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I've never seen anything like this, looks like a left handed 4V rotary set up to be a bell-front instrument??? Looks to be either production or very well made custom.
https://youtu.be/ZLbeRa7f-fI

Looks like it was designed by a bari sax player. It totally makes sense.

Looks like a gimmick to get attention, and more tips.

bort wrote:Looks like a gimmick to get attention, and more tips.

Building (or rebuilding) a tuba to be left handed seems a lot of work for a gimmick, doesn't it? Or should we ask Oren Marshall perhaps?

Sure looks to me like his right hand is on the valves

I would expect to see a helicon in eastern Europe, this seems not much easier to hold, and on the street, more attention grabbing. This is on Charles Bridge, the epicenter of tourism in Prague.

bort wrote:Sure looks to me like his right hand is on the valves
...

Imagine, if you will, playing that horn with a normal lead pipe (e.g. wrapping around the bell from front to back). Or simply compare the layout of the valve actuating mechanisms with any the thousands of European designed tubas: Cerveny nearly everything; Miraphone nearly everything, etc., etc. - in the world. Perhaps I should have said "upside down" rather than "left handed", this is not a standard tuba with a retrofitted lead pipe.

From the looks of this old photo, I'd say the design is "nothing new" - a "tornister tuba" design applied to a full-size horn.



The valves on the horn in the video are set a little lower in the bugle, but it's the same principle.

My guess is it was a custom job from the get-go.

Or even earlier, some civil war Over-The-Shoulder tubas came with a curved shank that one could use to change the instrument to a bell-up when the use demanded it... (and still others were adapted that way after the war was over and you weren't marching in front of the troops)

roweenie wrote:

From the looks of this old photo, I'd say the design is "nothing new" - a "tornister tuba" design applied to a full-size horn.



The valves on the horn in the video are set a little lower in the bugle, but it's the same principle.

My guess is it was a custom job from the get-go.

windshieldbug wrote:Or even earlier, some civil war Over-The-Shoulder tubas came with a curved shank that one could use to change the instrument to a bell-up when the use demanded it... (and still others were adapted that way after the war was over and you weren't marching in front of the troops)

FWIW I own an original Cerveny BBb Tornisertuba and the remains of an OTS saxhorn.

My point was that the instrument in the video I posted was not accomplished by fabricating a lead pipe for an easily available modern tuba (which it appears to be) and not a "gimmick" add-on performed in an hour or so.

As I mentioned above, it appears to me to be either a production instrument or a skillfully designed and constructed custom instrument and not a quickie modification.

Examples of modern (after, say, WWI) tubas with similar layout are welcomed.

I want one!

Kirley wrote:I want one!

Honestly, that's what I thought. I have a friend who lives in Prague (but is sadly uninterested in the Bohemian contributions to brass instrument design). Will ask him to put out some feelers ...

Same man on tuba:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMQXqMQkUYo

I can’t stop thinking about it!
Hey, Johnathan... : )

Also, that band was tearing it up.

It is an interesting concept! Do you see the bell is also removable.

Very cool horn.

imperialbari wrote:Same man on tuba:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMQXqMQkUYo

Looks like a Cerveny CBB-683 ...