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• In your experience, if you get a tuba, new or used, to what extent has it "played-in" over time?
  Is it more that we learn to play the particular tuba or does a horn really 'change' by being played by the same player for a period?
  Do you have anything you routinely do to a new (to you) tuba to help the process?
  When you try a new tuba do you expect it to be as good as it's going to be straight away?

I'm talking mainly about resonance & response I suppose more than mechanical things.

I've joined Brass Bands that insist I use one of their Besson/B&H Eb tubas; some play great straight away so I just get on with playing them. Others have had some pitches hard to centre or a stuffy low end etc etc. In that case I'll give them a warm soak in the bath and usually find a bunch of crap come out of the tuba. Passing a cleaning snake through the leadpipe in particular is always a joy of course (I always keep a sick-bucket handy).
Apart from that I don't do anything.

Just wondering what others do...

Thanks,
MP

Peach wrote:

• In your experience, if you get a tuba, new or used, to what extent has it "played-in" over time?
  Is it more that we learn to play the particular tuba or does a horn really 'change' by being played by the same player for a period?
  Do you have anything you routinely do to a new (to you) tuba to help the process?
  When you try a new tuba do you expect it to be as good as it's going to be straight away?

I'm talking mainly about resonance & response I suppose more than mechanical things.

I've joined Brass Bands that insist I use one of their Besson/B&H Eb tubas; some play great straight away so I just get on with playing them. Others have had some pitches hard to centre or a stuffy low end etc etc. In that case I'll give them a warm soak in the bath and usually find a bunch of crap come out of the tuba. Passing a cleaning snake through the leadpipe in particular is always a joy of course (I always keep a sick-bucket handy).
Apart from that I don't do anything.

Just wondering what others do...

Thanks,
MP

I think you have answered much of your own question. I for one do not believe that playing on an instrument for months or years can make it a significantly better instrument; it only makes the player a significantly better player. Valve alignment often can make a big difference, as well.

I am a believer in that instruments are effected by the player and from a period of 'in-playing'. Many are not. The player is also influenced by the horn. Maybe this is some of the things that can be discussed over and over...

Some of it has been talked about earlier in for example the below threads but deserves new insights:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=46560#p402335

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=45845#p396560

You know what i do when I play a different tuba? Play. I just act like I've played it before

Yeah, I'd agree that there is no change to the metal.

Suppose hypothetically two players got two new tubas at the same time; the same model. At the time of buying they both thought each tuba played as well as the other. Let's say though that player A is a big-time Symphony pro and player B is a below average amateur. After a couple of years they have reason to meet up and try each others tubas again. Can they still not decide between the tubas or has something happened, and if so, what?

I don't know...

I have always wondered if the tarnishing of the inside of the pipes and vibration relieving stresses over time might be what playing-in a tuba does?

They certainly seem to improve in feel in the first 3 months. It could be put down to the player getting accustomed to the tuba, but then what about when it is just another tuba of the type they are familiar. I remember a Besson 981 my band got while I was there played nothing like my own 981 a few years old.

This is a very interesting question and impossible to measure objectively.

One thing to keep in mind is that I've heard that the Besson tubas can be very inconsistent so don't be surprised when you find two that play very differently.

Regards

Gerard (I didn't really answer the question)

I believe that the playing-in process to which you refer is actually the player learning and adapting to the idiosyncrasies of the new tuba. The longer you play the instrument, the more familiar with it you become and the better the instrument seems to you. Changing a tuba's playing characteristics is the same logic as when I said to my former teacher, Paul Krzywicki after we both lifted one of his instruments destined for sale due to his retirement, "Did you ever notice that the older a tuba gets, the heavier it gets?" Another former teacher, Mr. Torchinsky said, when I asked him about his King CC tuba, " It was a great tuba, once I learned to play it." Mr. Torchinsky did not make his King tuba a great tuba by playing it. He became familiar with its peculiarities (...and did the old Kings have some peculiarities. I know. I owned one, briefly.) As a previous post said,

You know what i do when I play a different tuba? Play. I just act like I've played it before

My experience is that when a player gets a new or new to him (or her) instrument they tend to practice a bit more than usual - thus after a month or two of increased practice the horn sounds better because the player is playing better because of increased practice time. Just my 2 cents, Phil

Peach wrote:Suppose hypothetically two players got two new tubas at the same time; the same model. At the time of buying they both thought each tuba played as well as the other. Let's say though that player A is a big-time Symphony pro and player B is a below average amateur. After a couple of years they have reason to meet up and try each others tubas again. Can they still not decide between the tubas or has something happened, and if so, what?

I've had professionals praise some of my tubas, no matter who played them in the past. Certainly my Holton has never been regularly played by a high-end performer (though it was owned for a while as a future project instrument by a pro). Yet some who have played it thought it a very decent big tuba. My Yamaha F tuba was never played by a high-end performer (I bought it new), but it has been considered among the best of the breed by pros who have played it. That F tuba answers the question directly: It was declared decent, and the equivalent of the one he owned, by an orchestra pro with whom I was studying at the time. He had an occasion to play it again 16 or 18 years later, and he thought it as good as it had been when he tried it before I bought it. A couple of pros have bought that model of tuba on the strength of having played mine. They were certainly not making that decision on the way I played it.

If an instrument "plays in" then there are two possibilities: 1.) It benefits from looser tolerances and increased crud (which is possible, though not a great recommendation for the instrument), or 2.) the player becomes accustomed to it enough to get the most from it (which, with pros at least, is typical).

Rick "thinking the traditional British practice of coating the tuba's innards with milk rather disgusting" Denney

Rick Denney wrote:

Peach wrote:Suppose hypothetically two players got two new tubas at the same time; the same model. At the time of buying they both thought each tuba played as well as the other. Let's say though that player A is a big-time Symphony pro and player B is a below average amateur. After a couple of years they have reason to meet up and try each others tubas again. Can they still not decide between the tubas or has something happened, and if so, what?

I've had professionals praise some of my tubas, no matter who played them in the past. Certainly my Holton has never been regularly played by a high-end performer (though it was owned for a while as a future project instrument by a pro). Yet some who have played it thought it a very decent big tuba. My Yamaha F tuba was never played by a high-end performer (I bought it new), but it has been considered among the best of the breed by pros who have played it. That F tuba answers the question directly: It was declared decent, and the equivalent of the one he owned, by an orchestra pro with whom I was studying at the time. He had an occasion to play it again 16 or 18 years later, and he thought it as good as it had been when he tried it before I bought it. A couple of pros have bought that model of tuba on the strength of having played mine. They were certainly not making that decision on the way I played it.

If an instrument "plays in" then there are two possibilities: 1.) It benefits from looser tolerances and increased crud (which is possible, though not a great recommendation for the instrument), or 2.) the player becomes accustomed to it enough to get the most from it (which, with pros at least, is typical).

Rick "thinking the traditional British practice of coating the tuba's innards with milk rather disgusting" Denney

Rick, thanks for your response.

Things we have learnt during the thread:
We can (almost) all agree that an instrument doesn't 'play-in', rather a player learns an instrument. I don't think this is necessarily attributable to Professional level players though.
What is also true though is that if one allows a tuba to become full of enough crud, its performance will suffer. When cleaned it will miraculously play far better (who knew!?).

By the way, I've never heard of any Nationality of tuba player coating the internals with milk. Quite a few British tuba players are quite disgusting and they and their instruments smell bad enough without any help however.
I've heard stories about (British) Horn players and always wondered what on Earth that would smell like. Still, often a breed apart those Horn chaps...

Cheers,
MP

Peach wrote:By the way, I've never heard of any Nationality of tuba player coating the internals with milk.

It may have been euphonium players. The practice was imported by Harold Brasch (who also brought Besson/Boosey euphoniums to our military bands), who apparently believed it to be beneficial. As I said when this was discussed in the past, every preacher has his heresy.

Do a search of Tubenet (just Tubenet--leave out the off-topic subforums) on "milk" and you'll find many references to the practice. And the further back they go, the more British they get, heh.

Rick "who would not want to own an instrument that improves when filled with gunk" Denney

I'm playing in a choral ensamble where they have a MW 200 spezial, and i would like to make a copy of it, i'd like to know how could i do about the alloy i'll need, what would be the ways that the material is worked, how is the composition of german tubas to produce a full and dark sound? I have a friend who is a brass luthier but i wouldn't know what would be the word for this kind of artisans in english. He offered me to make an exact copy of the melton, he repaired my F tuba and it plays very well,

Tigerreydelaselva wrote:..... I have a friend who is a brass luthier .........

1. Even in Español the definition of a luthier is someone who works on string instruments. The term instrument maker, or instrument repairman is usually fine in English.


2. Post in another (new) thread, you will get more attention that way.