Miraphone 186 vs. others

[windshieldbug]

... obviously the student was never instructed in how to "properly" use the 4th valve hold down cover, indicated by the fact that the valve was, in fact, still removable, and thus depriving them of yet another study hall by not having to wait for suitable replacement horns from France...

[Donn]

as a reminder:

I'm looking for a good, dark sounding, articulate concert tuba for our concert band. We had tried out a Yamaha Compensating, but it was stuffy in the mid-range and very out of tune. We are going to purchase 4.

Questions:

What do you think of the Miraphones?
What would you recommend for these kids?
Silver or laquer
4 or 5 valve
Rotor or piston

Thank you!

Not meaning to in any way dismiss such a fine rant, peeling away the veil and exposing the raw evil of our rotten culture and all. But did we ever hear from our correspondent the band director again, after he posed the question that led to all this?

I'm not going to say that your example is unique and not representative of anything else in the whole wide world, but in the spirit of giving people credit for not being idiots, I have to wonder if his tubas take anywhere near the beating that they do in your neighborhood schools.

[MartyNeilan]

I agree with the Tinker that there is no way many kids could get themselves an instrument and that mandating it wouldput an end to all low brass, low woodwinds, and melodic percussion. I don't know of many parents who would spring for a 4 octave marimba for their middle schooler. I started tuba in the 5th grade with a school horn for $35 a year. If my parents had to shell out $$$$ for a instrument, I would have never touched a tuba.

[windshieldbug]

How about a "Lend/Lease" program. Maybe not buy the axe, but still put out (some) money for their kid to use it. Proceeds to go to the aforementioned maintenance program.

[tofu]

So are you going to make kids who play the instrument responsible for damage done by others? How many schools really have truly secure and safe tuba storage areas much less band rooms?

Is the student also going to have to buy/lease a sousaphone for marching band as well as a tuba for home practice as well as one for school use?

My HS required everyone in the top band to take private lessons. I worked to pay for those as my folks couldn't pay for them much less a tuba of any quality. If we had to pay to use a tuba(s)/sousaphone as well as be responsible for any damage including that caused by others I sure know I wouldn't have been playing one.

I also don't think it is totally unrealistic to get it across to the users of the instruments that it is a priviledge and responsiblility to have a school instrument. My band director put the fear of god in us to take care of them. We had Rudy Meinls/Conn 20J's at school and Conn 20J's at home and those horns were taken care of. They still use them and the one Rudy is 36 years old, another is 32 years old and a third is 26 years old. The Conn 20j's date from the 1950's. We did have our own lockable Tuba room which was left unlocked most of the time.

Maybe it helped that while the band director was a drummer the orchestra director was a tuba player and the jazz band/marching band director was a tuba player as well.

[Dan Schultz]

Post deleted. (Sorry, Sean... but I didn't get the normal 'quote', 'edit', & 'delete' options).

[windshieldbug]

Since I'm picking the preferred side of the bet first, I'll allow you to name the quantity of the stakes.

Quantity of the stakes?

[tubeast]

I´m sure the following applies to a whole lot of things:
The less it costs, the less it´s worth.

It´s great that instruments are supplied in your school programs. They weren´t at my school, and I guess that´s the reason why there is no music program at that school.

At community bands in this country, it´s common that about 95% of all members play band-owned instruments. And horns with good reputation, too: Förg flugelhorns and tenorhorns, Hammerschmidt clarinettes, Yamaha saxes, a brand new Miraphone tenorhorn, likewise a Bach bass trombone, there´s a good-as-new B&S F-tuba waiting in a closet for someone to play it...
Most of us are dedicated players who look after the instruments. Some of them, though...
I just witnessed a tenorhorn with valve linkages bent beyond playability, and the guy hadn´t even noticed that there was something wrong with the horn.
I once helped out at a different band, and one of their tubists had a horn with broken 4th valve. His mouthpiece was in a state that downright made me puke.

At times I think that a free instrument should be something to be earned. If it´s not money, then there must be other ways to give the community something in return.
Something that means an extra accomplishment and makes sure only those who grasped the value of an instrument and the ability to play it will be in such programs.

[Rick Denney]

So are you going to make kids who play the instrument responsible for damage done by others?

Yes. If it was their own instrument that they paid for (an important qualification--stuff bought by mommie and daddy is just like school stuff--manna from heaven), they would find a way to protect it.

Is the student also going to have to buy/lease a sousaphone for marching band as well as a tuba for home practice as well as one for school use?

When I was in school, the sousaphone was the instrument I used all year. But I think high schools could have plastic sousaphones for the kids to march with. But I would still hold them responsible for how well they take care of them.

My HS required everyone in the top band to take private lessons. I worked to pay for those as my folks couldn't pay for them much less a tuba of any quality. If we had to pay to use a tuba(s)/sousaphone as well as be responsible for any damage including that caused by others I sure know I wouldn't have been playing one.

See, I'd be happy if the schools provided the lessons for free and let the students pay to use their own instruments (or pay to rent them from the schools). After all, teaching is what the taxpayers are paying for, not hardware that will be destroyed by the brats that populate student bodies these days.

Rick "who thinks a confiscated large deposits help defray the cost of repairs and teach a lesson, too" Denney

[Rick Denney]

The REAL answer is... The costs of operating a viable music program are pretty much standard. Instruments cost what they cost and the related repairs are fairly easy to budget. The decision rests with the taxpayers.

The problem is that as long as stuff is given to kids with no accountability, they'll treat it as manna from heaven and consume it before the sun sets. The accountability mechanism isn't designed to make them poor, it's designed to make them motivated to take an ownership position.

I had a sousaphone provided for me in high school. I took care of it, because if I didn't I was held accountable, and that meant something to me. It means nothing to all too many kids, then and now. So, you have to connect that accountability mechanism to something they want.

They don't seem to want grades and parents don't seem to care about grades any more, so giving them a bad conduct grade probably would have no effect. If I got a bad conduct grade, there would have been...serious...accountability at home. They don't care about money because too many are provided with all they ask for without having to earn it, or there is no hope of getting any at all so they don't even care to try to earn it.

Perhaps the person who negligently or willfully damages a school instrument is punished by requiring considerable after-school work. Maybe they'll care more for the instrument after the first few times they have to pick up litter from the practice field, or haul percussion equipment for everyone else.

I don't know the answer, but I have this feeling that if the teachers and their principals were committed to finding an accountability mechanism and enforcing it, they would succeed in doing so. I don't see that commitment. Band isn't the only place where that lack is causing problems.

Rick "for whom the threat of punishment was as tangible as the hope of reward" Denney

[TubaRay]

I don't know the answer, but I have this feeling that if the teachers and their principals were committed to finding an accountability mechanism and enforcing it, they would succeed in doing so.

I agree that a proper accountability mechanism would make a significant difference. However, from my experience, anything that I as a band director attempted to us as this mechanism seemed to always hit some roadblock. In other words, I would be told by the administration that we couldn't do this, or couldn't do that. I know this makes it seem that it must be the principals' fault, but I don't believe that is always true, either. Often it is the school boards(who get their marching orders from the citizens themselves) who are dictating this type of policy.

I know Sean forbids us getting into political discussions, but I feel that is the level where this needs to be addressed. In modern America, we are attempting to give everyone a great amount of stuff. Not only is this expensive, but we are finding that when stuff is given to us, it doesn't have the same value to us that it would if we had to earn it. Sometimes we go to great lengths to do this.

As an example, I taught in an inner-city school where the majority of the students were on the free lunch program. Rick knows where this school is. In order to save on the paperwork, it was decided to skip the paperwork and just make the entire student body able to have a free lunch. On this campus, the lunchroom was on the second floor. Well, lo and behold, they found that a very low percentage of the students were eating in the cafeteria. Their remedy for this was to build a fast food type serving line on the first floor. This called for building a place to do this which cost thousands of dollars. Solved the problem, though. More students were "willing" to accept their free lunch. Everybody was happy. Well, maybe not everyone.

In my opinion, the more we try to give people things, the more we are also taking away from them.

[Donn]

Rick "for whom the threat of punishment was as tangible as the hope of reward" Denney

And probably Rick "for whom the threat wasn't really all that necessary", am I wrong?

If you're about to stomp an instrument, you know that's a stupid, destructive, s*t-headed thing to do. Reckless or abusive handling, etc., same idea. This is where we expect to find kids with "behavior problems" - their lack of respect for property comes from their lack of respect for people, which probably comes along with a lack of respect for themselves, and it's hard to find any leverage on them, at all.

Empirically, yes, if you make kids work for their tubas, they will be more careful, but does it make the kids better, or select for better kids?

On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if there are a number of kids who have found some answers for the self respect problem in high school band, to enough benefit to society that some risk of damage to tubas can be contemplated. That could be the primary value of school band programs. They all put their flutes and trombones in the closet after they graduate, but at least they graduate.