Posted by Wade on September 19, 2003 at 22:18:35:
Any of you TubeNetters ever just sit and stare dumbly at your tubas or euphoniums and find yourself overcome with feelings of lustful avarice?
You know . . . like when you buy a new car that looks really spiffy, and you wash and detail it and then you just want to sit back and admire it; but there is this evil, little voice inside you that says "look at the beautiful lines of this thing: the balance, the curves, the detailing. And it is all MINE!!!
There are times during a practice break where I am so taken aback by the actual beauty of my Alexander that I end up just sitting and admiring its design. This "abnormal behavior" has caused me to assign names to most tubas that I have owned. (The Alex is "Lucille", for example.)
However, my YFB 621 has never spoken to me in that way. It has been merely a money-maker for me, devoid of any real personality. I guess that this is due to the wonderful, yet fairly vanilla timbre that it produces.
Well no longer!
I had never really bonded with the little thing, never got to know it more than lacquer-deep. (Sorry for that one . . . )
But the thing came to me with a nice, deep and wide compound dent in the small side of the bottom bow and had more pitch problems than is normal for one of these buggers. And I had heard from several folks that, on the YFB 621, (when dented in that exact spot) the 2/3 combinations go all out of whack.
I just spent eight hours working on the thing, including removal of the bottom bow for dent work, adding two water keys, moving the thumb ring to save my poor, wadded-up pinky (guys with big hands that play these tubas will know what I mean), and a nice visit to the muriatic acid and bright dip. When I got her home, I semi-chromed her enough to make her look nice without taking off tons (milligrams) of metal; last polish job was two years ago, so I had forgotten how she had once looked.
Anyway, the dent seems to have been doing something to the pitch after all (I had doubted this, as I thought that it was not deep enough) and in the half light of my living room she is now starting to look as "pretty" as the old Alex does to me.
So I finally gave her a name: Bessie.
And no, I am not sure why; it just came to me, as did Lucille's name.
Go figure.
I finally really love this little tuba; we have bonded. No children expected as far as I know, however.
Of course, all of this could also be explained by the new mouthpiece I have been using . . .
So, do any of you just sit and make moon eyes over your lovely instruments?
Wade "owner of two pretty decent workhorse tubas, just slow to realize it" Rackley