BBb Contrabass Trombone

[Lingon]

...So, no low/valved C but maybe a solid low Db?...

Db is solid and C could also work fine if you pull the F tuning slide a bit, unfortunately it is not long enough to get the low BB though. It works like a single valve bass trombone. Most of them has good Dbs but not Cs with the valve. However it is always possible to use fake tones on a bass trombone. C and BB works excellent as fake tones on this contra too. So practically it may be sort of compared to a BBb tuba with 4 valves, but not sonically.

[eupher61]

I love the idea of these monster trombones and would love to have one but… I suspect various musical directors would not want such an abomination in their ensembles. For what role or purpose would you use one? Composers just don't write with these beasts in mind

Nick "I'm new here" Scott

Wagner.

[Untersatz]

For what role or purpose would you use one? Composers just don't write with these beasts in mind

A Bass Trombone on Steroids!!!

[Lingon]

...For what role or purpose would you use one? Composers just don't write with these beasts in mind...

Wolfgang Rihm: Figur for 4 cb trbns harp and percussion is one example.

[UDELBR]

I suspect various musical directors would not want such an abomination in their ensembles. For what role or purpose would you use one? Composers just don't write with these beasts in mind

You think other instrumentalists don't talk this way about the TUBA?

[Jay Bertolet]

I suspect various musical directors would not want such an abomination in their ensembles. For what role or purpose would you use one? Composers just don't write with these beasts in mind

You think other instrumentalists don't talk this way about the TUBA?

An aspect of what you're joking about is exactly what I was thinking. So much contemporary music is written with no thought to the tuba at all. There are many gifted players out there that make anything they play sound really great. High quality players and good exposure to quality product are definitely not the problem. I once had an argument with a composer friend of mine in college. He was showing me his latest piece and I noticed there was no tuba part. I admonished him for leaving out a part for me and he quickly came back with words to the effect of "I didn't hear a tuba's sound in my head when creating this piece". Like it or not, many composers see our sound as a specialty sort of thing, not something they use all the time. I imagine that the CB trombone is in that category as well, just way more so than tuba.

[Lingon]

.... "I didn't hear a tuba's sound in my head when creating this piece". Like it or not, many composers see our sound as a specialty sort of thing, not something they use all the time. I imagine that the CB trombone is in that category as well, just way more so than tuba...

Possibly with the exception that as you say now there are many really good tuba players but not so with cb trbn players? Especially since not so many outside the group of real nerds even knows that a cb trbn exists... As I wrote earlier I think the situation with music for tuba in Sweden is now very developed compared with how it was some decades ago. And that because of a trend a single person started. A much worse problem here is that fewer and fewer young persons begin playing brass and woodwind instruments now, because we have fewer models for them to look up to and listen to. The most interesting things for younger people now seems to be mobil phones with social networks and not so much action IRL. I suppose and hope that the situation in your country is better.

BTW, speaking of models for the younger. One of them is the old Royal Swedish Navy Band. For those of you that did not see the link for supporting the band, that has been active since 1685 but now is threatened to be closed, earlier, here is a link where you can help by signing the petition for supporting the band if you wish: http://bevarammk.se/in-english/