Posted by Pat Murphy on July 18, 2000 at 09:58:05:
I am a reed player and have been most of my life. I have, for years, had this secret desire to learn tuba. Will probably never play it outside of church specials etc. I got onto ebay and began to try to decipher what it was all about. Tubas, sousaphones, helicans, b flat, bb flat, c, e flat, f, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, pre-tonal, compensating, non-compensating, 3 valve, 4 valve, 5 valve, etc. Seems to be no end to the list. I bid on and got an old dented up Victory tuba. Haven't recieved it yet. It is 3 valve. I think it is e flat non-compensating, and likely before A 440. The seller was clueless what he was selling but what the heck, it was CHEAP. Got to start somewhere. No mouthpiece. I found an e flat tuba fingering chart. Read somewhere that non-compensating tubas are sharp in lower register and fingerings change. Will this chart be right? What kind of mouthpiece should I get? Where can I go to understand all this? This is almost like visiting another planet. I had no idea there was so much to it. There seems to be all the instruments in the orchestra or band, and then there's these tubas. Wow! Can someone please help?