TubeNet

Until you need to get to the valves...

But fun to play??

YES!!

Doesn’t it block your vision, if you have to play from music on a stand?

On a side note:

I seem to hear bass notes while the tuba player sings. Where do they come from?

Klaus

What's the deal with the valves? They seem fine in the video.

And where are these coming from? I remember seeing them for $1200 on Wish about a year ago, now they're being listed for $5k on ebay... I can't imagine folks are paying that much? Cute horn, first time seeing it in someone's hands and it's larger than I expected.

funkcicle wrote:What's the deal with the valves? They seem fine in the video.

For playing, fine.

For servicing, unknown...

Frankly, it looks kind of difficult to hold, especially as compared to his Sousaphone. Around the 4:15 mark, it seemed a bit perilous during the mic handoff.

funkcicle wrote:...first time seeing it in someone's hands and it's larger than I expected.

That was my first thought.

Fun group, nice tune! I love me some dixieland!

I don't think I'll be rushing out to buy one.

http://www.euphonium.biz/littledragon" target="_blank" target="_blank

Mentions a C verion also!

~$3200

I ‘believe’ Zhengou makes the compact tuba....a newer company in China...they have some interesting products on the horizon...

Ben wrote:http://www.euphonium.biz/littledragon" target="_blank" target="_blank

Mentions a C verion also!

~$3200

I'd be more inclined...



https://wessex-tubas.com/collections/tu ... tuba-tb162" target="_blank

One advantage of using a "tuba shaped object" like that is people in the audience will remember they heard it. It's a novelty to attract attention. I heard a leader of one of these bands say he used a pocket cornet because people remembered the "band with the tiny trumpet" even though he would have rather played a full sized cornet/trumpet. Using one of the Wessex Tournister tubas or one of the F/Eb travel tubas would have similar effect.

I was wondering where the bass lines were coming from during the vocals, too.

I don't have the slightest interest in getting a twisted tuba like that, either. But the idea of someone owning a thing that I wouldn't have bought, doesn't really equate to financial irresponsibility to me.

Very different, as the wessex is a 15mm bore, the one I refered to is 19mm for the F/Eb, 20mm for the C/Bb.

Ben wrote:Very different, as the wessex is a 15mm bore, the one I refered to is 19mm for the F/Eb, 20mm for the C/Bb.

Also different in that it is retailed through a trusted source for $1k less

bloke wrote:
- the tuba player actually not only plays the CORRECT CHORD CHANGES (yes, a TUBA player - and not a bass player - playing the correct changes), but ALSO is playing the correct PITCHES related to the correct chord changes. (I strongly suspect that he is also a bass player.)

Am curious, what is the alternative to this? Maybe it's the bassist in me but I can't really fathom not playing the correct chord changes and associated pitches to a song- that's kind of the job, innit? Is there another method common amongst tubists? Or do you mean to point out that he's walking the changes as opposed to just resting on root notes?

https://www.ebay.de/itm/Bb-tuba-compact ... SwaEhZECSk" target="_blank" target="_blank

OK, I'll naturally take the contrary position - not a bass player, he's just a tuba player who has taken the trouble to learn to play a really fine bass line. Who knows, maybe he does play bass - who doesn't? (One of the bands I'm playing in lately has five members, and only one hasn't played bass at some point.) But 1) there are plenty of indifferent bass players, and 2) I think he takes advantage of the instrument, isn't just transferring string bass lines. What I like as much as the notes, is that he's right there with them, on the beat. Must be a lot of fun to play with.

One point I was going to make there was, and the tuba was the predominate bass instrument back in the day, so naturally ... And maybe it was, but then it occurred to me that I have never heard any record from back in the day, with a tuba player who played like that. Walter Page, whoever you want. Maybe I missed when that happened, but as far as I know, it's a much later development in the music. Along with the rest of the style, I guess.

bloke wrote:Something that I wish had caught on MORE is/was the Rollini's style (and use) of the bass saxophone. The lighter/brighter sound allowed for more departure from the (as I referred to above) strictly-functional bass line - yet without adding sonic "color-clutter".

YES!

Actually, the bass sax, in this kind of band, can function as two instruments in one, in that it fills two entirely different functions (lower register bass line, upper register solo), and the color is different enough between the two to make it more interesting in this context than tuba or bass fiddle.

bloke wrote: That having been said, the intervalic relationships (on the neck of a double bass or a bass guitar) are right there and (once past first position) absolutely consistent - both visually and in a tactile way - to experience and easily comprehend.

Very true- stringed instruments are essentially key signature agnostic, so players need only learn the chord qualities and voicings in relation to the tonic before they're ready to navigate jazz charts (where the actual-notes-you-play are not explicitly spelled out.) Compared to brass instruments, where each key is a distinct minefield of wrong notes until you've developed either the thinking-capacity or the muscle memory to avoid them, and since ensemble-with-brass-instruments literature has been so heavily influenced by the instruments themselves (and their "easy" keys), many player never develop facility in the keys that string-oriented composers are more likely to write in.

When I was a tubist learning to play the bass I didn't full appreciate that advantage, but I did notice how quickly I became more comfortable composing bass lines on the fly than I ever was on the tuba. Now that I'm a bassist re-learning the tuba, I really appreciate the mental shift to thinking in terms of scale degrees and intervals (vs. key signatures, fingerings, and note names) that the string world effectively forced onto me.