Buying a new horn

[The Big Ben]

Good question! Looking forward to the answers from those who know.

[Rick Denney]

I have watched many of you discuss trying out new horns at shows, music stores, etc. I understand intonation and overall sound and appeal are critical, but what drills (etudes, routines, scales, etc) do you find valuable in helping you to make such a decision? Is there any systematic routine you use to help you make such a decision?

Not for me. I usually have some simple tune in mind when I'm trying out tubas in an Elephant Room. It needs to be melodic, but not part of the standard repertoire. If you immediately start honking out Ride of the Valkyries, you'll attract considerable derision and ire from everyone around you. I'm sure I embarrass myself by playing the opening bars of a Marcello Sonata, or the first few bars from some old jazz ballad, but that will help me understand immediately whether I can make music with the instrument.

I'm supported in this approach by Arnold Jacobs, who used the opening bars of Greensleeves to get his bearings on an instrument he'd just picked up during his 1973 master class at the first ITEC.

Testing intonation in greater detail is more complicated, and in my experience requires a quiet room. I do that by picking a pitch (not necessarily related to the previous one), and adjusting my embouchure until the pitch is most resonant. Then, I look at the tuner. It takes me a while just to figure out where to put the slides to get the best compromise before I can know much of anything.

But I almost never depend on my own response to the instrument. I always bring someone who can listen and tell me what they hear. I'm dealing with this right now with my two B&S F tubas. My gut is telling me that the old one has the more interesting sound, but the new one is more playable in a variety of ways. It's not like with the Holton, where I knew I would buy it after playing one low Bb. But even with the Holton, I brought my wife, and my regular tuba for comparison.

I usually have others try out or listen to any instrument I'm considering at a show. My preference is to have a pro who knows my playing try it out. It's deceptively easy to select an instrument on the basis of how it feels at first try, rather than on how well it works in its intended application, in terms of sound, intonation, response, clarity, and flexibility. I can't avoid making that mistake without getting corroborating opinions from those I trust.

Rick "bracing for the usual assault of the Ride next week" Denney

[deputysgttuba]

Mr.Denny's approach is similar to my own. I take my wife and 15 yo son with me on tuba testing excursions to give me feedback from a potential audience perspective. Simple, completely familiar melodic tunes are where I start with, progressing to scales and various quintet/ensemble parts that have proven to be stinkers with my current horn. I am currently in the market for a new medium CC horn and will be at TUSABTEC Saturday with my family jury. For those of you that were in the elephant room last year and are bluegrass/old time music fans, yes, you did hear portions of "Jerusalem Ridge" and "Faded Love" played on tuba. Hope to see some of you there.

David Simmons

[TonyTuba]

if you cant play the ride and bydlo immediately after picking up the horn, DONT BUY IT

[adam0408]

I agree with RIck Denney completely. Avoid playing things that others know, because you will look like a tool in the best case scenario, and embarass yourself completely in the worst case.

I am of the opinion that it is very difficult to determine the actual character of a horn until you play on it for a while, so the playing test is a bit problematic. However, when you are trying a bunch of different horns that you've never played before, the field is pretty level and even.

When I am trying a bunch of tubas (which I haven't done in quite some time) I find first impressions are the most useful. There are a couple of things I look/listen for:

Tone quality

Whether it feels open or stuffy

The ease of centering in different ranges- This can be really tricky in a 5-10 minute playing test, and I don't think it is necessarily very wise to put TOO much emphasis on this category.

Mechanical issues- Do the valves all work the way you want? Does the horn fit you? Is there an annoying sympathetic vibration on a particular note? These things are easy to spot and it is important to take them into consideration.

As far as a playing test goes, I like to play scales going through a wide range of the instrument. That way I am able to find if particular notes are awful fairly quickly. Make sure you play something low and something high, as the majority of horns will play passably well in their middle range, and may fool you into picking a lemon.

If you can, trade horns with your colleagues for a day or two and figure out what you like and dislike about their horns. However, I realize this is often not possible or even useful, given the relative rarity of good horns and players in many areas.

[sloan]

If we're talking about trying out horns in the Elephant Room, I have two comments:

a) at best, you can *reject* an instrument - it's impossible to get to the point where you will buy the horn without
more extensive experience, somewhere quieter. Unless, of course, the economics dictate that you can't really lose
very much money if you have to resell it after you find out it's not what you need.

b) treat your five minutes with the horn that way you treat your own horn, at home, for the first 5 minutes of a practice session. What do you play then? Play that! I'm guessing that you play some things for pitch, some things for tone, some things for articulation...why re-invent the wheel? Of course, if you are playing in the Elephant Room to impress your friends, that's different. If you are playing the horn to see if it should be yours - pretend it *is* yours and get on with it.

I play horns in the Elephant Room as a way of browsing, a bit like reading catalogs when I'm not really planning on buying anything. I've purchased a few horns sight-unseen (I knew I couldn't possibly lose money), I've purchased a horn (last year) based on playing it in DC (but...it's possible that I could have purchased that one sight-unseen, too). The one tuba I've purchased after extensive playing was my King 2341 - in that case I played several, over 2 years, at various places before I finally bit the bullet and went to Dillon's where I could spend an afternoon playing 4 "identical" tubas, in peace and quiet, with helpful suggestions from Matt.

There's a time and a place for that - and the Elephant Room ain't it.

To be fair, I *did* use the Elephant Room to *eliminate* a host of other possibilities, so that by the time I was ready for an afternoon of serious testing it was no longer "which model to buy" but rather "which individual instance of that model".

There is *one* test where the Elephant Room turned out to be useful. That was when Rick was trying to decide on a new F and wanted to know "which horn will penetrate to the back of the hall". From 15 feet away, one option was completely inaudible and the other was crystal clear. Question asked...question answered.

[Rick Denney]

There's a time and a place for that - and the Elephant Room ain't it.

It should be noted that at the Army Conference, there is a room available for trying out instruments in relative quiet. It should really just be used by people intending to buy; otherwise, it turns into its own Elephant Room.

And there are times when the Elephant Room is relatively quiet, and times when it is impenetrably loud. It depends on whether you are willing to forgo the really popular master class or recital. When I'm in serious buying mode, I'm willing to do that, but not when I'm just kicking tires to see what's out there.

I know people who have made serious buying decisions at the Army Conference and been happy with the result. But in most cases, the instruments in question were worth as much after the purchase as before it, and therefore the risk of paying a high price for a mistake was pretty low.

Even in the noisy Elephant Room, though, I can know whether I can make music on an instrument. Taking the next step of evaluation may take weeks.

Rick "thinking we often must buy the right to make an extended evaluation" Denney

[iiipopes]

I have been very lucky. I live in a part of the country where going to try out a tuba is problematic at best, non existant for the most part. Trying out guitars, trumpets, violins, any other band or orchestra instrument? Easy. Hundreds, if not thousands to choose from in shops in town and within, say, even just a 100 mile radius. But tubas? The best a person can do is see if a university in a 200 mile radius has a specimen of a model under consideration in their stable. Then, of course, you only get generalities, not specifics.

So I have had to purchase the two tubas online and take a chance with the finances. The Besson was easy: $500 budget, get something home that would play. It got here great, the few expected repairs to water keys, a couple of solder joints, new mouthpiece, etc., and I was up and running.

The 186 was also a limited budget purchase from Vince, with his usual return policy. But it turned out great, as much as because I knew I didn't want either the old bell or the new bell, so when I saw one with a retrofit different bell, I knew it had a chance, and being a different bell, the price was less than the horn was worth.

So my tuba purchasing has been most unconventional, but the results of my particular location and economic situation. The TNFJ was very helpful in helping me sort all the issues out a few years ago, as much as any bulletin board can be.

I got lucky. When I first started shopping for tubas just a few short years ago, used BBb Miraphones were in the $2000 to $3000 range for decent horns. Now they are from $2000 needing TLC to $4500 for well-kept players.

So, one more piece of advice: when buying a "new" horn, whether actually factory-new or just new-to-you, do the research, take someone with you if you can as above, play all you can if the geographic logistics allow, get a return policy if you can't try before hand, and get it bought. It will be more expensive tomorrow.

And the old chestnut still applies: unless it has been really trashed or really badly maintained and/or repaired, you can generally purchase a 186 sight unseen and not be disappointed. Maybe not totally thrilled, but definitely not disappointed to the "OMG what have I done?" reaction as can so often happen.

BTW: the wide-throat, narrow flare St Pete retrofit bell definitely makes my particular 186 look east towards Alex territory, neither the oom-pah-ish of the older 16 1/2 inch stove pipe bell, nor the newer "vanilla" toned 17 3/4 inch bell, and I am and continue to be most eminently pleased with mine.

When I did finally get to "conventionally" audition a selection of tubas, when Jeff Rideout came through back from San Antonio last summer, I wondered going over if I would continue to appreciate the instruments I own, or if being so isolated in purchasing that it would be a completely different picture. After spending over two hours with some fantastic tubas, I went away confirmed in my original choices. But gigs change. If I needed a 4/4 CC, I could see myself getting something like the Nirschl WN15, or if I was 20 to 30 years younger and getting up and running in band with young lungs pre-blood thinners, I would have gone right for either the GR51 or a Rudy 17 inch like is in the stable at the local university.

I believe it is good to go to these conventions and play other instruments, not only to stay on top of what's out there, but as happened for me, to confirm the choice of instruments we do each respectively already own. We all see these threads about, "Have you played X? It's great!" or, "Did you hear Y playing Z? It was great!" Well, yes, it was and is for that particular player. So the other old chestnut is still equally true: the tuba finds the player as much as a player finds a tuba.

[The Jackson]

The biggest restrictions to my own tuba search were finances and find a horn that would work for all the different playing situations I'll encounter in the next 2-5 years at least competanly. I had never bought anything from the Baltimore Brass Co., but their reputation from TubeNet and other tuba "dudes" that I know is one worthy of epic poetry. They had a very good return policy so that, if my Yamaha did not work out, my mother was only at a loss of $150. I had the horn for about 10 days, which was long enough to give it a whirl in all the ensembles I play in, and everything did go very nicely and I do love it!

It would probably be a really good idea to try out the horn from someone/someplace with a similar trial policy. Try and work it out so you can see how the horn works in many different kinds of playing.