. I do my bass trombone work in a symphonic setting and my tuba playing is all quintet, so my experience won't quite translate to what you want to do. Have a ball with it.

As a guy who started his career as predominantly a bass trombone player, I have been doing some heavy tuba doubling professionally over the last year or so.

If you're just worried about making yourself available for those doubling-type shows, then it doesn't really matter what you play; you'll find bass bone players playing tubas in all keys for various reasons, from "I have trouble not thinking in Bb" to " I find this little C/Eb/F tuba the easiest to fill". If it's a horn you're only going to be playing on the occasional doubling gig, you're best bet is to try as many tubas as you can get your grubby little hands on, and see which one is instantly most comfortable. Like I said, some people find the fingering/slide position relationship of a Bb tuba works best with their brain, others prefer the smaller air requirements of an Eb, F, or small CC and BBb tubas.

However...

If you want to be more than someone who sits in the doubling chair, and actually go and and get some serious tuba gigs, you might need to go and get a horn that is a little more difficult to play, at first, but is more likely to bring home the bread. People are a little more forgiving in terms of sound when they know you're playing two instruments on a gig, but not so much when you're there as the tuba player.

Some horns to think about:

Yamaha YFB-822 - pitched in F, compact blow, not an air hog, sounds more like a C tuba than an F tuba to my ears, can really pump the low range, sounds great on a mic. Popular choice for doublers and tuba players alike on shows/recording sessions.

Yamaha or Besson compensating Eb - A little bigger in sound, able to cut it in any ensemble.

A 4/4 CC or BBb - think Mirafone 186 etc, popular in studios for years. These horns are going to emphasise the low range a little more, and tend to lack the resistance down low that you get with the higher key tuba. Resistance can be useful when you're not in touch with the horn as often as you like, but the sound is definitely different.

I bought myself a Rudolf Meinl 3/4 CC about a year ago, partly because I first played some tuba at university level on a CC (A Mirafone 184), and also because I decided that if I was going to be a tuba player, I wanted the sort of low range I only hear tuba players get out of CC or BBb tubas. Despite the name, the Rudy is a 4/4, the response is good, it has a nice, even, predictable blow, and I love the sound. I can pretty much take it to any of the ensembles you'll find in the freelance world, from medium sized orchestras to brasss quintets, it'll work anywhere. Sometimes I'd like a smaller/bigger horn, but when you're already playing various other instruments from day to day, having one middle of the road horn is the safest bet.

There's no simple answer when it comes to instrument choice, just beg/borrow/steal as many horns as you can to try, and see what speaks to you most.

And have fun! Tuba playing is terrific fun, and something I wish I'd gotten serious about a long time ago. It's just that much fun!

Andrew (who's about to dust off the Rudy for some school gigs next week)

Fun is right! Having done the double for a few years now I can honestly say I wish I had been a tuba player from the start.

I would recommend against a BBb, for the simple reason that one of the most popular shows in the world right now and for the foreseeable future is The Lion King, which requires multiple pedal C's loud and soft. One of them ends the first act, alone. They DO NOT want it to sound like a doubler struggling with all his/her valves down. It should be an open pedal note. I'm told this works fine on a good Eb or that Yamaha 822 F, but when Lion King first came to Boston they had the local contractor hold an audition for the chair (weird, huh?) and gave him specific instruction that the part should be played on a CC tuba. I don't think they are being as specific anymore, but if you can't play a good pedal C the conductor will ask the contractor not to bring you back.

I started out by borrowing a 3/4 Rudy CC - lucky me; it's a beautiful horn but I found that small piston tubas feel much more familiar to my bass trombone orientation. I ended up getting an excellent deal on a Conn 3J from Dave Fedderly at Baltimore Brass. It has 4 valves and sometimes I wish I had a fifth, but the 1st valve slide is in a good place to pull for the low F, Eb and sometimes D, and this horn has such good false tones that I can play D, Db and even soft pedal C with false fingerings and make them work well (as long as I am practicing them of course).

Dan, you're lucky to live so close to Baltimore Brass. You can go visit several times to try lots of horns and get a feel for what works for you, and you can also trust Dave to pick out a good tuba for you and make good recommendations. I did it by phone, and his assessment of my tuba was right on. Dillon Music also always has a good selection of tubas, and Matt Walters is also very helpful.

Mouthpiece is another issue worth taking some time to figure out. I find that I have an outer limit of rim diameter, and if I go beyond it I scoop lots of notes and miss lots of partials - and then my bass tbn mouthpiece feels really weird afterwards. For me, that's about the size of a Schilke Helleberg (not Helleberg II), but ideally just a little smaller, like a Conn Helleberg 7B: 1.25 or 1.26 inches. These are real tuba mouthpieces, but almost always smaller than the ones your friends in orchestras play on their big horns. If you're like me, the Helleberg 7B is a good all-around mouthpiece that you can test out tubas with, but some people do better by going with a larger diameter and a smaller cup volume, like the Yamaha Roger Bobo mouthpiece. Once you've bought a tuba you'll want to do a more extensive mouthpiece search to find the best match for your horn. Tubas are much more mouthpiece sensitive than trombones, and you'll find that mouthpieces that feel very similar to you will vary widely in how the partials line up on particular tubas. Bring a tuner for this.

My go-to tuba mouthpiece now is a Warburton TG3 (which I think is now called TG25, not sure why), and I also have a Floyd Cooley Helleberg, which sounds a little bigger in the low range. These are not cheap mouthpieces, but it's worth it for me because the tuning of my horn lines up much better with both of these mouthpieces than with other options in the same size ballpark.

Have fun!

A big Eb is a great double for a trombonist. Agile, easy to play, big sound,... If you're going to learn a new set of partials (which I think is a bigger problem than valve/slide relationships) for a double Eb gives you more advantages than C.
Low C on a good Bb tuba is a pretty sweet note. If one can't play that, one probably shouldn't be try to play tuba for money (speaking in general, not specifically)...
For a smaller, second horn for quintet with no serious need to be able to use it for shows, the Cerveny 653 and MW 182 are wonderful little horns. You'd probably have to be a hoss to make them work for "SOUND LIKE A TUBA" musicals and such though.

Bob Kolada wrote: Low C on a good Bb tuba is a pretty sweet note. If one can't play that, one probably shouldn't be try to play tuba for money (speaking in general, not specifically)... .

The C in question is a pedal C on a CC tuba, but on BBb it is all four valves down plus pull one or more slides a lot. This note requires blowing through 32 FEET of brass tubing and either does not slot well or is very stuffy on many BBb tubas, vs 16 feet as an open pedal on a CC tuba (or EEb tuba with 1&2 down.)
Asking even a good doubler to blow through 32 feet of tubing is a lot to ask, especially on something that really needs to be punched, when a much clearer 16 foot alternative is available.
Note: on my son's little 3 valve Conn 12J BBb, that low C false tones nicely on 1&2 and can be played as soft or loud as needed. However, false tones vary greatly among different models and do tend to have at least a slightly different timbre from fully valves notes.

I know what note that is.

I've see the Lion King part in question, and I would never want to use a BBb tuba for it. C tuba just "fits" the part a heck of a lot better. It works ok on F tuba too, but I guess then it's just a question of if it's the right amount of weight in the tone. Noodling around on my Cerveny it sits pretty easy, and the pedal C can really *thwack* out at you (no one ever talks about that C).