Re: Re: Re: Re: Good 3/4 F Tuba for Solos?


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Posted by Jim Andrada on June 05, 2002 at 15:59:03:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Good 3/4 F Tuba for Solos? posted by Rick Denney on June 05, 2002 at 13:31:08:

I wonder what the cheerleader's dad would think of all this rolling about on the floor? Fortunately Mr Yamaha isn't around so I guess you're safe. Just be careful not to roll onto the valve cluster.

I think you've (as usual) raised a couple of interesting points. As operators of fairly large pieces of plumbing, I wonder how much relation there is between what we hear and what our victims (in my case)/audiences (in yours) hear.

I play Euph as well and I think with the bell so close to your face you get a better picture of the sound, but I still think there are differences.

I'm sure that a lot of artefacts of tuba sound are only heard by the operator. I wouldn't be surprised that we get a lot of "backwash" off the back of the bell and from the huge piece of metal that's right in our faces.

I've noticed that if I listen carefully I can hear a difference in the location of the "apparent" souce of the sound depending what valve combinatiom I'm using and I can only explain this by speculating that I'm hearing some resonance from the surfaces of the active branches. I doubt that anyone ten feet away would notice this, butI think it affects my personal perception of the "color" of the note.

A few days ago I was at Tony Clements' place and he was playing a six valve Miraphone F (don't rememember the model #) He was talking about how the low register had it's "squirrely" spots and yet to me a few feet away it sounded pretty good and reasonably consistent with the other notes.

I wonder if one did a "blind" test listening to one's own recordings if you'd be able to really consistently pick out which was recorded on which F horn (as long as we're talking reasonably comparable horns, that is) I know we'd hear differences, but if we listended to all the recordings for the first time, would we be able to correlate what we heard as listeners to what we'd heard as players?

I sometimes wonder if we should base more of our buying decision on how a horn sounds when someone else plays it?

By the way, in spite of being at a level where mediocrity is something to which I yet aspire,I just decided on a new Alex F because I like the sound better than I like either the M-fone or the Yamaha. I really liked the Gronitz, but it had a bigger more open feel than I was looking for, to my ears at least. I guess I just like challenges. Or fashion models!


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