Re: Annual world tuba production?


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Posted by Rick Denney on March 05, 2004 at 19:26:31:

In Reply to: Annual world tuba production? posted by Paul M on March 05, 2004 at 07:02:20:

As with any product, the market looks like a pyramid, with the inexpensive items at the broad base and the high-end products at the small tip. The cheaper instruments go to schools and beginners, while the most expensive instruments are sold to pros, pro-wannabes and serious amateurs. The top tier of this pyramid is measured perhaps in hundreds, and the bottom end is measured in thousands, in terms of annual production.

The reason there are lots of brands is because the market is small. There is no motivation to tool up for mass production beyond a certain point. Thus, small shops that depend on hand labor can still compete, though with the influx of tubas from countries with cheap labor, the shops that use expensive labor will be increasingly pushed into the high end of the market where craftsmanship is marketable. We all thought Yamaha would put the likes of Miraphone and Rudolf Meinl out of business, but it didn't happen. It just pushed those makers up market, reducing their volume, perhaps, but likely increasing their margins. Now, the Chinese and Brazilians are doing the same thing to Yamaha, and Yamaha instruments are among the pricier tubas on the market.

I'd put the number of active adult tuba players in the U.S. in the tens of thousands, but probably barely so. Many own several instruments, and they keep the market for old instruments alive. Adult amateurs rarely buy high-end instruments new, but often buy them as hand-me-downs from pros. My guess of the numbers comes from extrapoliting the number of tuba players who seem to show up to TubaChristmas events in big cities.

In terms of durability, a tuba that is well-cared-for can last basically indefinitely. Things will have to be replaced from time to time, of course. I have a number of tubas, and the newest one is 14 years old while the oldest one is over 40 years old, and they are all in near-perfect playing condition. There are many tubas still in use that are 75-100 years old. Instruments older than that are sometimes played, but rarely--their designs are no longer in vogue, and often their pitch standards don't line up with current pitch standards.

Of course, a tuba battered around in a school can become scrap metal in a very few years. This is where the bulk of the market is--in replacing tubas that reached an untimely death in schools as a result of abuse.

And serious amateurs and pros often buy additional instruments or migrate to new ones just because they want to.

All this is speculation, of course. Nobody collects statistics on this industry that I know of.

Rick "who can guess as good as anybody" Denney


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