What is this tuba?

[LoyalTubist]

I am not really sure... Eugene Adam was French and American companies were making rotary valve tubas at this time. If you look at Eugene Adam's page on Doug Yeo's site, there is a picture of Paul Sidow with a very similar looking tuba. Maybe it belonged to the Boston Symphony...

http://www.yeodoug.com/publications/ada ... ction.html

[Peach]

I am not really sure... Eugene Adam was French and American companies were making rotary valve tubas at this time. If you look at Eugene Adam's page on Doug Yeo's site, there is a picture of Paul Sidow with a very similar looking tuba. Maybe it belonged to the Boston Symphony...

http://www.yeodoug.com/publications/ada ... ction.html

Can't help Bob at all but the Sidow tuba has a vertical main slide and Adam's is horizontal so they're similar but not the same horn.

The Adam tuba has one of those crazy 'balls' on the bottom bow (designed to keep tuba players childless in the hope they maintain a practice routine...). I've only ever seen them on Boosey's but Adam's is not one of those. Can't be many makers use them?

[TonyZ]

The Adam tuba has one of those crazy 'balls' on the bottom bow (designed to keep tuba players childless in the hope they maintain a practice routine...).

AKA, The "De-"man"ing device...

Not to be confused with the "John Man-ning" device...

...I'm not sure what that means, really...sorry, John!

[LoyalTubist]

I don't remember many of the manufacturers by name, but several had those orbs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

One thing to notice in these early pictures of the Boston Symphony low brass: They took their tubist from the trombonists! I think this was true even about Vinal Smith, who succeeded Eugene Adam.

[Rick Denney]

I don't recognize the maker, but it sure looks like an F to me, as does the tuba being held by Paul Sidow, and the tuba used by Vinal Smith. Chester Schmitz may well be the first tuba player to have used a contrabass routinely in the Boston Symphony.

I seem to recall a photo of the BSO from the late 19th-century showing the tuba player holding a top-action bass tuba that was probably an Eb. Could have been a Distin, though most outside Germany made them in that style at the time.

It was certainly common practice to use contrabass instruments in orchestras when the photo was made. Helleberg used a C Sander before this time, and Bell and Donatelli both used C tubas. Both Don Stauffer and Arnold Jacobs used contrabass BAT's only a few years later.

It seems to me that the F tuba was the standard orchestral instrument from the first time tubas replaced ophicleides, with occasional Eb exceptions, at least outside of France. Bevan suggests that 19th-century British tuba players (prior to Harry Barlow) might have used a euphonium, but he didn't list examples.

The use of the contrabass as the default instrument seems to have been particularly American, even though many of the practitioners of that trend were not natives. Maybe it was the influence of the big bottom-end sound of the professional bands of the day.

Rick "still curious about the first appearance of a front-action piston C" Denney

[ZNC Dandy]

If I remember correctly a number of years ago Doug Yeo wrote an article in the T.U.B.A Journal about the Boston Symphony Trombone and Tuba Sections. One of the pictures shows Eugene Adam sitting on a bass trunk playing what is almost certainly a York 4-piston front action contrabass tuba. CC or BBb, I think the date of the picture was 1944. I think the article is from 1987 or so.

[Art Hovey]

I read somewhere that Eugene Adam played BBb tuba in the Boston Symphony.
Sidow's tuba in the photo looks like an F to me, but the first valve tubing on the Adams tuba is clearly much longer, suggesting CC or BBb. Also notice the extra loop near the main tuning slide. I think it's a small BBb tuba.
K. Vinal Smith used a six-valve Kruspe F tuba. I saw him several times with it when the BSO played in New Haven, but I never heard a note.

[Rick Denney]

Sidow's tuba in the photo looks like an F to me, but the first valve tubing on the Adams tuba is clearly much longer, suggesting CC or BBb. Also notice the extra loop near the main tuning slide. I think it's a small BBb tuba.

Maybe you're right. I thought I counted only two bows after the main slide, and a Bb would need another loop of the outer branches, it seems to me. I may have missed it.

The main tuning slide has an extra loop in it, which seems to me to convert a high-pitch instrument to low pitch. That would have been a common feature in those days.

Rick "apparently not looking close enough" Denney

[Chuck(G)]

The main tuning slide has an extra loop in it, which seems to me to convert a high-pitch instrument to low pitch. That would have been a common feature in those days.

Maybe, but the 1st valve slide looks to be pulled out about 1/2". You'd expect more than that if this were a HP horn converted to LP. More likely, the horn has been manufactured for LP but using a jig and body geometry that accommodates both HP and LP.

What I find most interesting is the horn of the guy on the opposite side of the picture. Interesting wrap on the tuning slides--and five valves. This seems to be one of the rare instances where the horn player has more valves on his instrument than does the tuba player...

[windshieldbug]

I think it's a small BBb tuba

I'm not so sure. Look at the length of the second valves of the horns that are in F standing behind in the last row behind him, then compare it to the length of the tuba's second valve. Looks close to me!

And without knowing the intonation of said horn, nor the slide-pulling propensities, perhaps that IS just fine for THIS high-pitch horn converted to low-pitch. Alternately, if it is a European instrument, perhaps it was built A LITTLE high. I know that the tuning slide of my 184 Mirafone is always pretty out far if we don't tune a little high...

[Alex C]

I'm betting that this is a Kruspe tuba, probably a 3/4 in C.