CC tuba versus BB flat tuba

[Mojo workin']

Are you going to Europe and deciding between two tubas or are you getting ready to buy a tuba?

I am trying to decide whether, in my endeavors to audition for a European orchestra, it is advisable to switch from being an historically CC player to being a BBb player. I'm playing F tuba exclusively now and getting ready to purchase a contrabass tuba again. The plan for European auditions is simply because it's my perception that I may fare better over there out of sheer numbers of auditions that happen as opposed to the States.

[Rick Denney]

Well, I can say this and defend myself. Ive been playing on a CC for several months now, and just came off a st petersburg tuba...

Thank you for confirming my suspicion. The St. Petersburg tubas don't play that badly, but they are hardly to be considered competitive with the better Bb tubas, let alone the C tubas directed to the professional market.

Try the comparison again between, say, a Meinl-Weston Fafner (Bb) and a Rudy Meinl 5/4 CC. They are roughly the same size. Both are great tubas. Or a Willson 3100 compared to a Willson 3050. Or compare a Miraphone 191 in Bb with a PT-6. Or even a King 2341 with a Conn 56J (recognizing that the King has $3000 less of gross profit margin to provide quality control). Again, the best examples of all of these are great tubas.

You may like the C better or the Bb better, depending how the mix of their strengths and weaknesses fit with your priorities. But you can't categorically claim one is better than the other.

Rick "who suggests identifying hearsay as such" Denney

[ZNC Dandy]

Well, I can say this and defend myself. Ive been playing on a CC for several months now, and just came off a st petersburg tuba, and i tested many professional BBb tubas and CC tubas, my teacher was fine with a Bb. Im just saying the difference i felt between a BBb and a CC

yes there are still intonation issues,, but it is better than 3 tuba players playing 20 cents sharp on the same horn because of a bad design. Also, many fingering patterns work better on CC

I played a Leningrad BBb tuba several years ago when a Russian orchestra came through town and visited the music store where I was working at the time. I was once on the ignorant side of this debate. This BBb blew the pants off of my B&S PT-4P. Much better sound, projection, and it was a very sonically colourful instrument. The intonation wasn't as good, but I have never looked at that as THE determining factor to judging an instrument. I think thats kind of inane, but to each his own. CC fingerings work better on certain pieces. I've yet to play a Prokofiev work where BBb fingerings didn't lie better.

As for the original question....I think if you are going to play in Europe, you're going to want a BBb horn. Most of them are gong to want you to play one.

[MaryAnn]

Personally, from an *audience* perspective, I vote for a complete BB natural tuba section, as described, earth shoes and daisies included. How about Tuba Christmas in July with exclusively BB natural tubas?


MA

[Chuck(G)]

Play what you sound best on.

Your audience (and very likely the guy with the stick) will otherwise neither know nor care.

[ZNC Dandy]

What I was saying was that there is less tubing, and professional model BBb like the king 2341 are real good horns and produce a sound, but in competitve markets here in america...and i will agree with the statement that hindemith lies better on BBb as well and whatnot...

In a ITEA journal in fall of 2005 the author of the article specifically stated to play what sounds best on, but however all th ebig guns play on a F and CC, so thats where they migrate though....the miraphone 1291 BBb is also a kick butt horn and is the BBb comparison the the CC

All the "big guns" play F and CC? Ever heard of Walter Hilgers, Paul Halwax, Paul Humpel, Heiko Triebener, Markus Hotzel, David Glidden,or Alexander von Puttkamer? Just to name a few. I guess they wouldn't qualify as "big guns" to you since they all use a BBb as their large instrument?

[SplatterTone]

One wonders if somebody will gamble on a production tuba below the B-flat. Instead of "6/4" B-flat, make an "5/4" A-flat or "4/4" G. Has any scientific energy been spent investigating at what point the human lips become the limiting factor? How looooow can you go?

[Allen]

I've told this story before, so here's a brief version:

I decided to go back to playing tuba after a long hiatus. I got the help of a good teacher, and tried a lot of tubas. I expected that I would get a BBb tuba, as that is what I was used to. However, I just LOVED a CC tuba I tried. I bought it, and within two weeks I was quite comfortable with CC fingerings.

Moral of the story: Let the tuba pick you. All other issues can be dealt with.

Now, if MA had been on hand with one of those B-natural tubas and I had liked it...

Cheers,
Allen
(who doesn't know what pitch any of his future tubas might be in)

[Rick Denney]

What I was saying was that there is less tubing, and professional model BBb like the king 2341 are real good horns and produce a sound, but in competitve markets here in america...

Yes, be we weren't talking about American standard practice. We were talking about Germany, where Bb tubas are still more likely to be the contrabass of choice. Given that Germany can seriously claim to have some of the best orchestras in the world, it would be difficult to reject the viability of their standard practice.

There are plenty of Bb tubas that can compete with the C tubas of your choice, especially when considering orchestral practice on a more global scale. They are more rarely sold in the U.S., because those willing to pay over $10K for a tuba are generally buying C tubas. But they are still available.

Rick "not extrapolating American practice for a question about German practice" Denney

[Rick Denney]

One wonders if somebody will gamble on a production tuba below the B-flat. Instead of "6/4" B-flat, make an "5/4" A-flat or "4/4" G. Has any scientific energy been spent investigating at what point the human lips become the limiting factor? How looooow can you go?

There are G contrabass tubas. They are called "contras" and several regular professional Tubenetters have played them extensively.

In terms of scientific energy, we did once do a comparison here of the tubing length actually in use for a range of notes when comparing Bb and C tubas. My recollection was that there were few notes where the Bb tuba used longer tubing on a higher partial to play the note. There were at least as many notes in common keys (both sharp and flat) where the Bb tuba is closer to its basic bugle than the C.

The comparison between contrabass tubas and bass tubas was not the same. The bass tubas moved a whole partial up, and showed less tubing on most notes. That's why people prefer them when agility is important.

But empirical observation suggests a balance point between the volume of the instrument and the length of the bugle. The volume is a product of the length and the width of the taper design. Trying to make a tuba with large volume but a short bugle falls outside that balance, and the wide taper makes reasonable intonation difficult or impossible. That's why the old Eb Monster Bass tubas don't have a stellar reputation for intonation. For that matter, it's why the Yorkophones also don't have a steller reputation for intonation (especially the Yorkophones with 16-foot bugles). A bass tuba with the width of a Yorkophone would be unplayable.

So, if you want a reasonable balance between width and length, then you have to be willing to change the length in order to get more width. It also means you have to change the width in order to get more length. So, a sub-contrabass tuba would need to be wider in order to maintain the taper design relationship. Too narrow and it sounds more like a trombone and loses that blossomy depth of sound. In a contra line, the desireable sound probably doen't involve adjectives like "depth", but rather like "punch". Leland or Wade may correct me if I'm wrong.

It's not a matter of lips, in my view. It's a matter of resonance. If the instrument resonates, and if the mouthpiece fits on the face, the lips will vibrate happily. The better the tuba resonates, the more it will make out of a given quantity of air driving a given buzz. Lower notes may be possible, but only if the lips can vibrate there. I can't even explore all the tubing I have on my tubas now--not even my 5-valve F tubas. (I know most pros can.)

Bb and C aren't different enough for the tradeoff to be clear. A sub-contra F or G might be. But then most notes in the money register would be played on a higher partial, and that's more work. But if we decided we needed the depth of sound a sub-contra F of appropriate width could provide, we'd learn to deal with that. But it would be much more expensive to build, and likely impractically large to schlep around, if you maintained the taper designs used by the larger contrabass tubas.

Rick "who has only seen one workable contrabass wider than a Yorkophone" Denney

[Mojo workin']

To the main poster-

Are you in school now? If so, does the school have a nice Bb you can borrow/play for a while?

You could try playing all your contrabass stuff on the Bb, sorta "coming home" probably.



Or you could try to find a decent used Miraphone 191, that way you'll have a nice big Bb without breaking the bank and maybe even keep your current horn. But if you find a nice one and don't buy it, let me know![

quote]


Actually, I do freelance work here and there. Haven't been in school for 10 years. Bad work situation(day job) forced me to quit and get rid of my Holton CC. Now that I'm able to replace it, I'm entertaining this notion of change to BBb so that I can take German auditions, or follow what I had heard the tradition is there anyway. Miraphone 191 is top on my list.
The change will be I'm guessing the same challenge that going from only CC to only F was. I hope not worse, I haven't played BBb since high school!

[jonesbrass]

If you are serious about auditioning in Germany, then I would get in touch with Bob Tucci or Dave Glidden. I took a lesson with Dave in my rare spare time between gigs in Germany, and I recall quite clearly that he was playing on a Rudy Meinl F and 5/4 BBb. He has such a huge sound, it really doesn't matter what he plays on. I know he was primarily a "CC contrabass" player before the Frankfurt Radio Symphony job, and the orchestra expected him to play BBb to keep the gig. You can't discount tradition over there. Maybe after winning the gig they would tolerate a CC better, maybe not. Best to ask those guys that are over there.

[LoyalTubist]

I lived in Berlin in the early 1980s as a member of the 298th Army Band (USA). I knew a few of the local tuba players there (on both sides of the Wall). The West Berlin Police Band used mostly BBbs, but also had CCs and Fs (no Ebs) and all had rotary valves. The East German military bands seemed to use anything they could get their hands on but all the tubas had rotary valves, including their sousaphones (no, they weren't helicons). In the orchestras, the big name orchestras were very picky about what tuba was used--it was spelled out in the contract. The Berlin Philharmonic, for example, had slots for a "contrabass tuba" player and a "bass tuba" player. The contrabass player was to play a large BBb tuba with four (or more) rotary valves. The bass tuba player was to play a medium F tuba with five (or more) rotary valves. If you notice the videos of their performances, even the trumpeters use rotary valve instruments.