Why are 5/4 size F tubas needed?

[luke_hollis]

Maybe it is obvious to everyone else, but I don't get it. My traditional thinking was that an F horn was smaller and more nimble for high parts or solo playing. It seems a 5/4 version would lose those desired properties.

[Donn]

For that matter, why would you want a tuba at all for high parts or solo playing?

[luke_hollis]

Here, here. If it ain't low, its a no go.

[Mark]

This list is long. Here is one example: Hungarian March.

[GC]

Some folks like the nimbleness and range but still want a larger sound, particularly for orchestral use.

[bisontuba]

Hi-
I guess this poses the question-- what do you consider to be a 4/4 F, a 5/4 F and/ or a 6/4 F-- both in piston & rotor?

Mark

[Bob Kolada]

I find 3/4 F tubas to have a better, more even feel, response, low range,... Want a big F? Eb. Want a bigger sound on your small F? Practice more.

[Dan Schultz]

I was at the New Orleans French Quarter Festival a couple of years ago and saw a fellow playing a tuba with a jazz group in Lafayette Square. His horn had six valves and was a huge horn but from the visible tubing lengths I knew it could not have been a BBb or CC horn. I had a chance to speak with him. The horn was a HUGE F. If I remember correctly it was a B & S... like nothing from B & S I have ever seen before. He uses this big F as his primary horn and had an incredible range... both high and low.

He commented that us Americans don't always understand what goes on in the rest of The World.

[joh_tuba]

That was most likely the Culbertson model.

In the right hands they are capable of a LOT... BUT the intonation is atrocious... deal breaker.

[GC]

Sorry, but no. Euphoniums are pitched higher, contrabass tubas are pitched lower. Size varies within pitches, and saying that changing the size of a horn within a pitch area makes it a different instrument makes no sense.

[GC]

My sarcastic point was all tubas are 4/4 size. If you eat 4 quarters of a pie, you have eaten a full pie. If you eat 6 quarters, you have eaten a pie and a half. One company's 5/4 is another company's 4/4...there is no standard. It's just a way to market tuba's.

It's a perfectly good way to relatively size tubas within a company's product lines. But you're right, comparing one company's relative sizes to anothers is useless. Even though we all really know that size matters . . .

[luke_hollis]

I have heard all the arguments and have decided that the 5/4 tuba is a lot like that breed of vehicles that is half truck/half SUV. It is not fully one or the other.

http://www.popcultmag.com/passingfancie ... /suv1.html

Kind of like this...

explorer.jpg

Some people might need seating for 6 but also have have a truck bed.

Most of us want this instead.

kenworth.jpg

My two cents.

[TheHatTuba]

Rudy 6/4?