Compensating vs 5 valve non compensating

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MikeMason
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Re: Compensating vs 5 valve non compensating

Post by MikeMason »

Count me in ,Bloke. Pictures coming around again for me too. I would even settle for Alex sound,Wessex pricing, and a tuning stick or trigger.
Pensacola Symphony
Troy University-adjunct tuba instructor
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DonShirer
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Re: Compensating vs 5 valve non compensating

Post by DonShirer »

I've played both 5-valve tubas and 3+1 valve compensators as my main instrument. Only took a couple of weeks to become confident in using the left hand for the fourth valve. I only found the fifth valve useful for a couple of notes, and if the thumb-ring and 5th valve actuator were positioned awkwardly, I sometimes found myself inadvertently partially activating the 5th valve in rapid passages.
Don Shirer
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Bob Kolada
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Re: Compensating vs 5 valve non compensating

Post by Bob Kolada »

I'd love a front valve 4+2 euphonium; I really enjoy playing in the low range on my comp euph.
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MaryAnn
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Re: Compensating vs 5 valve non compensating

Post by MaryAnn »

Since I couldn't really operate the 4th valve with my tiny pinky on my 2280 and was reaching around to operate it with my left hand anyway, I very quickly adjusted to the 3+1 Sterling Perentucci I got on ebay. I sold the King and never looked back.
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imperialbari
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Re: Compensating vs 5 valve non compensating

Post by imperialbari »

I had been around bass trombones with 3 different 2nd valve set-ups (Eb, C, and C#, when both valves were down) and French horn (5-valve single Bb with a long semitone in the 5th slide and plain 4 valve double) before coming to my first compensating instrument, a YEP-641. I was used to thinking in length of tubing going down from given partials. Always thinking concert pitch, no mater which transposition or clef.

The YEP-641 cheated me big time at first, because I wasn’t used to the comp loops being added, så I played roughly a semitone flat in the comp register, until I got used to the Blaikley system.

To me the weekness of that system is not the reach for the 4th valve in itself, but that the left hand gets locked up with the operation of the valve, so that slide pulling gets next to impossible for the two notes not really helped by Blakley’s invention: the two semitones right above the open pedal note. Here the installation of a main tuning slide trigger really helped me with my approch to getting evenness in intonation and in all tonal & timbre aspects:

scales in all keys and modes of my full range, which was 4 octaves (plus a couple more, when it came to lip gymnastics). I did the scales out of my head, but my system is available for free for all low brass in versions specific for each pitch of instrument. It is constructed in a way that allows an easy start with a few keys in the center register and then expands in number of keys as well as in width of range.

My other evenness builder is the theme from the 3rd movement of Carl Nielsen’s wind quintet, which happens to be a Danish church hymn also. It has a range of a minor tenth and has all scale step applied in easily heard intervals. I am sure every nationality has a tune with the same qualities, only I chose the one super-familiar to me. I start playing this tune from the 2nd partial and then move upwards in semitone increments. After that I move downwards by the same increments.

My approach does not promote equal temperament (which I consider artificia - great in theory - cold in real life), but rather strengthens just tuning.

One tuning feature I use is the difference between the pitches of fingerings 1+2 and 3. I use what works best in a given situation. I use refingering before I use the trigger. That is the reason, why I consider the destruction of Blaikleys idea by lenthening the 3 comp loop a very silly idea. I accept that pulling that loop may help in certain pitch situations, but it also destroys good notes. One maker boasts having lengthened that 3rd loop on all comp models. But then these instruments are not what people in the know call instruments after the Blaikley system. They are after a random system by people not approaching Blaikley in acoustic insight. The honest approach would be providing these instrument with a slide in the correct length according to Blaikley plus a longer slide for certain specific pitch situations.

The main tuning slide trigger works well on the euphonium, but sadly not on the compensating tubas, because their tuning slides are too short. The ideal solution for these low compensators involves a trigger for the 3rd main slide plus a vented 3rd piston.

Klaus
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Alex C
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Re: Compensating vs 5 valve non compensating

Post by Alex C »

Mark Finley wrote:
Anybody else have a difficult time getting comfortable with 3+1 after spending most of their life with 4 keys in the right hand?

Guess I need to get another gig bag or carry around the 27 year old hard case....
I played a Besson 983 Eb for about ten years. I never got comfortable with the RH 4th valve. I also cannot coordinate my hands on piano very well or play a woodwind because of coordinating the hands. I married a hand specialist who noticed my constant confusion with direction using "right" and "left.." One day she said, "Did you know you have left-right discrimination issue." No.

All of my symptoms are signs of this. When they see it in children it can be "cured" in less than ten sessions. I'm so old, there's no point.

But I finally had to give up on the RH 4th valve, it just never got to be reflex and sight reading was impossible. I did enjoy the Besson 984 Eb quite a bit but I had already switched back to F fingerings by then. Another switch in fingerings was not a task I wanted to take on for a summer.
City Intonation Inspector - Dallas Texas
"Holding the Bordognian Fabric of the Universe together through better pitch, one note at a time."

Practicing results in increased atmospheric CO2 thus causing global warming.
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