Posted by Rick Denney on April 07, 2003 at 09:28:50:
In Reply to: tastes great...or great taste? posted by Kenneth Sloan on April 05, 2003 at 23:52:52:
To me, my play-test is one snapshop, and the teacher's play-test is more like a painting. The teacher, with more talent head-room, can tell things about the instrument's potential, while I am completely bound up in my own limitations.
Both images have to be favorable before I'd buy an instrument, if I'm using that criteria.
I've bought many tubas in my life, some with teacher input and some without. I have found that a teacher playing the instrument specifically for the purpose of evaluating it for me has been a dead-on accurate predictor of the success of the instrument in my hands. I haven't had success so consistently with generalized recommendations from teachers who had play-tested instruments generally but not specifically with me in mind. I bought one tuba on the general recommendation of one teacher after having been warned of a fault of that tuba by another teacher, who wasn't my teacher but who was more familiar with my playing and who play-tested the instrument at my specific request. The faults he identified proved to be fatal for me, as he predicted, and I sold the horn a few years later.
As my own sound concept and abilities have improved, my dependance on teacher input has diminished. Now, I think I can buy a tuba without that help, but I still want my teacher to test the instrument to confirm my impressions.
There is another psychological aspect as well. If I buy a tuba that is a bit beyond me, but my teacher tells me it is a great tuba, then I know any fault I have with it is likely me.
Rick "who is in a different position than an ambitious college tuba student" Denney