Re: Eb or F in college


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Posted by Jay Bertolet on November 06, 2000 at 09:59:10:

In Reply to: Eb or F in college posted by john on November 05, 2000 at 18:45:07:

As a professional orchestral player myself, I can say that Eb works fine for that milieu. I would say the majority of college teachers would probably recommend F over Eb. Going the Eb route is slightly bucking the trend. Alot of the decision depends on what you really want out of the instrument conceptually. For your two tubas, do you want the sounds to be fairly similar or very different? Many orchestral players put a high priority on consistency of sound, as do I, so I chose Eb because these tubas for me sound more like CC tubas than do F tubas. That said, I also own an Eb tuba that is much smaller and sounds like an F for when I'm looking for that particular type of sound. So the first thing to do is to decide what you want the new horn to sound like compared to what you already have. I don't think you'll find anyone who will tell you that you need a particular key instrument to play specific styles of music. So either Eb or F is going to work fine for just about any musical genre.

Among the Eb choices which I am most familiar with, I would suggest the Willson Eb. It is within your price range and it is a wonderfully versatile tuba. I own one myself and it is the best Eb tuba I've ever played. If learning to play a compensating horn is not an issue, the Besson 981/982 and the Yamaha 631 are very similar and excellent horns. I used to own a 981 but the 3+1 valve setup bothered me alot. The Yamaha 321 is also a good tuba but it has some limitations in the low range. It also isn't available, as far as I know, with more than 4 valves so there are also intonation issues in the low range.

Ultimately, whatever horn you choose will be the right one if it does what you want and is a good match for your personal playing style. Get your hands on as many different possibilities as you can and enjoy the search!

My opinion for what it's worth...


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