Posted by David Carter on January 08, 2004 at 16:37:57:
In Reply to: Please let me know abou John Fletcher. posted by Takao on January 08, 2004 at 08:13:23:
I met John Fletcher once, in a reception after a concert my the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble. Great Concert. There were a lot of admirers asking Mr. Flechter a lot of Questions. Asked about his tuba he said (i forget the exact words) that he liked the Beeson E flat, becuase he wanted to keep the flexibility of a bass tuba, but have the breadth of tone like a CC, and with the 981 he was able to do that. Asked about his mouthpiece, he said he played a Bach 24AW. I asked why the 24AW and he said it was the largest mouthpiece he could find in the 1950's when he started playing tuba.
I've since read that he didn't play Dennis Wicks mouthpieces becuase he didn't like the way they felt on his face. It's generally known that he used other tubas as needed including CC and F's. Somewhere I've read that he spent some time playing the orchestral tuba on the four different pitches of tuba available-F, E flat, CC and BB flat. And that he concluded that as far as fingerings go it was something of a wash, tuba music is chromatic enough that none of them was a clear favorite. I've also read that before he became known as a Tuba player that he was a very good French horn player.