American sound vs german sound

[padgman1]

Can anyone point me to a previous thread on TubeNet concerning this ( and name 1 or 2 prototypical tubas in each category)? Is a particular "sound" more often found/preferred in orchestral settings vs small group (chamber/quintet/other)?

[tbn.al]

You know not what you ask......................here's a start.
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=34999&p=308327&hili ... nd#p308327" target="_blank

[padgman1]

Thanks, tbn.......

[MartyNeilan]

Overall taper, type of valves, length of leadpipe, placement of valves in bugle, etc. etc. etc. all contribute to the "German-ness" or "American-ness" of the tuba.
Here are a couple of pictures showing some of those differences. As to the actual difference in sound? Much of that is up to the player.

[Bob Kolada]

Bwwahh vs. baahh.

[Walter Webb]

Has anyone ever done a blind sound test to see if any "expert" can reliably identify which is which at a rate above guessing? What if they just feel different to the player, but sound too similar to objectively identify?

[TubaRay]

The guy on youtube blatting away on an F tuba in a dancing polka band with cameltoe liederhosen is playing with a "German sound".

Make that "lederhosen." Lederhosen are leather pants. Liederhosen would be song pants. I happen to own a nice pair of lederhosen. It would require vast amounts of cash to get me to wear liederhosen.

[Bob Kolada]

More interesting might be to compare American tuba players vs. German tuba players -

American tuba player-
-goes through a lot of schooling despite small job market
-insists on everyone playing the same oversized horn some old guy told them to play
-plays everything the same way
-focuses on "orchestras" and "orchestral sound"
-owns a car
-dislikes euphonium

German tuba player-
-grows up around a lot of music
-mostly plays the same horn as other Germans, because it is easy to play and carry
-drinks beer at half of his gigs
-plays avant garde jazz, but focuses on beer hall gigs
-owns a train pass
-doesn't have to play baryton because all the trombonists there LIKE playing it

[cjk]

Bwwahh vs. baahh.

+1. More true than not.

[T. J. Ricer]

Where's Rick Denney to explain the differences in bi-radial and exponential horns? Those differences in design (metallurgy notwithstanding) may account for some differences in sound with the same test-player, but we all sound like ourselves regardless of the horns.

Here's Rick's explanation of it:

http://www.rickdenney.com/york_vs_miraphone.htm

[pjv]

Ok, ok. But seriously folks, describing a sound is most probably a waste of time (unless ones a poet). I understand why people ask this. Maybe rephrasing it might help. (otherwise, get the rotten fruit ready)

What interests me is the curious fact that the majority of tubas (and sousaphones) are made within one of these two structural models. If you look at the differences on paper (taper, leadpipe, valves type and placement, bore and bell size and ratio's, etc) I'm actually quite amazed that both types even sound similar!

Apparently, with all these technological differences, both still sound like tubas. You can walk into an American orchestra and win an audition playing a German tuba. We play German compositions on American tubas. Try playing a trombone part on a valved trombone and it could be the last thing you play!

Tech's make mpc and horns with certain objectives in mind. If we forget about geography, economy, and the immediate demands (like all the trumpets in my group have rotary valves, whatever) what would the sonical objective be to building an American or a German style horn?

-Pat

[Uncle Buck]

"an imaginary sound" vs. "an imaginary sound"

bloke "I would like to hear someone - someone who believes these are actually 'schools' which are 'definable' - demonstrate these two different supposed types of sounds. My guess would be that they would (depending on which supposed type of sound they believe that they 'like') demonstrate one way with a 'nice' sound and the other with an 'ugly' sound - again, depending on which one they had decided that they like."

I'm not going to try to attach labels to these examples, but when I was in high school, I wore out the two tuba solo recordings (vinyl, btw) I had. One was Roger Bobo and the other was Harvey Phillips.

I learned a ton from listening to both (and fortunately had a great private teacher who left pencil bruises on my arm if I tried to just "copy" them without understanding what I was doing). There is no question the two of them had very different sound concepts for solo playing. I don't think the differences in that case are imaginary.

Sure, for the most part, posts on this board quibble over differences that are mostly imaginary. But some real differences exist.

[pwhitaker]

FWIW ... I have recordings from the past 5 years of our trad jazz group's concerts. My tubas on these CD's in chronological order are 1291, 5/4 Rudi, 186 and 6/4 Holton - all BB's since I'm a ham and egger. The 1291 and 186 sound a little lighter in comparson to the Rudi and the Holton. I submit that the the Rudi and the Holton are canonical examples of the German and American tuba respectively. I used the same mouthpiece and if I didn't know from the dates on the recordings I would be hard pressed to differentiate between the Rudi and the Holton even though the Rudi was a 4 valve rotary and the Holton a 3 valve bell front horn.

[THE TUBA]

There are two kinds of tuba tones: The Good Kind and the Bad Kind. I prefer the Good Kind.


In all seriousness, I would be interested to see a scientific study or a dissertation on the acoustical properties of various tubas used by various tubists around the world. Something akin to Rick Denney's work, but on a much larger scale. Of course, this kind of study would be much more interesting to tuba nerds that like to speculate about subjective criteria on the internet than useful to the people that play tuba for the primary source of their income.

[eupher61]

The guy on youtube blatting away on an F tuba in a dancing polka band with cameltoe liederhosen is playing with a "German sound".

Make that "lederhosen." Lederhosen are leather pants. Liederhosen would be song pants. I happen to own a nice pair of lederhosen. It would require vast amounts of cash to get me to wear liederhosen.

When my lederhosen become liederhosen, people usually move away from me very quickly.

[Kevin Hendrick]

The guy on youtube blatting away on an F tuba in a dancing polka band with cameltoe liederhosen is playing with a "German sound".

Make that "lederhosen." Lederhosen are leather pants. Liederhosen would be song pants. I happen to own a nice pair of lederhosen. It would require vast amounts of cash to get me to wear liederhosen.

When my lederhosen become liederhosen, people usually move away from me very quickly.

+1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6dm9rN6oTs

[Uncle Buck]

I'm not going to try to attach labels to these examples, but when I was in high school, I wore out the two tuba solo recordings (vinyl, btw) I had. One was Roger Bobo and the other was Harvey Phillips.

I learned a ton from listening to both (and fortunately had a great private teacher who left pencil bruises on my arm if I tried to just "copy" them without understanding what I was doing). There is no question the two of them had very different sound concepts for solo playing. I don't think the differences in that case are imaginary.

Sure, for the most part, posts on this board quibble over differences that are mostly imaginary. But some real differences exist.

...and both are Americans...and both played small tubas on those recordings...yet a completely unschooled listener could easily identify one's sound from the other's.

Yup. Which is why I'm not going to try to label either one as anything other than "Bobo" and "Phillips."

[k001k47]

The German sound is in German, and the American sound is in English. Although, the English and American English sounds are a tad bit different.

[bilmac]

Forty years ago as a young university student, I listened to all the Zubin Mehta recordings of Richard Strauss tone poems with the Los Angeles.I listened with headphones because I was in the Music Department of my university and that was what you did. It possibly made the recordings all the more vivid.Bobo was the tuba player on those recordings, Tommy Johnson may have played the second part on Zarathustra and as you can imagine ,not having had much access to recorded music until then it completely blew my mind.The sound was so different to anything I had heard up until then. I had heard Fletcher play his way and loved it,still do! But this was so different to anything I had heard--bright,direct,unapologetic,all those sort of things.
I played a solo in a recital a few years later which I didn't know was recorded on tape and listened to it at a friend's house a few months later. He was also a tuba player who had been playing at the same recital.I was playing the absolutely classic british gear in the recital,19" bell Besson,24AW mouthpiece but what I heard coming back at me that night was the sound world of Bobo and not Fletcher . I was amazed to hear that I was imitating what had impressed me most---Bobo!
The execution was not necessarily Bobo(I'm not a pro but I'm a big strong player)but there's no doubt that the sound spectrum was not Fletcher,it was the west coast.
So I suppose what I'm trying to say is that it's not just what gear your are playing but I will readily admit that mouthpieces are a huge influence or why does Perantucci split their catalogue into American and German style mouthpieces,maybe more than the instrument itself,but a huge part of it is what you hear going on around you and what you admire in others' playing. We are after all just sophisticated imitators for the most part(ever notice how many musicians are fabulous mimics?) so we pick up what we hear.So if you were born in Germany you do it one way, if you were born in Atlanta you do it a different way and so on, you pick up what's going on around you and that's the way it was until this last 40/50 years or so when things may have changed a little.
With the prevalence of recordings and the tendency for European orchestras to lose some of their distictiveness we may see a standardisation of sound but not yet. Dresden and Leipzig still hold onto their sound, Berlin has let it go, Vienna is not sure where it is going but is probably going back a little to its traditional sound, Paris has sold out,Moscow can do either but it's all less distinctive than 40 years ago.But we still reflect what we like amongst what we hear.We can't help it.
Nature or Nurture? Discuss. Write on one side of the paper only.

[PhilGreen]

If I'm listening to Brass Bands I like the European "bass" sound, most especially the UK colour as it IS completely unique in the world of brass ensemble playing and this is the sound I aim to make.
If I'm listening to *big* orchestral stuff I like the European tuba sound, especially the Germanic colour - you really feel the bass and, as shown in some of the previous posting, organ-like and this is the sound I aim to make (difficult on a bass tuba but the fun is in trying)
If I'm listening to small brass ensemble (5 or 10) playing classical I want to sound like Fletch or James Gourlay - probably the best 2 ever in this genre (IMHO) so I try to make this sound.
If I'm listening to small brass ensemble (5 or 10) playing light stuff I want to sound like Sam Pilafian in the glory days of Empire Brass. That is really hard to copy but that's why I bought the rotary tuba!

I have plenty of recordings of great US tuba players in orchestral, ensemble and solo situations. Whilst all are technically great I find that none of them stir me or make me want to emulate their sound (except SP above) and whilst I appreciate the sound of the CSO York is unique I'd love to hear GP play on a great big rotary germanesque tuba. Perhaps he'd sound the same, who knows??