Re: Re: why compensating, really?


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Posted by Frederick J. Young on April 21, 2001 at 22:11:41:

In Reply to: Re: why compensating, really? posted by Lew on April 20, 2001 at 10:04:06:

Sorry, my tuba is not a compensating instrument because the air passes through the valve set only once rather than twice. It is a five valve double tuba with two ganged switch valves necessary to get the air into the correct set of valve slides and out the bell. A system like mine would greatly improve the euphonium just as it did the French horn beginning about 125 years ago when Gebr. Alexander patented the double horn. Interestingly enough it took horn players about 50 to 60 years to get used to double horns. Compensating horns are also made but are not generally used because of their stuffiness. The compensating euph was patented around the same time by Besson and it included an additional valve to make the 1234 valve combination in tune. It took about 25 years for the Brits to embrace the compensating euph. In America compensating euphs were rarily used before the 1970's. Imagine, it took almost a century to break the grip of the American manufacturers who were too cheap to pay royalties to Besson, and its successors and assigns for the use of the patent. In the mid 1980's I published a comparison of valve systems in the TUBA Jornal and within a few years Boosey & Hawkes was not longer the sole maker of compensating euphs.

For the best intonation in the "bread and butter" range of any tuba or euph use the three valve compensating instrument. The advantage is that the fingering is your mother fingering and the intonation error is only about 2 cents on the average. Of course, euph players won't have the full bass range for the reading of tuba parts in bands where the tubists are missing. On the other hand BBb and some CC tubas have a good open low Eb or F which allows them to play chromatically down to the fundamental on the three valve compensating tubas. That is not a false note but rather a result of the use of a lot of small bore cylindrical tubing in large tubas. It is common knowledge that a BBb tuba is four times as long as a Bb Flugelhorn. However, for the sake of saving weight and money the cylindrical tubing on the tuba is not four times as large in diameter. If it was it would be almost two inches in diameter. This was investigated by Jodi Hall at C. G. Conn many years ago. His conclusion was that the low Bb we commonly think the pedal tone is really a preferred tone and the Eb is the true pedal tone. With a little pressure from the market, I am sure the manufacturers would be able to improve the Eb open tone and the F open tone on the BBb and CC tubas. The corresponding open tone is weaker on the Eb tuba and almost absent on many F tubas. Has anyone out there found and open Eb below the bass clef staff on the euphonium? I can't find it on my euph.

In searching for it I have found that I can produce a double pedal Bb on my Imperial Boosey & Hawkes euph by using the first valve!


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