Posted by Art on July 12, 2000 at 11:51:04:
In Reply to: alternate 4th valve system posted by Paul on July 10, 2000 at 10:45:45:
I have an old rotary-valve instrument on which the 4th valve was originally equal to a 3&2 combination. I knew someone who had an old King CC that looked like Bob Escudera's, on which the 4th tubing had been extended to be equivalent to 123. It seems that both ideas are useful for one or two low notes, but useless for most others. I like the conventional 4th tuning because you can use it to get reasonably close to almost all of the notes that you need. If you arrange to have lots of slide pull available on the 4th tubing you can adjust it for almost anything while playing. You might be interested in the article about valve tuning in the summer 1980 issue of the TUBA Journal. (vol. VIII, No. 1) It's been mentioned in quite a few footnotes since then.