Why not start on CC?

[MileMarkerZero]

Does anyone have a really good rationale why band directors don't start their beginning tuba players on CC? The little CC Werils play really well and are cheaper than most of the BBb's that schools use. So why not? I can think of one advantage right off the bat: when you switch a trumpet player to tuba, C is still open and Bb is still first valve. They just aren't transposing anymore. But since they're learning a new clef anyway, that should be a non-issue.

Granted, it would be more expensive to get decent CC horns in the laps of the high school kids, but the payoff there is that the student-level CC horns will more often than not be better playing horns than the student-level BBb horns (IMO).

Discuss...

[Casey Tucker]

yes, the werils are decently priced but for a decent to pretty good ensemble the weril C's, in my opinion, wouldn't be able to balance. you can find nice sounding/projecting Bb's for around the price of a weril C (MW 25. it's what i had). Tuben put it nicely, "we're the only ones that care about the damn key". what the school's and districts are concerned with is price and durability. and think about it this way. if by chance you did happen to get nice C tuba's for a school what are the chances of having kids that are financially ready to purchase a CC in college? my university has 1 school CC for the entire studio. if the student learned CC his entire musical career, he/she might have to completely re-learn the horn when they get to college. it's not just the accepted standards for band programs but makes for a better tuning foundation for the rest of the ensemble.

[Richardrichard9]

I personally think that it is harder to play a lot of band music on CC, because of the flats. Not difficult, but more difficult than BBb. That might be a reason?

[tofu]

[lgb&dtuba]

Because orchestras aren't really a public school thing? So there's not really a good reason to teach CC tubas at that level. It's easier for school age musicians to switch between euph and tuba if the tuba is BBb. I suspect there are a great many schools who beef up the sousaphone line during marching season with people who play something else during concert season. Something more compatible with BBb.

It's already bad enough that colleges are cranking out a couple of hundred tubists with orchestra aspirations for the 2 or 3 slots that become available each year.

Quite frankly, if one wants to learn CC there's nothing to stop you from picking it up on your own or in college. It's not that hard to sit down with the appropriate Arban's and just do it. If you think learning the different fingerings for the different key tubas is too difficult, then you are probably not going to make it in that world anyway.

[king2ba]

A few thoughts:

- All the band books are written with BBb in mind. So, a director would have to go through and change all the fingerings. Getting publishers to change things is a really tough sell and a middle school band director doesn't want to go through books to make changes like that.

- The little Weirl's are nice horns, but they are not available in the quantities needed for band programs around the country. Also, many programs actually need two tubas for every tuba player....one goes home and stays there, while another is played at school. (You can have multiple students use the horns at school but many of the better programs want beginners playing on different horns than the kids in the top band play, to prevent as much wear and tear on the more expensive stuff)

- Most band directors are not tuba players and don't study the tuba during their instrument method classes in college. However, they may have played trombone or euphonium. Once you learn how slide positions and fingerings are equivalent, then it's easy to help any instrument in the low brass section with fingerings.

- You need a 4th valve to play a low F on a CC tuba. Most middle school band music is in Bb or F. So, 3 valve tubas are out. More $$$ that a
lot of programs don't have.

Anyway....that's my thoughts!

[eupher61]

harder to play in flats on a CC?

Sheesh.

How much contemporary band music is all in flat keys? Yes, traditionally, that was the case. Not any more.

Still, that's absolutely no excuse, nor is it a reason.

[Dan Schultz]

It would make more sense to start kids on Eb tubas.... like they did when I was a kid. Didn't hurt me a bit and I have no problem with either Eb or BBb fingerings and can easily switch to treble clef Bb if I want. I would hate to think that I started on C and remained on only that for my entire playing life.

[iiipopes]

Yes! Yes indeed! It's all vanity on the BBb. Smaller stature needs a smaller instrument. If they had Eb tubas when I was in grade school and middle school, I probably would have started on tuba then instead of trumpet. But I didn't like how I sounded on a "traditional" baritone/American hybrid euphonium, nor the feel of it, and of course a standard BBb was just too large at the time.

The band director I started under, because Eb tubas were no longer used by the time I started band, started tuba players in grade school on a baritone or euph, but with the tuba book, and had them play everything up an octave. Then when they got to middle school and got a souzy on a souzy chair with a 25 mouthpiece, they dropped the octave.

A good way to start, actually, as it got the students reading the notation first, and could play notes they physically could until the embouchure grew and developed to "fill" a tuba mouthpiece.

But all of these alternative approaches are completely obviated when you start on an Eb, and only have to learn to change the fingering of a few notes if and when you switch to BBb.

And if you start out playing British Brass band, with everything being written in a transposed treble clef save bass bone, then it's even more an obvious solution to start on Eb.

Indeed. Eb is the way to start, and retain at least one to get a diversified section later for better overall tone.

[king2ba]

I think the point is that in a band setting, and teaching, BBb works best. In alot of beginning programs, you will have a class of tubas and euphoniums in the same class room, maybe even trombones.
.

This isn't as common as it once was. Many programs are now going to one person teaches everything to all the kids at one time. I can't think of many places other than Texas and a few midwest holdouts that are still starting beginners in like instrument classes.

[WoodSheddin]

All of the brass instruments started on are Bb. The only possible exception is a single Horn in F. Otherwise EVERY brass instrument is Bb. Makes teaching MUCH simpler for teachers of beginners.

Why? I dunno. Wiki probably has the answer.

[iiipopes]

One reality-filled word:

sousaphone

For decades, literally from about 1958 until 1978, my high school could not afford both concert tubas and souzys. So they went with King (original HN White era) souzys for both. Even with that setback, my high school band program still got nothing but state "I" ratings, and for a decade after that as well when they finally got King 1241's.

Why not drive on the left side of the road...and why do shirts button up the way they do...??

I've driven on the left. In the UK. I tried a right-hand drive car here in the USA, a late 60's Jaguar Mark II, and the first time I pulled up to a busy intersection, I was behind a gravel truck, and couldn't see anything. It was as unsafe a situation I ever want to be in, driving. I immediately took it back to the used car lot I test drove it from, and declined.

Regarding the shirts, I don't care how they button, so long as they have a proper English front button placket, and not a French self-faced placket.

[Rick Denney]

Lots of kids start out learning band instruments. Few progress beyond high school, and of those, far fewer go into music performance where the ability to learn fingerings for other pitches of tuba is important.

In my Texas junior high school, we all started together, only occasionally breaking up into sections. Everybody with a brass instrument (excepting horns, and even them on one side of a double horn), the band director could say, "don't press any valves and make this sound", and play a concert Bb. It would be a drag for a band director to say "everyone but tubas, don't press any valves, but tubas press the first valve."

I memorized the fingerings for my first five major scales by watching trumpet players play them. They called them something different (unless they were named by their concert pitch), but the button pushing was the same.

And I could also switch back and forth with the euphonium with some reasonable facility, which later helped me to play string bass music. Had I started on C tuba, that would have been a much bigger challenge.

We expect tuba players with the potential to become professionals to have facility on all four pitches of tubas. If switching from Bb to C is burdensome, them maybe that person should rethink their objectives. But forcing those without that desire or potential down that road is self-destructive.

And all that is even if you could figure a way to get from here to there, which I think would be overwhelmingly difficult and expensive, for the reasons already cited. C tubas could be sold cheaply, but for now they are not because the people buying them don't particularly want cheap tubas. Crossing that bridge would not be trivial.

Rick "thinking band programs are on an uphill path as it is" Denney

[pierso20]

Lots of kids start out learning band instruments. Few progress beyond high school, and of those, far fewer go into music performance where the ability to learn fingerings for other pitches of tuba is important.

In my Texas junior high school, we all started together, only occasionally breaking up into sections. Everybody with a brass instrument (excepting horns, and even them on one side of a double horn), the band director could say, "don't press any valves and make this sound", and play a concert Bb. It would be a drag for a band director to say "everyone but tubas, don't press any valves, but tubas press the first valve."

I memorized the fingerings for my first five major scales by watching trumpet players play them. They called them something different (unless they were named by their concert pitch), but the button pushing was the same.

And I could also switch back and forth with the euphonium with some reasonable facility, which later helped me to play string bass music. Had I started on C tuba, that would have been a much bigger challenge.

We expect tuba players with the potential to become professionals to have facility on all four pitches of tubas. If switching from Bb to C is burdensome, them maybe that person should rethink their objectives. But forcing those without that desire or potential down that road is self-destructive.

And all that is even if you could figure a way to get from here to there, which I think would be overwhelmingly difficult and expensive, for the reasons already cited. C tubas could be sold cheaply, but for now they are not because the people buying them don't particularly want cheap tubas. Crossing that bridge would not be trivial.

Rick "thinking band programs are on an uphill path as it is" Denney

well said. If a student is developing and wishes to have a desire to continue his playing professionally, then switching keys on a horn is not as important of an issue. Therefore, allowing students to learn on BBb when they may never play past high school, or purely be an amateur, is not a bad thing.

[The Big Ben]

"Most" kids who are in band will never touch a horn after graduation. Some come wandering back sometime in the future but, for the most part, it's something that is done as a part of a child's arts training. In the 20 years I have been at my school, I know of three who are making their living playing music- one of them 'only kinda', one as a choir teacher and the other is a studio drummer in LA and works all the time. Three others played in service bands but did not make a career of it.

CC vs BBb is something that is argued between tuba geeks on TubeNet. I would have liked to try the 'old school' tuba introduction of the Eb back in Jr. High. Herb Alpert hit hard and, out of 40 in my 7th grade band, 15 played trumpet. No t-bones, no baritones, no bari/tenor sax. I decided to play baritone because I could just pick it up and play it- Bb treble clef. My guess is that the "Eb conversion" kind of disappeared because of sousaphones and marching bands. I've never understood why marching band is so popular but so many people enjoy it that I think I'm the one who is weird. BBb sousaphones across the board make the big sound and impression that it wanted on the marching field so, therefore and hence, BBb horns are used in the concert hall also and those who can't afford two sets of horns use the sousas in concert also. So, no Eb horns even though it is an easy way to retool trumpet players. Schools are lucky to have one set of horns and those horns are BBb.

[J.c. Sherman]

I lean more towards Eb's as a way to begin than anything else. In my perfect world, that's how all tubists would start. But there is one other thing to think about:

What's wrong with a BBb?

There are some players of the BBb who can make a heck of an argument for that as a primary instrument. I'm sure many of us can list them. Other arguments (kill all souseaphones!) aside, a 3v BBb can cover everything a school kid'll run accross (well, 99.99%) and it's inexpensive and can support and ensemble. BBb's are just fine...

J.c.S.

[Rick Denney]

What's wrong with a BBb?

It's not the flavor of the month (or decade) for professionals.

Now, before you guys light those torches, think of it this way: Some kid in high school plays the tuba, and it turns out he's pretty darn good. So, he decides to pursue it in college. So, he hangs around older kids and reads Tubenet, and begins to realize that pros play C tuba and he'll have to learn how to play C if he's gonna study it. So, he gets a reality check. He already thought he had some skills, but now he realizes some of those skills will have to be learned all over again. So, he wonders why he didn't just start on C in the first place.

(Of course, even if he had started on C, he would still have to endure those feelings when he learned the F. And then again when he decides to audition for an actual paying gig--in the military--where his instrumente de jour will be a Bb sousaphone. So, those of us with gray in our beards don't feel too sorry for him having to learn the C fingerings at age 19 or 20, or younger. Ultimately, he'll have to get to the point where thinking about fingerings just isn't that hard.)

But now let's consider the plight of the kid who might, just might, get out of high school with the motivation to keep playing as an adult. These folks outnumber bona fide pro wannabes by orders of magnitude. They don't need facility with different fingering patterns, and that's a decision they can make as an adult if they want to. For them, there's no issue at all about learning the same fingerings to make the same sounds that most of the other kids in beginner band are learning.

And even as adults, whatever they might give up by playing Bb instead of C they probably can't afford anyway.

Rick "who hasn't paid more than $5000 for a tuba yet" Denney

[ken k]

what I would rather see almost is BBb treble clef music ala british brass bands. at least in the band arrangements. many arrangements are now coming through with world parts" which include Eb and BBb treble clef parts for tubas. this would make it much easier for trumpet plaers to switch to tuba.

ken k

[Will]

I believe that when you learn a different way to play your instrument (different key or cleff) or learn a different instrument, it only enhances you as a musician and a tuba player. When I arrived in college I played tuba, euphonium, and trombone, both in bass or treble clef since I started on trumpet. I could even pick up a trumpet and play it once my chops adjusted.

Through my experience learning CC, Eb, and F as well as multiple instruments as an ed major, my concept of music expanded. By the time I was a senior I could pick up an oboe, sax, or any part and play it after a minute adjusting my perception of where middle C was. I saw my part as music instead of just a bass line.

Now as a teacher I can take a trumpet or euphonium and play any part for my kids to hear. I wouldn't want to take that experience away from a possible pro tuba player or future teacher.

It's all music meant to be played by musicians.

[Will]

Let me clarify. In no way do I think it's wise to start tuba players on CC. I think it would be wrong to deprive them of learning CC.

In creating my post in a restaurant and having a delicious pork BBQ dinner in front of me, I hastily jotted down my own personal experience and stopped without explaining further.