How beat-up are your tubas?

[Peach]

How much do folks care about cosmetic issues like scratches and small-to-medium dents?
Do you always get everything fixed up?

I'm presuming we all want/expect the mechanics to work as well as possible...

[Radar]

My Tuba a Yamaha YBB-321 was a former school instrument that a local repair man took in and got mechanically working again. All the slides move and valves are in good shape, finish is terrible I would say that the Lacquer finish is about maybe 40% there. There are a lot of smaller dings, dents, etc. Cosmetically the horn is rough, the more I play it and can get out of it the less the appearance matters to me. I bought it as a starter instrument to learn on, so I could help out with sousaphone when required with the Fire department band I normally play Euphonium for. The better I become at playing the Tuba, the less the cosmetic appearance of the horn matters to me. I do someday want to get a better horn, but I'm not in as big a hurry now as I was.

[Donn]

I'd feel very weird playing a shiny tuba with all its lacquer intact. I guess my ideal is silver plate at about 60%, with a number of small dents. But it isn't like appearance is everything. A shiny tuba would sure not look right, but I don't think I'd scrape off the finish and hammer some dents in, on purpose; don't know, suspect I will never actually encounter that dilemma.

[Pat S]

When do dents become musically significant? Aesthetics aside, what playing adjustments have to be made for a horn with a big dent in the bottom bow, for instance?

[Michael Bush]

Huh?

He said, "When do dents become musically significant? Aesthetics [by which we can assume he means appearance] aside, what playing adjustments have to be made for a horn with a big dent in the bottom bow, for instance?

I think it's an interesting question.

[JohnPolka]

Unless the dents are really big, I don't mind them. The baritone I obtained a while back was originally from a school. It had a crumpled bell. In that case, I wanted to get the dents, etc. in the bell rolled out. But the other scratches, worn out lacquer, and small dents in the the horn looked fine. In fact, from just a few feet away you can't really see them.

Same with my Tuba which is brass lacquer. Up close you can see places where the lacquer has worn off as well as scratches and small dents. But when you look at it from just a few feet away, you don't see most of these imperfections.

I think that's the case for most scratches and small dents. They shouldn't be a really big deal when you can't see them from just a few feet away.

If you want your horn to look brand new, then I can understand wanting to get it refinished. But that's the beauty of horns...they don't have to look pretty to sound good.

[JohnPolka]

When do dents become musically significant? Aesthetics aside, what playing adjustments have to be made for a horn with a big dent in the bottom bow, for instance?

I don't think the dents will make too much of an impact on the sound unless the dent causes an air leak (e.g., a dent near a seam, etc). I'd think any slight changes to the sound due to a dent can be compensated by slight adjustments in our playing. That may include slight adjustments to our lips in order to play in tune, etc.

[Peach]

I've seen & heard tubas played with really mashed bells and to be honest they sounded just fine. They looked butt - ugly and a casual observer might think it would sound poor judging by looks alone...

Folks often put in a for sale ad that any dents or damage don't hurt the sound. Actually how big a dent is required in say, a bottom bow, to really make much difference? I'd bet it'd have to be pretty big; pure guess but maybe 30% constriction or more - at that point in the horn.
I also expect the same % constriction in a leadpipe might throw off a good number of pitches?

[Dan Schultz]

I keep my tubas free of dents. I am of the opinion that any condition that keeps a tuba from being concentric all the way through has some impact on what a tuba is supposed to do. That includes crooks on brand-new tubas that are left out-of-round when they leave the factory.

Perfectly round tapered and conical tubing is ideal.

The MAW pistons address some of this concern.

[Ace]

How much do folks care about cosmetic issues like scratches and small-to-medium dents?
Do you always get everything fixed up?

I'm presuming we all want/expect the mechanics to work as well as possible...

I usually have dents corrected right away because I want my horns to look good and well cared for. Dents happen, even to top pro players. For example, notice the dent in the bell tubing near the pistons in this video. I suspect she'll have that fixed really soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88fE_ol0xdw" target="_blank

Ace

[PaulTkachenko]

I try and keep on top of the dents as I guess it gives a bad impression if your instruments don't look like they are maintained.

Most dents don't take as long to take out as the other stuff I get done when my tubas get serviced.

[windshieldbug]

I stripped the perfectly good lacquer from my Marzan bell in 1979. I thought that it gave the horn a brighter, more lively sound... then I realized the effect was only discernible in an immediate 10' radius. Never the less, that's the way it's been lo these many years.

Good thing we sit in the back...

[fairweathertuba]

I once had an "antique" store special King sousaphone, bought it for $50. This was the ugliest most beat up, abused, neglected and outright offensive looking instrument that I have ever seen much less owned. Most of the body was crushed in about 30 to 40%. The bell was just normally dented up.

I think the previous owners kids or perhaps the school kids from the school who owned it beat the crap out of it for jollies, however there were no clues like inscriptions on the bell or anything to let me know who the previous owner may have been. There was a Nerf ball and some other odd trinkets stuffed way down inside that I managed to ferret out with a set of salad tongs.

Amazingly the horn played with great response, an easy player definitely but had horrible intonation perhaps because of the massive denting. I had a girlfriend at the time who suggested that I should buy some makeup for it so that it would feel more confident!

My current instruments are relatively dent free, just a few smallish ones here and there.

[Lectron]

I usually have dents corrected right away because I want my horns to look good and well cared for. Dents happen, even to top pro players. For example, notice the dent in the bell tubing near the pistons in this video. I suspect she'll have that fixed really soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88fE_ol0xdw" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

Ace

Been like that for quite some time now. She does not seem to be in a rush about it

First I didn't see the trumpet on this picture, but after my eyes again made contact with my brain
I could focus on it and see the same dent

[MikeW]

I read an article somewhere by Ren Schilke in which he mentioned that adjusting the taper of an instrument at a node-point by as little as one thousandth of an inch can sometimes have a significant affect on intonation. I guess this means that the tuning of any note that has a node at the position of a dent would be noticeably affected, which explains anecdotes about dents that magically fix problems, and others about small dents that make the instrument unplayable. By the same reasoning, a dent somewhere that doesn't happen to be a node for any note might have very little effect. It also seems a fair bet that dents get more significant as they get nearer the mouthpiece (I know that a tiny dent in the shank of my mouthpiece killed it, big-time).

My own experience is that my tuba got dented when the catch on my sling slipped, and I dropped the instrument. The resulting dent on the bottom bow didn't seem to affect playability, but every time my hand encountered the dent it gave me a nasty jolt of guilt, so eventually I had it fixed. A month or so later (at the same venue, as it happens) the 'flu caught up with me and I blacked out, so the tuba fell off my knee and picked up another noticeable dent, at the other end of the bottom bow; once again, the dent doesn't seem to affect my playing, but it nags at my conscience. Would fixing the new dent be a challenge to the tuba gods ?