Posted by Douglas Yeo on February 01, 2003 at 08:52:17:
In Reply to: which takes more air - bass bone or tuba posted by Marty Neilan on January 31, 2003 at 23:49:33:
This is a new one - someone posting something under my name (Douglas Yeo?) which turned out to be a request for me to post something.
To the question: I don't know, and the answer doesn't really matter to me.
To me, this question falls under the category of "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" The answer may be interesting but the answer does not effect how I play. I play bass trombone, not tuba. Therefore, for me, the bass trombone requires the most air. If you play only tuba, for you, the tuba requires the most air. If you play both and you know one requires more air than the other, I don't see how that answer makes you play one or both better. You just have to play whatever you're playing. Questions like this (along with, "What's your vital lung capacity?" and such) tend to give people bragging rights but I don't think they don't improve one's playing. Therefore, I don't spend much time thinking about them. There is plenty to think about in order to play the instrument which is in my hands rather than compare it to other instruments. The comparison may be nteresting, perhaps, but not important. On the under hand, understanding how air flow and pressure impact YOUR instrument can help us understand that we don't need to work as hard as we intuitively might think we need to. But that is an answer to a different question. My 2 cents.
Douglas Yeo
Bass Trombonist, Boston Symphony Orchestra
yeo(AT)yeodoug.com