Posted by Mark on March 10, 2001 at 21:59:29:
In Reply to: Re: maybe some help with your old EEb tuba posted by Gus Pratt on March 10, 2001 at 18:46:55:
I had a similar experience. I have a vintage 1920s 3 valve JW York Eb, ~29" long with a 15" bell. I was using a fairly heavy but shallow old mouthpiece inscribed "E-BASS"; don't know the provenance. I thought it sounded a bit "nasal" or "reedy". I tried a bunch of mouthpieces and, rather to my surprize, settled on a UMI-Hellberg (120 S). It results in a nice round "American" tuba sound, and, after getting used to it, is actually makes it easier to hit the higher notes. This tuba is "high pitch"; A >449 (my Korg tuner doesn't go any higher in calibrate mode). I could bring it down to A=440 by pulling the main slide out to the point where it was in danger of falling off. The new mouthpiece doesn't go very far in the receiver, but it now plays A=440 without the slides out nearly so far. Still some quirks in intonation but that may be more my problem than the horn's. I'd never have guessed it but this mouthpiece is sure a good match with this old Eb tuba.