Are there any other musicians....

[Tubajug]

who do as much to modify, alter, hack apart, or otherwise "mess around" with their instruments as much as tuba players do?

With all the adding/removing of valves, bell swaps, leadpipe adjustments, etc. that people do (or at least discuss doing...) I'm curious to know if there are any other groups of instrumentalists that do as much to modify their horns? The only one I can think of would be electric guitars maybe? I know they've got a lot bells and whistles that they can add.

[Mark]

Clearly, you have never watched an oboe player mess with their reeds.

[Tubajug]

Clearly, you have never watched an oboe player mess with their reeds.

Haha! I have actually, but you don't really see them drilling extra holes in their horns.

[pgym]

Trombone players: bells (material, diameter, thickness, finish), handslides, tuning slides, leadpipes, braces, counterweights, valves, wrap, ....

[MartyNeilan]

Trombone players: bells (material, diameter, thickness, finish), handslides, tuning slides, leadpipes, braces, counterweights, valves, wrap, ....

Back in the 80's-early 90's many trombone and bass trombonists played instruments that looked like botched science experiments, due to the sudden popularity of the axial flow vlaves. When companies like Edwards and Shires came around, and Bach and others started offering things from the factory, this trend started to fade.

[Dan Schultz]

Trumpet players would like to mess with their horns. But... they aren't smart enough!

Kidding aside.... look at the myriad of reversed slides, heavy caps, leadpipes, etc. that they think might be the 'Holy Grail'.

[Charlie C Chowder]

If you go to the Internet Cello Society forums, you would find one bulletin board devoted just to the instrument and all of the equipment that you have a choice of to make your cello perfect. With four seperate strings, a variety of bridges, endpins and tailpeices, the time and money spent looking for the perfect combination can be large. And then you need to find the perfect bow or bows for a perticlar cello and the type of music you are playing. I cannot afford the money and need the time to practice.

Charlie

[MartyNeilan]

I've never seen anything aftermarket done to any tuba that addresses the worst problem: stand-alone intonation

What about adding valves?

[musicman26]

French horn players do the same thing in mass quantities. I should know. I spent more than forty years playing one. There is a big market for lead pipes, various screw bells, different metal formulas, and custom alterations. Wilbert in SC

[basspiper]

Guitar players! Pick-ups, strings, bridges, amps (definitely "part of the instrument" for electric guitar), whole other guitars. The list is endless!
Dave

[Tubajug]

I still think that cutting a tuba to a new key or creating a "frankentuba" is a bit beyond what others do from what has been mentioned. I just think it's fun. I've never heard of a clarinetist saying "I think I want this horn in Eb instead of Bb. Hand me my Sawzall please..."

[Trumgottist]

The closest I come to that kind of thing is that I have some bits of metal inserted in some of the tone holes on my bassoon, in order to improve intonation. (And making reeds, of course, but that's normal.)

But I didn't know that people did that kind of thing to tubas either before I found this forum, so…

[MaryAnn]

I've never seen anything aftermarket done to any tuba that addresses the worst problem: stand-alone intonation

Well, what I observed on rotary F tubas and that low C was, at least on my tuba, that the C wanted to play sharp. There is that guy who dropped his mouthpiece on his f tuba and it forevermore had a good low C. (posts from him are on Tubenet somewhere, including a picture of the dent.)

So if you can call that aftermarket, and if his tuba's low C wanted to play sharp, it would have helped the stand-alone intonation.



MA

[J.c. Sherman]

Sometimes we forget; we have the youngest brass instrument, and we are far, FAR from being standardized... some of our CCs don't even look like they're in the same family. So applying that which has been successful on one instrument may be tried on another, perhaps dissimilar instrument; it's cheaper than buying the tuba you liked

J.c.S.