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For the experience of studying with Arnold Jacobs I started too late playing seriously. Sam Pilafian had a big impact on my playing and was a wonderful person and teacher.
For most of my playing I have to thank Marty Erickson, he also influenced my teaching. And of course there is Roger Bobo, he is really marvellous.

To quote a frequent reply from the old TubeNet,
Ask your teacher.

For me personally???
Out of the many teachers I have had, I would rank my top three and in this order:
1. Pat Landolfi
2. Don Harry
3. Emil Waldman (the school music teacher and trombone player who got this fifth grader off to the right start on a 3/4 BBb tuba, and accelerated me at a rapid pace)

David Zerkel hands down

Words like “best” and “ever” reduce the size of the set to zero.

What is necessary in the student-teacher relationship is that the student is continuously motivated to excel. With all of us being unique individuals, not every teacher will come across the same way. Likewise, some teachers will struggle with getting to a common ground of communication with the student.

You could, within a reasonable amount of time, list all of the full-time orchestral tuba players, attach the list of teachers that they reference, and come up with a maximum set of intersection. However, a lot of pros don’t list everyone they’ve had as a instrumental professor and sometimes they list a person they had a few lessons with and that name might help boost the resume profile a bit. In other words, even that “data” would carry bias.

I’d agree with goodgigs that ultimately the best teacher is one’s self. That’s the person that schedules practice time, makes sure other life conditions are in good order, and puts in the work. We can share these experiences to help motivate others and help accelerate them on their path. But again, getting that information across might work and might not.

For my last degree, there are a few professors of note that I was impacted greatly by. One of them because he was relentless at being a biased pedant and I worked my butt off to prove him wrong. If I were asked to list “influential professors”, I likely wouldn’t list him, but he did make me far better at my subject matter. So I don’t know how accurate of a reference that would be?

I’d also agree with Marty that middle school and high school band directors are probably as influential as any others with regards to success. For reference, if you look at the amount of students that went through Nedo Pandolfi’s band program in a rural community in Rhode Island that are in professional orchestras, you might be inclined to think there is something magical in the water there. Nope, it’s that this gentleman was able to give them a workable perspective on success in music in their formative years.

I see this thread as something like the “Erdos number” in mathematics. It says a little about the educational background of the professor and their network, but not as much about their own abilities. So it’s somewhat of a goof in that community, not to be taken as a prediction metric.

Rambling nearly complete, I do think these threads can be interesting, but usually not all that insightful to any given particular individual.

There are teachers pros go to after they are pros, and teachers that were the reason they became successful pros in the first place. If I look at college professors, the two that seem to me to stand out in their ability to get their students into professional situations (often in the military) are Harvey Philips and Brian Bowman. Maybe Dave Zerkel is the one showing that success nowadays. Guys who wanted a military tuba-playing career just naturally gravitated to Indiana back in the day, near as I can tell. Or Dallas. Or Arizona--Dan Parantoni?

Jacobs seems to me the teacher pros went to, because he was able to zero in on issues those pros were experiencing at their high level and help them. I'm sure those who just took a few lessons from him to pad their resumes did not get all he had to offer, but that's another discussion. Bell was probably in the same category, and maybe even more revered than Jacobs by players of Jacobs's generation. I suspect Bobo also falls into that category, but I have much less data in my head to suggest that.

And there are those pros who also taught, who, because of their location, were likely to have a bigger influence, simply because of the pool of students available to them. Standouts among those--names I keep seeing over and over again--are Don Harry and Marty Erickson. But they stand on the shoulders of teachers like Cherry Beauregard--probably one of the true greats that fewer know about.

I'm an amateur and never studied with any of those, but I did greatly benefit from lessons with top pros who did study with the greats and passed along the pedagogy they had learned. For most of them, the lines either traced back to Jacobs or Bell, but there were some others in there, too, like Beauregard and Little, and Dave Kirk, whose teaching I received by reflection. Top pros in that category might be heroes to the next generation. New names will emerge. Chris Olka is just one example who has penetrated my gray-haired consciousness.

Rick "also a teacher, but known more for imparting specific insights at key moments in students' lives than for building a cadre of mentees" Denney

I would say the best tuba teacher is the one that helps you achieve the goals you have set for yourself. Make sense?

tclements wrote:I would say the best tuba teacher is the one that helps you achieve the goals you have set for yourself. Make sense?

...or the one that shows you ways to achieve a goal you always assumed to be out of reach!

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Doc wrote:... I'd love to know more about ... Cherry Beauregard. Maybe somewhere there is more information...?

Talk with Mike Sanders--he studied with Cherry Beauregard at Eastman. Probably any of those Eastman students can tell you all about him--he didn't retire until 1996. Chuck Daellenbach would be in that group, too, among many others. And Don Harry probably knows him well. As far as I know, he's still with us--he's five years younger than my father, who is definitely still with us. Don can probably also tell you about Bill Bell, as can Floyd Cooley and I'm sure many others still around who studied with him.

Rick "speaking of Floyd Cooley..." Denney

tclements wrote:I would say the best tuba teacher is the one that helps you achieve the goals you have set for yourself. Make sense?

Doc wrote:Are we going to compile a list for this, kinda like which horns won auditions?
What about a list teachers who were most successful with having students win audition?

Why stop there? How about a list of the coffee that was consumed the morning of winning an audition, or the most comfortable socks and underwear that was worn during an audition, too?

Learning about what teachers have/had to offer is definitely valuable, as Doc said, but asking who is/was the "best" is a little too subjective to be really useful - for every great teacher that is mentioned, there will be someone, somewhere, who will differ with your opinion, and have, in their mind, a valid reason for having it.

Find what works for YOU, and stop obsessing over what worked for OTHERS.

As usual, Bloke's reply is spot-on. But although this thread is based on a silly question, I am amazed that no one has mentioned Bill Bell. I recall a conversation that my father had with Abe Torchinsky when the subject of Arnold Jacobs came up. Torch replied that yes, he did study with Jake for a year, but he stayed with Bell for five years.
Of course my wife is quick to remind me that my memory is less than reliable.

Rick Denney wrote:

Doc wrote:... I'd love to know more about ... Cherry Beauregard. Maybe somewhere there is more information...?

Talk with Mike Sanders--he studied with Cherry Beauregard at Eastman. Probably any of those Eastman students can tell you all about him--he didn't retire until 1996. Chuck Daellenbach would be in that group, too, among many others. And Don Harry probably knows him well. As far as I know, he's still with us--he's five years younger than my father, who is definitely still with us. Don can probably also tell you about Bill Bell, as can Floyd Cooley and I'm sure many others still around who studied with him.

Rick "speaking of Floyd Cooley..." Denney

Of the four you mention, three would likely say that Jake was their most influential teacher.

MIke Sanders interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G52T7bCLQpk" target="_blank

Chuck Daellenbach (Part 1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiRUnGhFR0E" target="_blank

Chuck Daellenbach (Part 2): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZSxBNX_yIM" target="_blank

Floyd Cooley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC1dfAvp-qw" target="_blank

And just for grins, here are a few more testimonials

Fritz Kaenzig: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-9quZqRp40" target="_blank

David Zerkel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze1zxtEDR3I" target="_blank

Dan Perantoni: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irrJSPwaKRo" target="_blank

Sam Pilafian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVT0vZrUZh8" target="_blank

Pat Sheridan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFt5hRz1zL4" target="_blank

Since the original poster wanted "non-obvious" choices, I would recommend Don Knaub. Probably not a household name to many people these days. Especially since he was known more as a trombone teacher. But here is a partial list of his tuba students:

Ron Bishop
Roger Bobo
Cherry Beauregard
Chuck Daellenbach
Toby Hanks
Dan Perantoni
Phil Sinder
Mike Sanders
Dennis Miller

And that's just a few. His trombone list is even more impressive.

On one of the Jacobs testimonials from the "all Jacobs, all the time" YouTube channel, I came one more link worth mentioning, an interview with the late, great trumpet player Lew Soloff, a Jacobs student from the '70's: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5P2DT1sewM I wouldn't have thought that a trumpeter with such a fabulous career would have so much to say about Jake's teaching, but Soloff stories about him may be the best I've heard in any of those interviews. A tuba player he wasn't, but long-time Jacobs student and fan he was. This interview is well worth watching all the way through. It starts a bit slowly, but gets really good.

Leto Cruise wrote:David Zerkel hands down

Just bumped into this thread. While I appreciate the vote of confidence, there are dozens (if not hundreds) of names that should appear on a list like this before mine ever comes up.

"Ever" is a long time!

Both of my professional instructors played for me, and invited me to emulate what they were doing (and with tuba playing, sound is always part of that, right?). Mike Sanders was the first, and he played not only his Alex but also my Cerveny during my lessons. I can still hear that sound.

But I can't emulate it, lo these many decades later.

Rick "still aiming for that distant target" Denney

happyroman wrote:

Rick Denney wrote:

Doc wrote:... I'd love to know more about ... Cherry Beauregard. Maybe somewhere there is more information...?

Talk with Mike Sanders--he studied with Cherry Beauregard at Eastman. Probably any of those Eastman students can tell you all about him--he didn't retire until 1996. Chuck Daellenbach would be in that group, too, among many others. And Don Harry probably knows him well. As far as I know, he's still with us--he's five years younger than my father, who is definitely still with us. Don can probably also tell you about Bill Bell, as can Floyd Cooley and I'm sure many others still around who studied with him.

Rick "speaking of Floyd Cooley..." Denney

Of the four you mention, three would likely say that Jake was their most influential teacher....

Well, that wasn't the question I was answering, was it? Neither did that answer the question posed by the OP, which is who we might recognize beyond the obvious Jacobs.

Rick "the greatness of Jacobs in no way diminishes the influence of others" Denney

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Harvey Phillips told students of his "You are a second generation student of Bill Bell."