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This past week has given me some more insight on this generally vague and subjective topic.

I have never really understood the difference between German and American sound. I've heard the classic bright vrs dark... and I don't agree with that and I've also heard German=trombone while American= String Bass... and I'm not sure I agree with this either.

While sitting next to a person with a Rudy 3/4 , playing the firebird, something had caught my ear. His horn CUTS through the ensemble, while mine (ECB-632) seems to BLEND more with the string basses... which brought my opinion at a crossroads. From hear I thought to myself "Well maybe another definition is that one instrument has an identity while the other diffuses into the ensemble."

I thought I had figured it out... but then.

I played in another ensemble with a person who had a Rusk cut 6/4 York. We swapped horns for a song and once again I felt like an idiot on this subject.

HIS HORN CUT THROUGH THE ENSEMBLE TOO! F@#$!

The outright definition of American sound- York tuba... But it did not diffuse. IT ALSO CUT.

So then I've reached a mild conclusion.... No I haven't...


Other than. A tuba is a tuba. Thinking German vs American is stupid. If you like the sound and personality of the instrument then it is YOUR kind of tuba.

They didn't think so in the 1940's.

At the national brass ensemble concert in Chicago, we were told by Muti that what we get to hear from the musicians is their souls. On the other end of the musical spectrum, jazz players use the same term (soul) frequently to review one's performance. In a lesson I was told, "that thing doesn't make a sound until you pick it up". It's another way of expressing the same thing, at least to me. I'm 25% percent German, I wonder if that matters?

bloke wrote:

pjv wrote:They didn't think so in the 1940's.

no, they didn't...but supporting a bloodthirsty Marxist to defeat a bloodthirsty fascist was (if not stupid) epically pointless and wasteful...

bloke "...and resulted in 60M deaths anyway "

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Tubas sound like the horrible, adequate, or fine players who operate them.

Not completely.

It took another 50yrs but the bloodthirsty Marxists finally got theirs too!!

I can't help but think of Schiller; the American Tradition of German tubas made in China.

Gets me to laughing every time!!

I guess I take these questions as the authors really wants an honest opinion. Well, when I listen to an American sound versus a German Sound horn, I can tell right away which it is. To me, the American sound is mellower, more like the big pipes on a pipe organ. The German sound is sharper or brighter. The German horns seem more middle/high harmonics emphasized versus a fuller spectrum on the American horn. I hope this helps you.

I have recently switched in preference from the "German" sound to the "American" sound. It occured to me when I was doing side-by-side comparisons between my old PT-10 and my new Getzen G-60. The PT-10 was a great horn. It had a solid fundamental and it had a sound that reached every person in the auditorium. I gave it up to get the G-60, which is very much in the York family. The G-60 has much more color to the sound because of how alive the overtone series is. From my perspective, each horn cuts and blends in a different way, but they can still do both.

Hand an experienced trumpet player a cornet for the first time and see how they sound. The instrument may help or hinder your sound concept, but it isn't going to change it fundamentally.

I'm not quite sure how to describe what I hear, but I think there is a very clear difference. Here's one example that really struck me recently. This is the Vienna Philharmonic Fanfare... the first version is by the VPO brass (yeah, don't call them "German," but that's the style we're talking about), and the second version is by the US Air Force Band. Both are played at the highest level of competency, and in different settings... but listen to the tuba sounds, they are starkly different. No offense to the USAF Band, but to my ears, their version sounds soft and wrong to me -- I think it's the wrong instrument for the wrong piece of music.





Maybe not true for every case and every tuba, but I think it's a pretty clear difference. Not to mention, it's not just for the tubas -- there are all kinds of non-muffled German-style brass instruments out there.

bloke wrote:Do not most wind bands (regardless of whether beginners or virtuosi) generally offer a "mezzo" type of sound - strongly encouraged by their conductors - that seems to be reflected/offered forth by all of the players?

Not the German ones.

So, then you agree that there IS a difference. That's my only point.

Ever heard Walter Hilgers play sousaphone?
I'd say it's 90+% schooling and environment...

In the first clip the tuba had this gross "whah" sound on almost every release. The USAF clip was a lot more moving overall, and suffered no particular lack of tubage. Smarter arrangement and more disciplined dynamics surely helped: as usual, superior engineering and packaging trump traditional quality.

Forget blending and cutting. Get a 25J and OBLITERATE everyone!

TheGoyWonder wrote:In the first clip the tuba had this gross "whah" sound on almost every release.

Fair enough, although I think the fact that it was recorded from behind/within the group has a lot to do with that.

The USAF clip was a lot more moving overall, and suffered no particular lack of tubage. Smarter arrangement and more disciplined dynamics surely helped: as usual, superior engineering and packaging trump traditional quality.

I didn't care for the sound of the USAF clip at all. First time I listened to it, I had to turn it off, and I thought the tuba sound was, frankly, kind of silly. But, it's all personal preference. There's no denying it's played at a very high level, but I just didn't like it, and it's not what I strive for in my sound.

Yeah, yeah...

There's probably something else out there, but for this specific piece, I didn't find very much and didn't look very hard. (I forgot that I would have to pass the TubeNet scrutiny! ) Frankly, my respectful dislike of the USAF version was the starting point for making a comparison between groups for this piece. I'd find a different set of examples, but you get the point.

hrender wrote:Are we characterizing the playing style or the horns being played? I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the USAF band tuba section is playing German horns.

Yep, I'm sure they probably are. But they probably aren't rotary.

Uh oh, it's degrading back in to the same old discussion again...

hrender wrote:

bort wrote:

hrender wrote:Are we characterizing the playing style or the horns being played? I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the USAF band tuba section is playing German horns.

Yep, I'm sure they probably are. But they probably aren't rotary.

Dunno, you make the call: https://youtu.be/PVjzwSnH4U0?t=1m21s

From another vid: https://youtu.be/uJF9qC6_gqE?t=28m25s

See, just like I said.

Anyway, whatever it was, I just didn't like the sound on that recording.

bloke wrote:Someone come down here.
Bring your fishin' pole, some tubas, and some recording equipment.
Tell me which tubas you want to sound "German", and which tubas you want to sound "American".
We can upload those recordings, link 'em to tubenet, and "prove" stuff...
...and you can have a great time fishin' at blokeplace.

I want to hear a Miraphone 186 sound like a 6/4 York. That's what too many conductors seem to think is possible. I don't think it is, but maybe I just haven't been eating enough blokeplace fish!

Gotta jump in. We may as all be all wet.
I'm having a hard time thinking that the choice of instrument really has that much to do with German vs. American.

Since I happen to be one of those 'pompous *** picayune types' that 'blows smoke' as a conductor, I often think in terms many brass players do not. In this case I am referring more to the "elements of style" in German performance as opposed to American. How does a traditionally trained German player shape his notes? The difference in types of accents, (martelato, marcato, piccato, staccatos, legato. How is the tongue exercised in relation to the attack. How does the German place emphasis and de-emphasis on notes in a phrase compared to the American who generally blows all the notes rather homogeneously? How does he treat agogic vs dynamic accents? How about hesitation between notes? How about the frequency of breaths in between the notes in a heavy marcato bass line? There are also the influence in German music of the blasmusik (band) traditions. In American music there has been the influence of jazz and Hollywood style vibrato and more homogeneous phrasing. These to me are what make a traditional German tubaist sound different than an American.
I think that in a blind study, those who claim that German rotary tubas and American pistons would sound obviously different would be in for a surprise. In comparable sizes, I really believe the difference would be in the player and the way he was trained and prefers to play.

In an orchestra setting, brass players are trained to project and as such have rather distinctive sounds. In symphonic or military band settings, the "modus operandi" is to blend as a section. So making generalizations over crossed borders of genre doesn't work for me.

If anyone would isolate a German 6/4 from an American BAT, you will find difference in taper, metalurgy and mechanics. But there is so much overlap in instruments that I can not believe that the sound of a player would be much different out front on horns of similar size. Where as the elements of style would be markedly different. What a player senses under the bell of his horn, and what actually makes it through the enormous sound of the orchestra is quite different.

Oops!!! Then there is the MP size/volume issue. It just never ends.