markaustinhowle wrote:...As an engineer I would hope you would offer scientific explanations as to why those observations occur, but instead, you went to a great deal of effort to minimize them altogether.
No, I just went to an effort to identify the effect precisely, and then question its relevance in light of my own experience as a practitioner. I may not be very good, but I have played tuba over a 37-year period. From a physical point of view, I did justify the notion that notes played on the open bugle feel more open and sound more resonant but actually have less response than those played with longer valve branches included. Compare your flexibility exercises on the open bugle with those on the fourth valve and see if you agree. For me, flexibility exercises on the fourth valve are easier but don't necessarily sound as good. (As with all generalizations, there are exceptions.) This effect seems explainable physically.
...but its my opinion that a person should never post anything that is pro-CC tuba on Tube Net unless he has lots of time to defend himself.
This is an overstatement. I've never ever argued against someone who defended the use of the C tuba. I have argued against those who defend the
superiority of the C tuba just because it's a C, especially when they based their defense on conventional wisdom unsupported by new observations.
I just recently reviewed everything I posted about CC tuba. Let me summarize:
1. I stated that an advantage of CC over BBb was that several of the notes used less pipe and therefore CC was easier/desirable for those notes, while there was no such advantage for the BBb tuba.
(My logic was as follows: Since the shortest fingering possible is generally used on all brass instruments, I stated that the shortest possible pipe was desirable.* I think I even stated that the reason might be that less energy was required to set a smaller volume or air into vibration.)
I quantified "several" in detail, though I recall the word you used was "half", not "several". But it was your logic stated above that I really debated. 1.) I see no reason why the shortest possible tubing is desirable
per se, nor do I agree that it takes more energy to establish vibration with the longer tube. There are some physical effects, but I don't typically feel them in practice. For example, the longer instrument does require longer for the reflected pulse to reach the mouthpiece to reinforce the next buzz pulse. That's one reason an F tuba seems more secure in the upper register than a contrabass. And I think a C would also seem more secure on some notes. I have never argued that C tubas don't
feel different in some notes than Bb tubas; my argument has been that they don't sound different or that these effects are not significant enough or offset by other design variables sufficiently to constitute superiority.
2. I stated that I wished someone had presented those facts to me when I was younger so I could make an informed decision.
3. I encouraged everyone who was going to make tuba their profession to learn all four tubas while they were young so they could make an informed decision.
Fully agreed and never countered by me. As I have said many times, anyone seeking a performance degree 1.) can never use unwillingness to learn new fingerings as an excuse to avoid learning a tuba in a different pitch, and 2.) will have to show proficiency in all four pitches eventually anyway. There are too many gigs that require Bb proficiency (such as in the military bands) as well as C proficiency, and most solo work requires mastery of at least one bass tuba. But more to the point, the sort of mind that can succeed in the highly competitive professional tuba world must not the type that is intimidated by a different set of fingerings.
On the other hand, those in music education who will be largely adult amateurs can save a lot of money by sticking with Bb, and still have available to them instruments that can indeed compete for sound and purpose in occasional professional situations. There is no reason for C tuba players to feel superior to Bb tuba players on that basis alone, and vice versa.
4. I gave a simple experiment showing why I thought it was easier/desirable to play notes with lesser amount of pipe. (Playing an open note and then using alternate fingerings that utalize longer total tubing for comparison)
I agree that that will produce a better sounding note on most tubas in some cases, as when comparing the F at the bottom of the staff (on a Bb tuba) played open versus 1-3. But I don't really notice that the fifth-partial D sounds better played open versus 1-2, or that the middle C is better open versus first valve. Do you? It seems to me one needs more than the first two valves to notice that effect, at least. (And, as mentioned below, the effect is not always negative.)
5. I proposed that really low notes like D and Db might be easier on BBb tuba because of the extra valve tubing required on CC tuba.
Agreed.
Then Rick went into a really long response that didn’t (seem to me) really relate to what I said so much but at the bottom he said that no science supported any statement that CC was any better then BBb. ... My statement wasn’t that CC was superior to BBb per se, Rick didn’t say anything that refuted my statement that 'shorter tubing was better so long as all other variables were the same'.
Then you were not reading carefully. I stated that a system is designed to fulfill requirements, and requirements include intonation, sound, and playability. You presented design measures, including the use of shorter tubing, as if it was a requirement, without showing that that design measure really leads to fulfilling those requirements. That's the point I argued.
By the way, both Ray and Mike are professional C tuba players, and both of them in my hearing counsel young pro wannabes to be fully proficient on C tubas.
2. When I said “The shortest feasible amount of pipe is desirable. If its not, then all the fingering charts should be rewritten using the longest possible valve combinations.â€
