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I just got back from Dillon Music to drop of my tuba, and took an hour to try everything in the shop. That's always fun. And there were a couple trumpet players in the shop, too. A couple really young guys and an older jazz guy.

It was interesting to me to hear the different things we do to evaluate a horn. I heard a lot of people trying the most difficult licks they know, to see if it was easier, I guess. I don't think I ever get anything out of that, though. I pretty much follow the same patterns with each horn:

1. Stay in F on an F tuba, C on a C tuba, etc. No reason to think about what you're doing when you're listening and observing so much.

2. Alternating between slow lyrical stuff and slurred fast scales, to check response, sound, and clarity.

3. Repeated staccato notes ranging in dynamics from silence to fffffff and back, to check response and see what the tendencies of the horn are at dynamic extremes.

4. Check the entire range of the horn, high to low, and transitioning between registers a lot.

5. Lots of octaves and slow arpeggios to check intonation.

I don't really thing 15 minutes or whatever is really quite long enough to get a good impression of a new tuba, but I think I got a lot of good information today with what I played.

What do you do? What do you recommend?

I don't believe in play testing because it's virtually impossible to know a horn in fifteen minutes. I simply buy it at a price where I can resell it down the road if I decide I don't like it.

This pretty much rules out buying anything new.

1+

Fine, so I rephrase.

GIVEN: That you know you won't know everything about this tuba in the time it takes to tell a seller whether you want to buy it, without pissing said seller off, and

GIVEN: That you have too many gigs and too gratifying a life and not enough liquid assets to go buying tubas willy-nilly and then just selling them all off all the freaking time, and

GIVEN: That you're in a room full of tubas, have an hour, and want to see what those tubas are like and whether you'd ever consider looking further into owning it or something like it --

What do you do?

1) Find the biggest tuba and play The Ride as loud and annoyingly imitatively professional as possible

2) Find a small tuba and try to play it like a big tuba.

At least that's what I THINK people seem to ACTUALLY do...

pierso20 wrote:1) Find the biggest tuba and play The Ride as loud and annoyingly imitatively professional as possible

2) Find a small tuba and try to play it like a big tuba.

At least that's what I THINK people seem to ACTUALLY do...

What do YOU do?



This place sucks at discussion. Better at arguments. BUY CHINESE.

1) Play it poorly

2) ???

3) try another one

ginnboonmiller wrote:

This place sucks at discussion. Better at arguments. BUY CHINESE.

The beautiful thing about the internet is that no one HAS to discuss something merely because someone posted a query.

Isn't the REAL question here why you want to know what other people do in the first place? And, while satirical, my response DOES reflect on experiences I have had in watching people play test. So while it isn't my personal "technique" there is still validity to this in adding to the "discussion".

pierso20 wrote:
Isn't the REAL question here why you want to know what other people do in the first place?

Absolutely not. Especially because I put that in the original post.

The real question is, are you afraid to talk about how you evaluate tubas you haven't played before?

(That's not the real question either, but screw it.)

Play Stairway to Heaven?

bloke wrote:I play the Ride, Meistersinger, Fountains, and Rákóczi March as loud as I possibly can about sixty-five times each, and if I can still hear anything else going on in the elephant room, I strive to notch it up a little bit more.

edit: With apologies for redundancy, I see now that someone else (basically) already posted the same thing...

------------------------------------

b.s. aside...
The first time I played a 5450 (and it was a good one), I knew those were good tubas after about ten seconds. Within a year or so, I found another (used) good one (about 500 miles away...' drove there to get it), and still own it.
When I played the (a "stock" 2165 at that time) 6/4 tuba that I now have (with which - after some extraordinary alterations - I'm extremely pleased), I could tell it had "good bones" ...also after about ten seconds.

I played both in "elephant rooms", and only played a couple of scales and arpeggios on each (the "sample" 5450, and "actual" 2165) of those tubas. Later, when I bought the 5450 that I now own, the valve guide slots in the casings were too screwed up to be able to play anything melodic. The sound and pitch were as good as the one that I had previously tried. I bought it (used) without quibbling on the previously-agreed-to price, and spent about 30 minutes fixing the valve guide slots when I got home with it.

Seriously, all "good" tubas are "good" RIGHT AWAY, all "suck" tubas "suck" RIGHT AWAY, and all "run-of-the-mill" tubas are "run-of-the-mill" RIGHT AWAY. I'm old. I don't have time to "learn" how to play a tuba so that it won't suck.

+1 .Play something you are very familiar with and have memorized with a few mouthpieces. I also do long tones and search for stuffy, or out-of-tune notes, with full chromatics and then move up to 8ths with chromatics. Its a little longer than Blokes test but I agree you will be able to tell quickly if its worth its salt. All horns will have its quirks but it has to grab you right after you play it and make a connection of "this is the sound and feel I have been looking for."

*This comes from a couple of different sources. One of them worked for Meinl Weston and tested tubas*

Play something you are very familiar with. The go-to test I use is Rochut 16. Play something legato so you can really hear and feel how the horn responds. Also, try to have someone tell you how the horn is sounding in the room. Lots of horns can sound good to you but can project a lot different (better or worse) than what you are hearing.

I've tested a few horns over the years and developed a system and approach that works for me.

The first thing, from the very first note, is the sound quality. When you play the first note, one of two things will happen. Either your brain will relax and say "Ahhhhh....", or it will go "Eeeuuuuggghh" and you unconsciously will start changing things (air, embouchure, jaw position, etc) to try to GET the right sound. If the 2nd of these two things happens, put the horn down right away and walk away. The horn won't play the way you want it to and you are now "chasing" the horn, trying to get your sound out of it. This rarely works as you have to change what you do to get it to work for you.

Once I've established that it has my sound without having to do anything different, I check tuning. I use a rather obtuse method of doing this as we can influence pitch unconsciously while playing and not get a true feel for where the tuning is. We can all play scales all day long on just about any horn and get a good result. I test tuning with a good meter using a circle of tritones and sevenths as these are the hardest intervals to predict accurately so therefore harder to influence by the player.

During or after the tuning test I check for playability in all registers. Face it - we all earn most of our money in the low register - this is the CASH register. It has to let you get around there comfortably with good flexibility to be worth keeping. That's a range you don't want to "settle" for. The high range also has to be easy and pretty well in tune as any horn needs to be relatively versatile for various types of playing.

Next thing is to see how easy the horn lets me get around on it. Valves need to be light and smooth and slurring needs to be easy in all registers. The horn needs to fit the player well. You're not straining to reach up to the leadpipe, it has to fit you ergonomically so just sitting with the horn and getting comfortable with it is something to consider.

Then it's just a matter of pricing if the horn fits you well in all aspects.

Just my experience.
Roger

Quick disclaimer - I don't play test often, this is just what I did when I bought my horn at the Tuba Exchange a few years ago:

How I quick-test a tuba:
Hold the horn - figure out if I can hold if comfortably in my lap or should it sit on the chair? Does the mouthpipe line up correctly for me?
Warm up first on some familiar tunes/scales. Nothing too complicated or loud just to get the horn warm.
Once warm:
Test the spit valve. It should have something in it by now. Did I just wet the floor or my leg?
Play 4 quick scales and arpeggios - not all of them, pick 3-4 (F, Bb, Eb, Ab) This is to check range/intonation.
IF anything feels stuffy in those scales, try tuning it out with a quick slide pull or tuning slide adjustment. Could I reach the slides ok? Most horns the answer is yes.
Play something slower that I'm really familiar with to make sure I like the sound of the horn. IF the sound is funny, but the horn is overall ok, then try a different mouthpiece.

When I did this, I planned a little over an hour to test 3-4 horns. Some new, some used. I tested 3, found 1 that I liked more than the others (in my price range) and moved on with life. I've been happily playing since then.

bloke wrote:Why is it that when I "try out" tubas I NEVER notice whether they "fit" me (physically) or not?

Are they ALL "built" to fit 6' 1" tall medium-overweight guys, or do I just turn this this-way-or-that so that they're comfortable to hold?

They can't all be built to fit 6'-1", moderately overweight guys.
I sure had some trouble finding a comfortable position with some that I've tried at events like Tuba Christmas.
I'm 6'-0", 220lb.