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“Youth is wasted on the wrong people!!”

Mr Bling, you shouldn't have sold your Helicon!

bloke wrote:People hear music with their eyes.

Showbiz
Props and costumes

Some can relate, some can't.

All this cosmetic talk is interesting. I worked in New Orleans from 78' to 83' in the Bourbon St. clubs, the various hotels, Streckfus Steamers and New Orleans Steamship Co(steamer Natchez) for their dinner cruise, Pete fountain's club at the Marriot, and with the Dukes of Dixieland at the Monteleone, and was bandleader at the Court of Two Sisters restaurant's brunch band. So I've worked some. There was a popular saying among the local guys.…"Beware the man with the shiny horn". Pete had a New Years Eve big band job at the Marriot every year and you never saw a rattier bunch of horns. It was like an ugly horn competition. Neal Tidwell was in the orchestra at the time and he played an unlaquered Scherzer C, that he sounded great on. As far as costume, it was mostly black pants, white shirt, and the occasional vest. After moving down here to Central Florida and working at The Rat, playing whatever I bought to work that day, a relatively new orchestra in Mt Dora brought me on. They were very spiffy. We had to get tails and the hall was always festooned with flowers so I used my frosted King 2341 which looked like jewelry until I stumbled on a King monster rotary Bb which was unlaquered. I was actualy hesitant to bring it in, especially after the cute shiny horn but I did and they loved the sound and never said anything about the looks. Mabye the "to see and be seen thing" is a regional thing. But it wasn't that way anywhere that I played over the years. So I've been fortunate and retired unscathed except for a sore back. Ed

This is really where a silver plate finish shines, if you will excuse the expression. My first guess was that this was about "classical" venues, but if we're talking about popular music - sure, in some types of band a real shiny tuba is perhaps not quite the thing. I have a shiny tuba I'm lately very attached to, and I wouldn't go so far as to beat the finish off, so I'll just have to live with the embarrassment ... it is after all, about the sound.

But it's lacquered brass. So if some day years from now it is less shiny, unless I've gone to the trouble to have it completely stripped, it's going to be that scabby half-lacquered mess. What that looks like exactly, depends on the lacquer. On my 1941 Holton, pebbly dark brown remnants; some tubas get a sort of flaming red acne; my King, you know what they look like with that orangey lacquer. Where my silver tuba gracefully fades into brass. If you want a tuba that looks nice but clearly old, you want a silver plated tuba.

As the kids say, 'Weird flex but okay'

I’m thinking, “gold plasti-dip”

NICE!!