Posted by Joe S. on March 10, 2001 at 02:09:18:
Hey you owners of very old Eb ("EEb") tubas: Many of these instruments have (what seems to be) a horribly flat "low" Eb. (This would be the Eb JUST below the staff.) If any of you actually have the original mouthpiece that came with your instrument, you have noticed that it (probably) is remarkably small.
I'm not going out on a limb and stating that these old instruments were perfectly in tune, but I will toss out the idea that many/most of these instruments were "tuned" (overtone series - wise) to very shallow-cupped mouthpieces. If you are suffering with a horribly flat low Eb and are using a deep-cupped mouthpiece, you might try a shallow "bowl"-cupped mouthpiece, such as a Schilke 69C4. The Marcinkiewicz N4 is a "sort of" shallow-cupped mouthpiece, if you just "cannot stand" the brightness of a Schilke 69C4. These days, there are plenty of other shallow-cup mouthpiece choices as well. I certainly don't guarantee a fix, but shallow-cupped mouthpieces DO "fix" SOME of these old EEb tubas and significantly "help" many others. Incidentally, many of these old EEb tubas are ALSO "too long" to play up to A=440, as "440" wasn't necessarily "the norm" when those old tubas were manufactured. Quite often, there is a logical place to remove three or so inches of tubing from these instruments without significantly changing their playing characteristics. (Sorry, this "shortening to A=440" never seems to help the "flat low Eb" problem.) Have fun and good luck!
-Joe