Contrary opinions on equipment

[roweenie]

Whenever I think of the Dunning-Kruger effect, this person invariably comes to mind:

https://youtu.be/V6ubiUIxbWE" target="_blank

In fact, I think they should rename the syndrome in her honor

Yeah, right?

[Matt G]

Toobagrowl brought up more questions than he may have realized:
1) Tubas of the same make and model don't always play the same. Heck, even the most expensive tubas are not made to aircraft grade tolerances. The tolerances on the parts aren't that tight and then the things are assembled by flawed human beings with good days and bad days.

2) Human beings are not all the same. Lips, tongues, lungs, arms, hands, torso height, etc., make a big difference to personal interaction to the tuba. You will never drive a sports car well if you can't comfortably reach the pedals, shifter, and steering wheel let alone fit in the tiny seat.

3) Pedagogy varies from player to player and teacher to teacher. Just because an individual found a way to "sound good" with very fast air or very slow air doesn't make him or her the Supreme Court Decision maker on what everyone else should want.

I suspect that over the last 27 years I have played more tubas and listened to more tuba players both good and bad (With some of the worst sounding ones thinking they were hot stuff.) than most anyone else. I can't predict what tuba someone will like until I hear them play a bit or we talk about mutually played equipment and compare likes or dislikes.

I've reached some conclusions in my old age that I'd like to share:

All tubas and tuba players are different.
Sucky players sound bad on all tubas but there may be a particular configuration of tuba that helps them suck less.
Great tuba players sound great on any tuba.
Mediocre through good players really benefit from finding a quality horn that matchs up to their physical and pedagogical tendencies to help them sound better with less effort.
last but not least
The Dunning-Kruger Effect is alive and well on TubeNet.

This should be a sticky.

[Rick Denney]

...dilettante tubaist/traffic engineer is a no-brainer.

I resent that! Take it back! I am NOT a dilettante traffic engineer.

Rick "whose opinions are worth what you paid for them, and you paid a lot for the traffic engineering opinions, and, by the way, thank you" Denney

[Rick Denney]

...Not that the observed defects never existed, I'm just saying, they are not inherent in the design from the factory. Alternatives would be poor quality control, issues that crop up under normal wear, etc.

To cite a common example with dedicated proponents, the flat F on large Conns, or sometimes all large Americans. I've heard it, so no argument there - except, on the question of whether it's true for every one of the affected models. An alignment problem with those short valves? Gunk that might accumulate in a particular place has an outsize effect on intonation? Who knows.

All design is a collection of compromises and trade-offs. There are too many competing objectives in any complicated system to achieve optmality in all of the, or even all the important ones.

My understanding is that the 2xJ design attempted to resolve the flat fifth partial, which is hard to fix on the C, played first valve. On a typical German tuba, one pushes in the first valve slide, and plays the D above it 1-2 (or 3--which is what I observe that German players use in lieu of 1-2 quite frequently, and not just on that D; they might consider 1-2 as an alternate fingering). The report is that Conn tolerated a glat second partial to fix that flat fifth partial, because the flat F at the bottom of the staff is easy to play 1-3, which corrects it.

Even a dilettante amateur can be pretty sure about the unattainability of optimality on all objectives in a complicated sytem. But on the topic of design optimality, I speak with professional experience.

Rick "in the category of those who suck on all tubas" Denney

[Donn]

Something I've never really felt I really understood about these notorious flat partials:

- Why the C? if that partial (so to speak) accounts for B, C, Db and D on a BBb tuba.
- Why the F? and not B, C, Db, D, Eb, and E?

And of course - if F is "easy to play 1-3", isn't C also "easy to play 1-3", especially given that generations of tuba players have learned the necessity of that alternative?

But the leg I'm mainly trying to stand on with that particular example, is that there are a number of reports from people with 2xJ tubas that do not have that problem. Including people who would be the last you'd think would be deceived on this matter. If at this point many years later, some of them check out better and some worse, it seems to me as a starting point we ought to assume the design accounts for the good ones, and post-design accidents the bad ones.

That the fifth is flat, I understand to be sort of predictable given the math, though to my perhaps deficient perception it isn't particularly grievous on my 40K.

[Matt G]

It’s admittedly been awhile (like 20 years) that I’ve played a 2xJ, but I also remember the slots to be pretty wide on those horns. The problem with that F below the staff is that a lot of people will start to “relax” around that range which complicates the issue.

Also regarding the width of those slots, I also think that’s why I wasn’t a huge fan of the 2xJs for my own use, because a wide slot for pitch seems to correlate with a bit of vagueness in response.

[Rick Denney]

That was one of Matt's points: Tuba manufacture has never been up to recreating tuba design with real consistency, and tuba design can't find general optimality without attempting manufacture, because models are incomplete. So, it's an imperfect feedback loop and always has been.

Once the design of a prototype is worked out, tooling is created and tubas are made, mostly by factory workers not by one-off craftsmen. As each one rolls off the line (thinking of Conn back in the day, and a lot of others, too), the evaluator would play the instrument and make a determination: Out the door or back for adjustments? Out the door would have been, for all sorts of obvious reasons, the preferred choice. After Macmillan took over Conn, that was especially true, by all accounts--the "good" evaluator might have decided not to move from Elkhart to Abilene--who knows?

Handmade instruments are adjusted by masters to achieve their best, but the master and any given downstream player might have very different approaches to the instrument.

And then there's the history of a particular instrument. The 20J I owned had been solder practice in an instrument repair school, and was definitely from the Macmillan years of production in Abilene. It needed 1-3 for the F, but the C was okay. The intonation on it was merely mediocre, but the real problem was its inability to play softly, which is definitely not a congenital defect of 2xJ's, if you listen to experts like Lee Stofer. Was that poor production, imperfect student overhaul, or dilettante amateur playing? Who knows? Probably a bit of all three.

But I do listen to the recordings the bands I've been in have made, going back to San Antonio recordings on cassette (not every informative--I was the least member of a great section in that band). I do not notice poor intonation coming from me in those recordings. Not the best tone, sure. Not super loud, sure. Occasional fuzzy attacks, not as often as memory would have it. Musicality, more than I would have thought, to be honest. Better technique than I recall. (I've listened to a few of those very recently to try out a new-to-me mid-80's Nakamichi cassette deck.) I don't think I have a lot less listening experience than some DMA candidates, and maybe more than most.

One thing is true about the dilettante amateurs, however: We may be subject to confirmation bias, because we spent money and don't want it to be wasted. But nobody is hiring us to evaluate their tubas online, or otherwise endorse them.

Rick "bias exists everywhere" Denney

[bone-a-phone]

Nobody asked for a trombone player's assessment, so I'll offer mine.

I've spent a lot of energy in the last 7 years buying/selling/trading dozens of trombones. Mostly out of curiosity, partly out of the great search for "the one" that we all tend to evolve through.

I've found that you don't really get to know an instrument until you've spent a lot of time with it. Months, maybe. I often feel like I can evaluate a horn just by playing a few notes, maybe a scale, and a loud and a soft note. It's sort of true, but you never get the nuances. Often a characteristic I don't like about an instrument in an initial playing (or week of playing) will eventually begin to grow or fade as something other aspect of the horn's voice comes into focus.

Sometimes a horn is worth adapting to. That's another part of this that is maybe unexplored, and it's definitely something that takes time. And then is it your lip or your ear that adapts?

The big problem with this idea of getting to know the more subtle points of an instrument is that I tend to accumulate specialized instruments. I have one horn that I play in church, another that goes to the orchestra, and a third that goes to quartet/quintet. Trombone choir first part? Third part? Bass part? Big band? Studio? Brass ensemble? Concert band? Sitting at home and playing Bach cello suites or Rochut etudes? I've got special horns for all of those.

I've come across very few instruments that I genuinely thought were unredeemable and couldn't be used for anything. If pressed, I could play everything on a single instrument, like I did 40 years ago. But all these instruments, or almost all, have been beautiful in one way or another. I'd be hard pressed to name a favorite, although a truly unique silver plated pristine 1967 Conn 79h was so beautiful and could play anything, that I had to sell it. If I owned something that perfect, I'd be expected to play perfectly as well.

I've discovered the answer is to buy stuff that looks like cheap crap, that vain people don't want, but plays like a dream.

[pjv]

The 36J I had (basically a 2xJ with long stroke front valves) had a low 3rdP F, but the E wasn't that great either. Since I didn't have a main tuning slide trigger, I'd push the 2nd slide in for E.
I believe the reason for this design choice is that playing F 1&3 (or 4) sounds a bit more open then 5thP C 1&3 (or 4). I also feel that the 3rdP is more reliable when using alternate fingerings than the 5thP. Reliable as in that my chances of hitting the not increase.
But that's just how I experience it.

[Rick Denney]

...perhaps: "low E" to "middle C"), an alternate conclusion (regarding the typical tuning characteristics) is that the "F" is only a bit flat, whereas the "lower B-flat" (below the staff) tends quite sharp.

(Speaking in "B-flat tuba language"...)
Tuning the "low B-flat" on a Holton SHARP, tends (in my experience) to put quite a few other things closer to accessible pitch...and (with a main slide trigger on board) the "low B-flat/A" - as well as the "upper F/E" (in the staff) can be triggered out to pitch.

Finally...
Holton 6/4 tubas seem to have been to haphazardly built, that they tend to vary much more than do Conn or Martin 6/4 tubas.

Most of the 345's were made in the 60's up through maybe 1971 or so, and that was not the American musical instrument manufacturing sweet spot, as was the 30's and again in the 50's.

And it is easier to pull the low Bb, especially for me, who tends flat on any instrument.

That said, I never felt like I had to jump through hoops to tune the Holton. It is pretty resonant even when steered. Recordings of groups I play in don't reveal any glaring pitch discrepancies from me, though I'm sure I don't expect the precision of, say, an orchestra pro.

Rick "whose pitch tendencies seem to follow him from tuba to tuba, for some reason" Denney

[Rick Denney]

I would love to have a good (pulled apart, errors corrected, cleaned out, slicked up, and put back together correctly) 345. I don't really have a need for one, but I've always wanted one. I guess I could try to justify it, especially if it was a really nice player, but those exceptional players are rare and are rarely cheap.

Doc (who has all he can afford at the moment)

If you ever manage to come to the Army workshop (if there ever is another one), let me know. Mine has been pulled apart, errors corrected, cleaned out, slicked up (modestly), and put back together correctly. And it is a nice player. Not for sale, of course, but then you aren't in the market. You can at least try it out--myth may exceed reality.

Rick "not qualified to judge, apparently" Denney

[bort]

Two thoughts:
1) Don't believe every opinion you hear.
2) Believe the opinions of people you trust.

I've done both and have never been burned.

[Donn]

3) Trust no one.

[bort]

3) Trust no one.

Meh. I've got people I trust, and I'm cool with that. I listen to their opinions and take them into consideration. You still have to decide for yourself.

[THE TUBA]

3) Trust no one.

I want to believe.

[groth]

3) Trust no one.

I want to believe.

The Truth is Out There..

[Matt G]

Nirschl is still making tubas. Since he’s a small shop and building by hand, prices are high and volume is low. They haven’t become extinct, rather inundated in a tide of Chinese manufactured York copies.

From all accounts, the YamaYork is a great copy, but made by one or two people and expensive. Effectively the same problem as the Nirschl.

Beyond Joe’s point of people playing excerpts that they might not ever encounter and at volumes (and tempi and articulations) that would get them laughed off a stage on a tuba, most people think that the mouthpiece is some sort of invariant that need not change between tubas. If someone is coming from a 4/4 rotary CC and playing a 6/4 piston CC with the same mouthpiece, don’t expect a thorough assessment of the horn.

[bort]

Mouthpieces...

Joe, that's another whole post! But I will say, that I seem to have entered a new phase of enjoyment from just using what I've always used. It's the wrong shank size, so I need to resolve that, probably through another purchase.... But otherwise, I think I'm pretty happy with it.

Lots of things I'd like to try.... But it seems like not changing is bringing me the most happiness.

And to the OP, yes, another oddball one off thing that I bought, against better judgment, and totally blindly. This one worked out very well, though!

[MaryAnn]

Whenever I think of the Dunning-Kruger effect, this person invariably comes to mind:

https://youtu.be/V6ubiUIxbWE" target="_blank" target="_blank

In fact, I think they should rename the syndrome in her honor

It was many years ago I went to some dance concert in a large hall, and beforehand they were playing a recording of her. I looked quizzically at my companion and said "No one can be that bad except on purpose." I still don't know if it was on purpose or not, and I don't know if anyone else knows whether she just had an exquisite sense of humor and enjoyed having people cater to her because of her money, or if she was clueless. I don't think I can sing that badly even if I try.