Sub Contra Tuba ... HELP???

[Steve Marcus]

How about music that was actually written for and performed on a subcontrabass tuba?

Gerard Hoffnung plays the famous and subsequently elusive subcontrabass tuba in the first (1956) Hoffnung Music Festival. Even on a live, monophonic recording, surrounded by other bass and contrabass instruments (tuba, serpents, contrabass clarinets, contrabassoons, [with piccolos for contrast]), the melody line of "Annie Laurie" and other parts of the "Variations" that he plays on the subcontrabass tuba are quite audible and, well, subcontrabass-like (i.e., very resonant).

[iiipopes]

Even then, the actual resonant frequency of a bass drum, depending on the size, is anywhere from @150Hz on a small kit to @40Hz on a large orchestral model.

OK, this is a restatement, but let's sum it all up starting with an example we're all familiar with: Miraphone 186 BBb tuba. The standard 2nd partial open valve note on the 2nd ledger line below the bass clef Bb is 58 Hz. That makes the pedal Bb, the octave lower, as 29 Hz. To go a perfect 4th below that, then pedal F on what would be a subcontra F tuba would be @22 Hz, and pedal Eb on what would be a subcontra Eb tuba would be @19.5 Hz. A lot of sources give 20 Hz as the border between hearing and feeling, although it's not quite that cut and dried, since there can be, depending on a person's ears and physical sense of touch, a crossover of hearing vs. feeling anywhere from around 16 to 25 or even 30 Hz. So, regardless of where the actual transition is, one can pretty well say that for a double sub contra BBBb tuba, whose pedal would be @ 14.5 Hz, that is below hearing. So if it is below hearing, what good is it? That's what the harmonics are for, and if you do wave tracing on low brass notes, I believe you will see a lot of overtones and comparatively little fundamental in the pedal range. So as an actual musical experience, it is probably not that musical, but as a foundation reinforcement for a cadence chord or ostenato, it may have its place. To get a better idea of what these pitches really are, go to a large church, so the actual note has the real length to develop, and stand about 2/3 the way back while someone else pulls the 16 foot bourdon (not principal, too many overtones) and plays low C. Assuming the pipe is voiced well, and doesn't have an annoying "cough," (or something that sounds like a quick aah-ohh at the beginning of the attack) all you will really hear is a rumble. Then play C#. Again, because the pitch difference is so small, just a couple of hertz, all you will really hear is a slightly different rumble. I read somewhere about a notorious pipe organ, but I can't remember the name of the particular pipe organ or where it is, or even if it still exists: on the 32 foot stop of this particular organ, the builder had just one pipe for all the notes below low F, @22 Hz, on the pedal board. Not one pipe per note, just one pipe, voiced so devoid of overtones, as the actual pitch was so low and indeterminate no differential could be detected. Low C on a 32 foot pedal stop has a fundamental frequency of @15 or 16 Hz.

Now, to get an idea of what a subcontra F tuba would play like, get the largest 4- or 5- valve BBb BAT with the largest bore and bell you can find, like a Rudy 6/4 or a Cerveny with a .830+ bore. Fix down the 4th valve, or if you're lucky, an older 5-valve with the 5th valve as a 23 and pull it all the way for the perfect 4th, and pull the other valves slides to tune. Then play all the music an octave down using F tuba three or four valve fingerings, maintaining the same volume, legato and phrase length. Then you will start approaching what a subcontra tuba would be like to play.

Of course, one reason for having a higher pitched instrument, as trumpet players know, is to give enough separation to the overtones as to aid intonation. So someone could build a subcontra tuba, but if that same person desired to play more than just the lowest notes, or in the middle of the bass clef, he or she would have to have the same precise embouchure for intonation as a french horn player, an octave or more down. Another reason to have a smaller instrument, relatively speaking, is as you go up in pitch, a point is reached that the terminal node of the higher pitch is physically beyond the bell, and at that point the instrument functions more like a megaphone rather than a pitch resonator. This is an absurd example, I know, but playing Bydlo on a subcontra would sound about like a kazoo into a cheerleader's megaphone - all buzz and no body.

Then as you go lower, as anyone who plays can tell you, even though pitch is logarithmic in halving at the octave, the energy to maintain relative volume as you go down in pitch increases exponentially as the square of the inverse of the pitch, not linearly nor even logarithmically.

So, as for subcontra tubas: great intellectual exercise, great novelty for the few that do exist, I'd love to hoot a few notes on one if I ever get the chance, but definitely at the edge as far as practicality, physical ability to even play, and usefullness as a musical instrument.

[Rick Denney]

As has been said in the organ world - a full-length 32' pipe is an expensive *draft* - copious amounts of wind and lots of cash needed to build. But if you have the *acoustic space* and the money, the effect is thrilling. If you would visit St. Pauls Cathedral in London or Liverpool Anglican Cathedral to hear the Open Wood 32's and their burbling purr underpinning the upper ensembles - WOW. One wouldn't be too far off if one were to think of a 16 Hz frequency from the low C-pipe of a 32' as being a 32' long wave cycle. As that low frequency is being ejected from the pipe, it is desirable that the building is at least double the length of that sound wave for an appreciable effect to be obtained.

What's the airflow, say, in liters/minute, required to voice a 32' basso diapason or bourdon?

Rick "inhaling" Denney

[iiipopes]

Yes, regarding the need for a building large enough to actually allow the fundamental develop so you can hear the pitch, I heartily concur. I am always having arguments with drummers who can't understand why they can't hear their bass drums in smaller venues, or why my bass guitar never sounds quite right to them. By the same token, I see smaller churches purchase quite expensive electronic organs with the electronic 32' stops, expecting windows to rattle, and are disappointed and don't understand why it doesn't sound a full and rich in their little carpeted church as it is advertised to be!

As far afield at these comments seem, they are particularly applicable to subcontra tubas, as the physics of wave propagation are the same. Moreover, when I play my Besson tuba in a smaller room or venue, I use a Kelly or Bach 18 mouthpiece that will develop more overtones, as the fundamental just won't be there, and when I play large halls or outdoors, I use my Wick 1 and play for all I'm worth.

[Allen]

What's the airflow, say, in liters/minute, required to voice a 32' basso diapason or bourdon?

I don't have the figures for classical organs, but I can tell you about theatre organs. Generally, theatre organs have fewer pipes, but each pipe has a bigger sound. For the bottom, a huge 32' contra-diaphone is generally used. This is a very efficient converter of wind to acoustic power, so much so that in some installations the building engineers have required the organ builders to reduce the volume, as at full power there was danger of structural damage! This is obviously something every tubist wants to strive for.

In some installations, the bottom octave of the big diaphone stop gets its wind from a separate blower. Of course, only one pipe at a time can sound (otherwise the beat frequencies will cause that pesky structural damage). In the installations that I know about, the blower is run from a 3 horsepower electric motor. The wind pressure is between 15" and 25" water column (25" is about 1 psi). At those pressures, a 3HP blower will deliver 10,000 to 15,000 liters of air per minute. OK, you big guys with 7 liter lungs, you will only have to breathe about 35 times per second to get that 16Hz note!

Clearly, this thread is more about tubists' fantasies than about practical musical instruments to be played by unassisted humans. How about this fantasy: An enterprising tuba manufacturer puts stickers on his horns that say, "Warning! If this tuba is played with enough skill, it may damage structures!" Can you imagine all the kids saying, "Wow, I gotta get me one of THOSE!"?

Cheers,
Allen Walker

[DBCooper]

How about this fantasy: An enterprising tuba manufacturer puts stickers on his horns that say, "Warning! If this tuba is played with enough skill, it may damage structures!" Can you imagine all the kids saying, "Wow, I gotta get me one of THOSE!"?

I'd imagine that "Warning! If this tuba is played with enough skill, it may cause unintended digestional activity in your audience" will suffice...

[windshieldbug]

Perhaps what's needed is an electric subcontrabass tuba!

[iiipopes]

Hey, as Tuben knows, that's not as far out as you might think. The church my folks attend has a very nice large 3-manual Casavant, of which I was on the committee when I was younger and lived in the same city. The 32' Subbourdon octave is actually a speaker with a high-amperage Carver amplifier, and the 32' Bombarde has 1/2 length resonators and weighted tongues.

And I used to help an organ tech maintain a friend's 3-manual 10-rank Robert-Morton, which started out as a 2-manual 7-rank, and yes, even though it only had a 16' diaphone, it had to be adjusted to not blow the entire neighborhood out. The blower was absolutely huge, and after he added an extra tuba rank and some extensions, even it wasn't always large enough.

[Shockwave]

Acoustically, it is meaningless to compare the air volume requirements between a tuba and an organ pipe. Most bass organ pipes are giant whistles and require vast amounts of air flow at low pressure. A concert flute similarly requires a large amount of low pressure air, yet it doesn't make a whole lot of sound. At the last IAJE convention I heard a demonstration of a sub-contrabass flute, about as close to an organ pipe as a woodwind can get. It required a ridiculous amount of air and yet the sound was extremely weak, almost inaudible even in the upper register. With that same volume of air, one could shake the walls with a tuba. I don't have any figures at hand, but it seems to me that whistles such as flutes, recorders, and organ pipes are extremely inefficient sound producers.

The important part is not the volume of air, but the amount of energy a player can put into the air. Air is compressed so that it can power a wind instrument. With a given amount of energy, one can compress a large volume of air a little bit, or a small volume of air a lot. Since brass players have a fixed air capacity, it makes sense to maximize the energy they can put into the instrument by designing the instrument to work with high pressure air. When you play a nice, resonant low note on the tuba, the pressure peaks returning from the instrument coincide with the opening of the lips. The pressure peak actually tries to prevent air from esping from the lips, but the lungs are at higher pressure so a little bit of air flows out and increases the pressure of the wave that then travels down the horn once more. A reed instrument such as the contrabass saxophone can utilize even higher pressure than a tuba because the rigid reed can withstand more pressure.

Lwo frequency sounds do not need a large room to "fully develp". Those sounds can exist just fine inside a boom car and even inside the earcup of a headphone. When the room dimensions are in that middle ground where the resonant modes of the room are in the same range as, for example, the bass range of an electronic organ stop, some notes will be accentuated and others almost eliminated depending on the position of the sound source and listener in the room. A large room is usually no less resonant, but because the major room resonances are below the freqencies in question, the sound is much more even. There are freely available computer programs available to model room resonances and optimize the placement of subwoofers for home stereos, but the results are applicable to all sources of low frequency sound.

Years ago when I had my own future corps style brass group I used an electric subcontrabass tuba setup. I had a microphone shoved down inside my sousaphone connected to an octave divider that would output the original signal mixed with a half frequency copy. I had a 1400watt amplifier and an Aurasound 18" speaker in an enclosure good to 18Hz. It sounded like a pipe organ, and the air blasting out the bass reflex port of the speaker could blow music off a stand 40 feet away.


I love diaphones! That diaphone sound is how I imagine a subcontra tuba sounding at pianissimo. It seems to me like the proliferation of huge tubas in the 1920's could have been because the public was growing accustomed to the big bass provided by theater organs. There's a great station on live365.com called "theater organ replay" that I listen to all the time.

-Eric

[TubaRay]

the building engineers have required the organ builders to reduce the volume, as at full power there was danger of structural damage! This is obviously something every tubist wants to strive for.

This item should appear in the top ten bits of tuba wisdom. Tuba players, at least good tuba players, are generally very much into sound. It may not be loud sound we all strive for, but it is big sound. Therefore, most of us could get excited about the concept of structural damage. Yeah!!!

[Chuck(G)]

I love diaphones! That diaphone sound is how I imagine a subcontra tuba sounding at pianissimo. It seems to me like the proliferation of huge tubas in the 1920's could have been because the public was growing accustomed to the big bass provided by theater organs. There's a great station on live365.com called "theater organ replay" that I listen to all the time.

Diaphones make great fire alarms and foghorns:

<img src="http://www.longislandfirealarm.com/diaphone-label.jpg">

<img src="http://www.drlps.com/images/img17.JPG">

[Shockwave]

Dear Shockwave,

A diaphone, whether it be a 16' or 32' or 64' really needs alot of air under substantial pressure to really have the sought after effect. No human effort is gonna get that valvular beater transitioning back and forth. I have this notion that some wag way back when had designed and made a tuba-like instrument with a reed for some real lows - legend has it that it never made it off the ground.

I surmise where you're are coming from with the desire for a good foundational sound coming out of the Tuba but bass-wave propagation means alot of power. Lets not defeat the charm of the Tuba by using electrical reinforcement/timbre-shaping devices to achieve some cerebral concatenation of sound which has no relation to the instrument that is being played.

Don't get me wrong - I LOVE infrabass frequencies, the lower and more powerful, the better. I am also a trained organist and have played some mighty instruments as well as small instruments both in the States and abroad. The Organ, Brass ensemble and Choir ensemble I find to be the most thrilling of musical instruments.

Cheers,

Boanerges

Actually there isn't much power in bass waves. 120 decibel sound measured at 1 meter from an omnidirectional source means the source is making about 1 acoustic watt. That is a powerful sound, and if it is a low frequency it will be almost as loud in the back of the hall as it is on stage. Brass instruments are typically 50% efficient, though at the extreme low frequency end the efficiency is proportional to the volume of the instrument. Say a tuba is only 10% efficient making a 40 Hz sound. To make a roof rattling 110 decibels would require just 1 watt of energy from the player. Of course the actual situation is more complicated than that because tubas don't make pure tones, but the point is that sound energy is weaker than you think.

There is a tuba-like instrument with a reed that makes real lows: the contrabass saxophone. It makes thunderous lows, and a lot of fundamental. However, being a saxophone, the tone isn't very subtle.

The electric tuba was fun, but it definitely was not satisfying to have electronic help. I towed a small battery powered subwoofer a few times in parades around Boston, and people constantly shouted "WOW, great sound!" to the band. That is not a typical parade spectator comment, but it happened over and over and only when I used that device. Carrying a 25lb sousaphone and towing a 70lb trailer turned out to be too much workload on hilly parades, but the band felt really good hearing compliments from a crowd rather than the typical "Come on, play something good!". Still, using electronics is cheating.

Chuck, not that kind of diaphone! Those things sound atrocious. Theater organ diaphones sound good.

-Eric

[Chuck(G)]

Chuck, not that kind of diaphone! Those things sound atrocious. Theater organ diaphones sound good.

Oh, I don't know. I have fond memories of the 220/110 Hz foghorns of my youth.

The foghorn-type diaphones are quite a bit more complex than the organ voices. They use two air supplies--one to cause a piston to oscillate and another that's actually used to produce sound by virtue of the piston being connected to a type of valve. Made of brass and cast iron so they don't destroy themselves and run on about 40 psi. A marvel of technology.

[Shockwave]

Lwo frequency sounds do not need a large room to "fully develp". Those sounds can exist just fine inside a boom car and even inside the earcup of a headphone.

This statement is totally untrue. Yes it is possible to 'electronically reproduce very low pitches', but to CREATE such sounds by musical accoustic means requires room. The soundwave for a 32' CCCC is over 16 feet long and requires space to fully develop. It is often the case that one can be next to a 32' flue pipe and hear nothing but 'an expensive draft' but then move down the length of the room and only then hear the actual musical tone develop. Reproducing low tones in a boom car, headphones or home speakers is not the same as creating a vibrating, long low sound wave.

Diaphones, and organ reed pipes being mechanical act differently than flues. While the same amount of space is required to allow the tone to really bloom and develop, since they are mechanical their tone is generated at the reed and then are only enhanced by the space.

To the wind consumption, I don't totally understand your statement about 'compression' etc... But the flow rate is still a consideration. Even a 32' organ reed would generate approximately 30cfm on low C, assuming 3.5 inches of pressure. And remember, most brass players play with 40-80 inches of pressure. The amount of energy required to set the lips (or organ reed) into vibration on super low pitches are simply not possible to generate with 4-6 liters of lung capacity. I can play a 32' D on tuba (confirmed), but holding that note for 1-2 seconds is not musically rewarding.

BACK TO SUBJECT:

I think the real value of a potential subcontrabass tuba is to have it playing in its middle register. (BBBb up) By playing in what is the extreme low register of a contrabass tuba, it would add breadth and richness to the tuba tone.

I agree with you completely about the potential of the subcontrabass tuba.

However, what I said is not incorrect. The difference is that you are equating a flue pipe with a tuba, a speaker, and a diaphone. In the three latter examples there is is only one source of the sound. In a flue pipe there are two sources, each end of the pipe, and they are one half wavelength apart. You know how the pipe works, of course. Starting in the middle of the cycle for simplicity,a positive soundwave radiates from the top of the pipe and reflects back down the pipe as a negative wave. When the negative wave gets to the blown end of the pipe it diverts the jet of air inward radiating a negative wave to the outside and reflecting a positive wave back down the pipe. As the positive wave from the top of the pipe reaches you, the bottom of the pipe makes a negative wave that cancels it out. The radiation pattern of a flue pipe is like a donut where most of the sound goes off to the sides, but very little travels along the axis. You, listening from one end of the pipe, hear almost nothing because the two sound sources combine destructively, but as you move out into the hall you move into that donut of sound where the two sources combine constructively.

-Eric

[Tom Holtz]