Alexander Census

[chhite]

I sold that particular Alex to a young man in Tyler, Texas in early 1991. Dave Kirk played it at TBA in 1990 and loved it. Very good pitch!!!!Chuck

That person in Texas was Archie Cassidy and as of 2002, he still owned it. Lee Stofer put a new leadpipe and a fifth valve on it and the few quirks that the horn had were fixed. Archie sounded fantastic on that horn.

[Donn]

Got a picture?

I don't know that I've ever seen a piston Alexander anything.

You have seen one now, if a picture counts. Does seem to be a departure in most respects from the Alexander stuff we see here. Large bore mouthpiece receiver, I guess at least that's consistent.

[Donn]

Very cool photo. May I download it?

By all means.

How is the low end?


It looks very American baritone-ish in the proportions (except for the front-action thing!)!

Below the bass clef, pretty good - I don't really have much reason to care about that, and I haven't played other baritone horns for comparison, but my casual impression is that it's probably better than average down there. As expected with the large bore.

Up to the middle of the clef, pretty good on some notes, incredibly bad on others, specifically Bb and A. Bb actually comes out closer to A, and never feels right wherever it ends up. I tell myself, their reputation for pitch troubles doesn't mean they would send something out the door designed to fail in this extreme way, so while I have not been able to figure out the cause myself, it can be fixed.

Overall, like I say, no baritone to compare to, but it's a big rather forceful sound, with no sweet ethereal component that I can find. Maybe I should call it a bass saxhorn.

[Daniel C. Oberloh]

This one is not my tuba but the owner is an occasional visitor to this forum. He got this one third or forth-hand and has been playing on it since 1953! We just completed squaring it away for him and will be shipping it back to him in Arkansas next week. Can't say I have ever seen one of these before. Its about a hundred years old +/-. Fun instrument, string linkage? Go figure. Pretty cool horn if I do say so myself.


Tonight...


two weeks ago. HEEHEE

Daniel C. Oberloh
Oberloh Woodwind and Brass Works
www.oberloh.com

[The Big Ben]

two weeks ago. HEEHEE

MY but you have a demonic grin when you are about to take the torch to a horn!
(It came out beautiful! I love the shallow, gradual taper in the bell.)

[Brendan Bohnhorst]

Seeing as I own two Alexanders right now, I should probably post something on here. At one point I had three Alexander tubas, a pair of CC's and an F.

This CC was once owned by Oscar Lagasse, the long time tubist with the Detroit symphony. It was sold to a student of his around 30 years ago, and in turn sold to me about 3-4 years ago. I played it for a while and then sold it to a different former student of Mr. Lagasse. This particular Alex was interesting to me because it also had solid nickel silver valves, bearing plates and all. I think that the tuning rod was added when Oscar had the tuba. I was told this tuba is from the early 1950's. The fifth valve is left hand and is a minor third, or 23 combination.



The next Alexander I still own and play everyday. The scale is great, and that's for any tuba, not just an Alexander! I purchased this tuba from Phil Sinder at Michigan State. He bought this tuba from Dan Perentoni while he was playing with the Houston Symphony a while back. I believe it to be a very early 1970's Alexander. The fifth valve on this tuba is a flat half step (3/4 step valve) and has an extension soldered onto the tuba to make it a minor third, like an old Mirafone set up. All you have to do is re-route the fifth valve tuning slide through the extension on the front of the tuba.



This is the best picture that I have of my Alexander F on my laptop. You can check out my brass quintet website http://www.sapphirebrass.com and look at a few more photos of me with it. This tuba was owned by John MacEnulty of the St. Louis Symphony for a long time. I was lucky enough to meet one of his former students and purchase it almost 8 years ago. This tuba is everything that an Alexander F is supposed to be, minus the bad intonation. I only use 2 alternate fingerings on this thing. Everything else lines up quite well, only your standard F tuba slide pulls. It also has a flat half step fifth valve. It had a left hand fifth valve when I bought it. And now it has a thumb operated fifth valve and the original left hand mechanism is still on the tuba. Kevin Powers did the work for me a few years ago, and he did a wonderful job.