Why don't we use the French C tuba anymore??

[Chuck Jackson]

I have some of the recordings of the New Queenshall Orchestra and I think they are astounding. It is nice to hear Elgar's "In the South (Alessio)" done on the smaller instruments. Whereas with a modern group you get brass with lots of volume and a "mushy" sound, with that band you get an incredible amount of focused volume and every note is crisp and clean. I think that the trend in homoginization of orchestral sound has done a great disservice to music. Three cheers for the Germans and Austrians for bucking the trend and holding true to their musical ideas.


Chuck

[anonymous4]

FYI, Here's a little etude out of my French tuba method book. (Sorry for the quality--it's pretty old).

Sorry if I missed something. You said the lowest note was an A three lines below the staff. How would someone play the low F# in the etude? Are those pedal notes? Is the C two lines below the staff considered a pedal tone?

Thanks!

[loic]

This studies are writen in concert pitch for the french tuba and they sound one tone lower when they are played on the Bb saxhorn (in france the saxhorn and the euphonium are played as transposing instrument, like trumpet and the part are writen in bass clef).
The lower note is (on the french tuba) a A six line below the staff.
Most of the pieces writen for saxhorn or tuba go to the F 4 line below the staff.

sorry for my aproximative english.
Loïc.

[windshieldbug]

sorry for my aproximative english

On the contrary, you approximate well!

[Chuck(G)]

Sorry if I missed something. You said the lowest note was an A three lines below the staff. How would someone play the low F# in the etude? Are those pedal notes? Is the C two lines below the staff considered a pedal tone? Thanks!

I also observed that there was rarely any reason to use more than 3 valves. I thnk you've got the right idea:

1. Pedal tone
2. Yes

On these old small-bore instruments, pedal tones can be pretty darned good.

[Steve Inman]

Just picked up this thread.

The french tuba is a wondrous and beautiful beast. It is a neat narrow bore euphonium in c. It has usually 3 descending (normal) valves and, here's the magic, 3 ascending valves.

Thus it can cheat and use pedals on very short tube lengths. So rather than a muddy heavily valved note near the bottom it can play a open clear "pedal" note.

OK -- I'll bite -- how DOES an ascending valve work? You have to snip away some tube length, don't you?

Never seen one that raises the pitch....

[Chuck(G)]

The french tuba is a wondrous and beautiful beast. It is a neat narrow bore euphonium in c. It has usually 3 descending (normal) valves and, here's the magic, 3 ascending valves.

Which valves are the ascending ones? According to my turn-of-the-century French tuba method book, the valves work this way:

• Valves 2 and 5 both descend 1 semitone
• Valve 1 descend 2 semitones
• Valve 3 descend 4 semitones
• Valve 4 descend 5 semitones
• Valve 6 descend 8 semitones

[Mikelynch]

That's the way mine is, Chuck. From my experience, a French tuba with even one ascending valve would be pretty unusual.

Mike Lynch

[windshieldbug]

The French (and Belgian) ascending system that I'm familiar with concerns 3rd valves and horns.

[corbasse]

The French (and Belgian) ascending system that I'm familiar with concerns 3rd valves and horns.

Me too. The shortest bugle length of a french C tuba with 3 ascending valves would have to be of alto (tenor for brits) horn proportions. Not much of a tuba left anymore.

(A french french horn with ascending system is basically built as a horn in G with the 3rd valve being a reversed whole tone valve. i.e. the valve loop is engaged when up and bypassed when down. These instruments are still described and treated as horns in F though)

[J.c. Sherman]

Like having an ophicleide and a cimbasso (yaaay!), I've always wanted a French Tuba. I played one at the Pacific Northwest TUBA convention back in 1988, when Courtois still made one (at least, it was still in their catalogue). I loved it. And Bydlo was effortless. And it's a great substitute for Ophicleide.

However, that being said, as Tubas have grown a bit, a euphonium, being a bit larger/longer, is a good match with the bigger bones of today. Try it sometime on Bozza and - believe it or not - Pictures. Way cool sound.

Oh - could the original poster of the two French Tuba Etudes resore the links? I'd be very interested in these!

J.c.S.

[Rick Denney]

Like having an ophicleide and a cimbasso (yaaay!), I've always wanted a French Tuba. I played one at the Pacific Northwest TUBA convention back in 1988, when Courtois still made one (at least, it was still in their catalogue). I loved it. And Bydlo was effortless. And it's a great substitute for Ophicleide.

However, that being said, as Tubas have grown a bit, a euphonium, being a bit larger/longer, is a good match with the bigger bones of today. Try it sometime on Bozza and - believe it or not - Pictures. Way cool sound.

I recently had an opportunity to play a French C tuba. I played part of the Bydlo on it, using Bb fingerings (which meant everything was actually a step higher). I was hoping for something unique in that instrument, but...

...nope...

It looked, sounded, and played like a euphonium. The difference between it and my Besson is no greater than between, say, a Besson and a big Willson, etc.

Maybe at the fringe of subtlety, there is a difference. But I doubt anyone in the audience would hear it.

We also listened to a recording of Pictures where the French C tuba had been used. Yes, you could hear it. Yes, it sounded like a loud euphonium. No, it did not sound like a tuba. Listening to Dean Miller warm up on his euphonium, as I have done recently, it seemd to me that he has more of a tuba sound in the low register than what I heard from the French C tuba. (I hope he takes that as the compliment it's intended to be.)

Rick "now able to back up statements from two years ago with a touch of actual experience" Denney

[UDELBR]

For the 3rd valve, the COUESNON horn had the removable slide.

My Couesnon doesn't have a removable 3rd slide. I seriously disliked the 2+3 tuning of the 3rd, so cut it to its proper length.

The 5th on my horn does have a changeable half step \ whole step slide though.

[sloan]

Besides, I'll bet that with all 6 valves down, it probably felt like you were blowing through a brick...

Dr. Stouffer's characterization: "that leaky tea-kettle"

[jeopardymaster]

According to one of my less culturally sensitive friends, European Hell and European Heaven are quite different from one another.

In European Heaven:

the English are the police
the French are the chefs
the Swiss are the bankers
the Germans are the engineers
and the Italians are the lovers.

In European Hell:

the English are the chefs
the French are the engineers
the Italians are the bankers
the Swiss are the lovers
and the Germans are the police.

I'm sure there's no truth to it. After all, Ursula Andress is Swiss.

[MaryAnn]

Chuck"waiting for the Vienna horn to go the way of the Dodo and dreading it "Jackson

Chuck,
I don't know whether you have the CD entitled "Vienna horns," which was an answer of sorts to the London horns CD. It has nine Vienna horns with a variety of pieces, everything from Konzertstuck to Titanic, and it is the most marvelous horn sound I've heard, period. I'll give what info I can glean from the CD:
it says ORF 1 which is probably pretty general.
It also says CD 378, LC 11428, copyright 2004, made in Austria, DDD.

Hope that's enough for anyone who is interested. I just plonked it in my computer's CD drive to hear it again.

Edit: and my Mac just ate the CD; it doesn't appear anywhere as an icon, didn't play, and I can't figure out how to get it out because the eject function needs an icon to work. Anyone who knows how to get a mac to spit out a CD it doesn't recognize, please PEM me and tell me how to do that without taking the computer apart.

MA

[Wyvern]

I cannot see French tuba players returning to the small C tuba, any more than British players to the F. They would just not have the weight, or power in a modern orchestra.

Evolution applies to tubas as in most things.

[tubeast]

Mary Ann,

the "ORF1" refers to the main public (as opposed to privately owned) Austrian radio- and TV station (Österreichischer RundFunk), which used to have several chapters. Their radio program features tons of Viennese classic music, a lot of which is getting produced on CD as a spin-off. I never used that service, so can´t tell you any more about it.
(...Aaah, those sweet days up to the early 80´s, when there were exactly THREE TV-stations in Germany. If there was nothing exciting on TV, you actually used the "OFF" button, a totally silly device nowadays)

The following got a little lengthy. Sorry, folks, but I had to.
As to the combination of secondary topic in this thread (local traditions/small vs. huge bore/extinction of particular instruments):
Here in Vorarlberg, we are at the very beginning of a process that might lead to the local extinction of THE TRUE typical mid-European brass instrument, the oval Tenorhorn (of which, as we all know, the oval Bariton simply is a 6/4 version).

It´s just a vicious circle, like raising standard pitch:
- someone thinks it´ll be cool if their instrument (let´s say: a trombone) sounds louder, so they go out and buy a bigger version.
- someone else gets to think "Gee, I had always been able to cut through the trombones. I need a stronger (let´s say: tuba). Next thing you see is the band board members deciding to get larger bore tenorhorns to complement.
- that´s when the bands start to increase their reed sections.
- Final stage: F-tubas are thrown away and replaced by compensating Eb,
3- or 4/4 BBb-tubas are considered kids´ stuff, beginning trombone players get issued a full sized symphonic trombone w/ F-attachment, and former oval tenor players use compensating euphoniums instead.

I think it may have started when bands decided they wanted to play cool stuff for a change and bought band-versions of movie scores to spice up their concerts.
It sounds so much bigger from the cinema´s dolby surround, there´s no way you can make these things work with the typical 35 piece village band.

Quite a few of the better bands around here have started to play euphoniums (compers, of course) rather than ovals. So far they are tasteful enough NOT to use these for traditional alpine repertoire, such as Bohemian polkas or traditional marches. But that applies to individuals that are fanatic enough to do the best for the music they play and don´t look into their wallets when it comes to their hobby.

Why am I writing this ?
It´s because I (amateur) am finding myself being in the process of searching for a BAT, a would-be THIRD professional-level horn in my possession, simply because honking out loud´n low is so much fun, and seems to be required in symphonic band repertoire.
Sometimes I think what such a horn will do is enhance my musical life and increase my success in banding. Other times I think all it´ll do is prevent me from finding other important things in life.

[Wyvern]

Why am I writing this ?
It´s because I (amateur) am finding myself being in the process of searching for a BAT, a would-be THIRD professional-level horn in my possession, simply because honking out loud´n low is so much fun, and seems to be required in symphonic band repertoire.
Sometimes I think what such a horn will do is enhance my musical life and increase my success in banding. Other times I think all it´ll do is prevent me from finding other important things in life.

Hans, I am a right one to speak, but having heard the sound you get from your PT-20 with that bucket mouthpiece of yours, you probably do not need to get a BAT to satisfy the band, or director. However, I am sure if you do, you will get infinite pleasure from the resulting tone. To me playing a BAT is not about being louder (I can do loud on my Eb as the band I was playing with today would testify! ), but about a richer tone with much great depth.

[Wyvern]

What is a "BAT" ?

A 6/4, or extra large size tuba