Posted by D.Graves on June 14, 2003 at 10:18:48:
In Reply to: Re: Re: F Tuba Timbre posted by Rick Denney on June 14, 2003 at 08:04:02:
It's interesting to note how we so readily place contrabass tubas into "one of two camps" -- i.e., German (rotary) or American (piston), but when it comes to following the same pattern w/bass tubas, there seems to be a different logic. Maybe I'm just missing something. Even though all of the instruments that I characterized as German have rotary valves and all the instruments that I characterized as American have piston valves, let's assume (or pretend) for a moment that valve configuration is not the primary issue. In fact, let's go so far as to say that the "German" style horns have rotary valves BECAUSE they are German style horns, not that they are German horns because they have rotors. Also, let's put aside the whole low C issue for a moment. Assuming that we have a player w/machine-like consistency, a room with great acoustical properties (for tuba), the absence of any/all extraneous variables (mouthpiece choice, fatigue, varying response, etc), and a collection of 4 F tubas for this Bohemian to play on, incl the following:
B&S PT-10, Mir 181, Yam YFB-822, and MW 45 SLP. Do you think you would hear any
BTW, I'm confused (albeit, that's not a difficult task) by your statement, "The tall-bell rotary F's have a more reverberant sound with less presence." Wouldn't reverberation, by nature, lend itself to more presence?
Also, would you mind elaborating on the continuum that you mentioned?Wasn't there some sort of side-by-side comparison of BAT's a couple of years ago, at TUSAB tuba conf? Maybe something like that would prove interesting re F tubas, too. Maybe I just need to go out and buy some comic books:)
Thanks