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I play a medium sized horn, and I've owned both larger and smaller tubas before.

Bigger tubas are annoying to haul through NYC.
Smaller tubas are easy to carry, but I've never played on that was really physically comfortable.

Regarding "blows", back in around 1972, I was reading , The Instrumentalist. I came across a full page ad for Getzen with Al Hirt holding the Getzen trumpet and looking at it and the caption was, "this horn really blows!" The ad wasn't in the magazine again. I wish I had saved it.

Regarding tubas,I'm too old (and shoulder pain) to lug a large horn around, but I was tempted to buy the BMB 6/4 CC. I still have a MW 3450, which is a large 3/4 or small 4/4 tuba - great horn, which might be for sale soon! I recently purchased the BMB 4/4 CC, which is a fairly large 4/4 (similar to the Besson 995 and Nirschl 4/4) and the BMB F which is medium sized piston F. My go to tuba for all of my trad. jazz, standing gigs and jamming with rock bands (haven't done much of that lately) is my Yamaha 621CC. It can easily be pushed too hard. (As the doctor said to the patient when the patient said, doc, it hurts when I do this and the doctor said, don't do that. ) Well, I don't push the Yammy too hard. It's light, has decent pitch and has a very free blowing low register. I'm thinking of getting a mic set up for it for times when I want more sound and others are miked. I can carry and play it all day and I use a bass guitar strap with heavy duty twisties to hold it.

I play large and small CC.

My Neptune is probably too much horn for every orchestra I play in, but the trombones just tend to relax when I bring it. And as most Neptune players will tell you, these horns can be surprisingly nimble and delicate in the sound when you need them to be.

My little horn is a Piggy. Perfect for small chamber groups and can comfortably support anything up to an orchestra without sounding puny. I might point you to my for sale add, but in truth I think I have actually decided to keep it. The Piggy is also a great candidate in some orchestra rep specifically (thinking Brahms 2 and some of the Berlioz stuff).

You mentioned the Yammy so I will recount my experience with it. I owned one for a while and just found that it did end up sounding puny to me in most of the settings I was trying to use it in. At the time I only had one horn so I knew that it was not going to be what I needed in retrospect. I made a mistake. It felt and sounded (to me) like a big euphonium and I just could not wrangle it in a way that was expressive and versatile. I chalk that up to my inadequacies as a player at the time though. Regardless, I did not like the way I sounded because I felt it was no replacement for the larger sound on other horns. ...Just disappointing.

If I had to choose an all-around instrument it would probably be a 4/4+ (not quite a 5/4 but larger than a 4/4 - realizing the x/4 system is relative, and probably BS...). The Yammy was not that for me. I had a very nice sit down with the BMB 4/4 CC mentioned above and would put it on my consideration list were I to decide to move to a single horn. I'm not getting any younger after all, and that Neptune is not getting any smaller. For now I enjoy having widely variant instruments and switching off can sometimes have a positive affect on my playing when I return to an instrument with a new take on things.

My problem with the small Yamaha is that it has a very clear volume "ceiling" for me when I play. It's VERY easy to play and is a real point-and-shoot horn. But it has a very clear limit, after which it doesn't sound nice (in my hands) anymore.

It's kind of like trying to drive fast without taking your car out of 2nd gear. You can get up to a decent speed, but there's a limit.

I find that on the Yamaha 621, I feel like it's a small horn and to me it sounds like a small horn, but when I hear recordings of me on it, it sounds like a tuba. It doesn't sound like what I think it sounds like. Maybe, that can be said about any tuba. After all, when we hear recordings of ourselves speaking, it doesn't usually sound like us to us.

I play a CC Yamaha 621 for everything right now because it is what I have. It is very nimble and a lot of fun to play. While I can play almost anything on it, I do find that supporting a medium ensemble is a lot of work, and a large ensemble is almost impossible. It also sounds small to me, but it sounds good on recordings. I probably will get a larger horn if the opportunity presents itself, although I will miss the portability.

Yes.

Holton 6/4 for large ensembles. Smaller instruments for smaller groups, right down to a Yamaha 621 F for when I have to stand and play.

The bigger instruments are more work to carry, but less work to play, and they promote good air flow. They also provide depth of sound, which is useful with larger groups, as long as I avoid getting woofy.

Rick "foreseeing a time when the elbow joints give out, though" Denney

scottshanks wrote:I play a CC Yamaha 621 for everything right now because it is what I have. It is very nimble and a lot of fun to play. . . . It also sounds small to me, but it sounds good on recordings. I probably will get a larger horn if the opportunity presents itself, although I will miss the portability.

Ditto.

I never play in a large ensemble, so that's not an issue for me, but I do sometimes crave the big, organ-like tones I've elicited from the big Rudi and Neptune I've had the chance to play.

[Notice the importance of punctuation in the phrase "big, organ-like tones."]

I play an antique Conn Monster Eb, so I guess it's a big little horn (apologies to Custer).

I have a Cerveny piggy as my small horn, a 188 as my middle horn, a 1292 as my sligthly larger horn and a Yorkbrunner as my big horn.

Roger