Re: Re: What do you consider "good intonation?"


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Posted by Frederick J. Young on June 08, 2003 at 08:59:14:

In Reply to: Re: What do you consider "good intonation?" posted by Christian on June 03, 2003 at 17:05:12:

What you describe was no accident! Many tubas are purposely made with sharp 4th and 6th partials and flat 5th partials. In those cases the valve slides are purposely lengthened so that notes derived from those sharp partials are only slightly flat. The reason for doing this is to enable the valves 1, 2 and 3 to be long enough that combinations of them with the 4th valve will not be excessively sharp. It is a game the manufacturers cannot win and they cannot produce the note that is one semitone above the fundamental.

As regards to the flat 5th partial, that can be remedied with a 1 inch long chamber placed between the end of the mouthpiece and the beginning of the lead pipe. That was patented by C G Conn Ltd at least 60 years ago.


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