bloke wrote:I've addressed all of Dr. Sloan's concerns with this instrument.
Indeed. It now fits my face *and* my inadequate playing ability - without actually cutting any "original" equipment.
The (probably not original) gooseneck was shortened (less than an inch) and slightly bent so that the mouthpiece actually makes it to my mouth withOUT resorting to a bit. The main tuning slide was rebuilt (using some of the original parts - the ones most difficult to fabricate - and a few pieces of tubing from the spare parts bin. A little bit of shaping and fitting, and voila! - a brand new tuning slide perhaps an inch shorter than the old one.
The guts (including a connecting brace not needed for the new slide) were untouched, and will go into *my* spare parts bin (along with the Besson #3 tuning slide that bloke replaced on my last visit) - against the day when someone wants to rebuild the original tuning slide. No irreversible steps were taken, so it wasn't a bris, or even a vasectomy. If the tuning slide is ever rebuilt, perhaps the minor crack will be fixed... the bore increases as you round the bend (from one semi-standard bore to another), which means that bloke needed that part of the original tuning slide to construct the new one. But, with a little bit of heat, the original (actually, bloke has some doubts about how "original" it is) can be reconstructed.
With the gooseneck mods, and all slides all the way in, bloke can play it right at A=440 with no lipping (or, so he claims). In my feeble hands, it was closer (perhaps within community band tolerances) but not quite there. That, and the fact that the slides were all-the-way-in, convinced me to ask for the tuning slide rebuild (I hesitate to call it a "cut" - more like "what can we make out of the parts after we take it apart and scrounge the tubing drawers"). Now, I can play it at A=440 with a very slight pull - which is exactly my preference.
All of the individual valve tuning slides are still all the way in, and #3 is definitely a bit long - but that's just perfect, because I typically *only* use #3 in combinations (which therefore tend to be sharp). I often pull #3 to be long - on this horn it was "tuned the way Sloan likes it at the factory". I suppose if I were pickier about my own intonation it's also nice to have a "long" 3 and a "short" 1-2, but that's purely a theoretical issue, for me. In particular, the 1-3 low Bb is perfectly in tune with the open 2nd line Bb.
The low Eb is still "saggy" - I'm not sure by how much. I previously thought that the false tones started a full step below "low 1-2-3" and had been calling that "G". With all the changes, it's probably now an Ab. I suspect the interval from that Ab to the A is just a bit more than a semi-tone - but now it's the A that's slightly off (sharp, as you'd expect).
All this, plus the work done on my older, smaller bore Eb helicon (my research led me to believe it was built around 1895 by someone associated with H.N. White - bloke took one look and declared it to be vaguely "Austrian looking"), will be on display at the Nashville TubaChristmas on Tuesday. Since the "other helicon" has this interesting property of emitting from the bell whatever note you buzz (with very little in the way of a suggestion about where the note really ought to be), my more talented, trombone-playing son will get that one. He has trained ears and lips. I get to play the endearly cute Buescher (which probably now fits *only* my face).
And now the fun part: one of my original motivations for coming up to speed on Eb was to play the Tuba I parts in arrangements such as the TubaChristmas book. Well, I've been playing through them, and I've decided that:
a) they are still just a bit out of my comfort zone, and
b) I really don't like those parts very much - certainly much less than I like the
Tuba II parts.
This is an old observation, but since I'm going through it I might as well report it: on the surface, it seems like I should be able to play higher on an Eb horn than a BBb. What I've found is that INITIALLY this is true (somewhat). But...if I then take the opportunity to spend more time playing "up there", I find that those notes magically appear from nowhere on the BBb, as well. I suppose most people who've been through it know this - but it's sufficiently counter-intuitive to be interesting, to me.
So...I'll be playing the Buescher, but I'll be playing the Tuba II parts. I've only found a few places where those false tones will come in handy... (note that it works the other way around, too - I'm sure that my LOW range on the Eb Buescher is informed and improved by all the time I spend playing BBb contrabasses. One hand does indeed wash the other.
I think it's fair to say that ONE of the reasons I like the Buescher is that (in my hands) it sounds more like a "tuba" than the "Symphony" helicon does (in my hands). And, both before and after the surgery, the Buescher plays much more in tune with itself than the "Symphony" (even according to bloke). And now...I can play it "in-tune" with the rest of the ensemble.
