Posted by Rick Denney on December 26, 2002 at 23:04:31:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: A Christmas wish for Holton . . . posted by Kenneth Sloan on December 26, 2002 at 15:55:08:
A natural tendency to good pitch might meet the amateur's needs without the loss of flexibility needed by the pro. Most amateurs are searching for one good sound, while top pros are searching for control over the color of the sound. But there's nothing that prohibits these from being different locations on the same path. The Holton, for me, has easy naturally good intonation, in that when I make steady sounds and then look at the tuner, the needle is pointed the right way. It is certainly not stiff, so I suppose if my sense of pitch was all wacky, the horn would be, too. That's not at all like, say, some Alexanders, that reportedly require iron control to manage the intonation. As limited as my abilities are, I'm still to the point where I would prefer not to be channeled to specific pitches by a stiff tuba.
The Holton, like the York Master, has lovely natural color. The Holton's color is different: warmer and more enveloping. Neither is particularly versatile in terms of color. The big German rotary tubas are reportedly more versatile, but they impose a huge burden on the player to make that color happen. A lot of pros seem to be choosing to use several instruments to cover the gamut rather than making one instrument provide those different colors. Again, this is an efficiency move, allowing them to be better at specialized sound concepts while still covering the gamut. Even with my limitations, I have made that same choice, and for the same reasons. And it's even more useful for me, because my dynamic range on each instrument is much narrower to begin with.
The line you describe may be closer to the beginner end of the scale than you realize, if I'm on the other side of it.
I consider myself a dedicated but untalented amateur, long on knowledge and short on results. Yet as I play tubas, I find that those that impressed me most seem to be the ones that impress top pros. But there is one category favored by top pros that I can't manage, and that includes those that require tons of air. The huge-bore rotary tubas, such as the big Cerveny, the Miraphone 191, the large Alexanders and Rudy Meinls draw much praise from players with efficient air movement, but not from me. This is entirely my own weakness.
Yet, it is surprising how many top players, especially as they have aged, have moved from those sorts of instruments to the sorts of instruments that most impress me. Jay Bertolet still loves his Rudy (a challenge for me to manage at all), but he traded his 601, which I could not manage, for a Nirschl, and plays far more frequently on it than he used to play the 601. Ron Bishop has reportedly switched to a Meinl-Weston 2000. Mike Sanders went from an Alex to a Yorkbrunner years ago. Lee Hipp moved from an Alex to a rotary Neptune, some of which reportedly have the magic. Gene Pokorny moved many years ago from a Miraphone to a Yorkbrunner, though maybe not in one step. I think these players made these changes for the same reasons I like my new Holton--they are more efficient for them. They get the desired effect with less effort.
A top pro can get 100% of my sound conception on nearly any equipment (Mike Sanders once blew me away playing a couple of notes on my Sanders/Cerveny stencil). But I can get perhaps only 50% of my conception on Tuba A, and 70% on Tuba B, and so on. Here's the point: The top pro, using his own private yardstick, may only get 70% or 80% on the instruments he plays. It may be that I as a player need different things than he does from the tuba. But it may also be that the tuba that moves him from 70 to 80 on his stratospheric scale may also move me from 50 to 70 on my own rudimentary scale. I don't think that it's a given that what is efficient for a top pro is un-beneficial to an amateur, and that was what I had gathered from Alex's statement about the Holtons.
Rick "who thinks amateurs need efficiency, too" Denney