Posted by Rick Denney on January 25, 2001 at 10:05:09:
In Reply to: Re: 7 Valve Tuba posted by Erik on January 24, 2001 at 20:18:46:
Actually, the price would be very much higher, because Dr. Young's "Monster" is a true double horn, such that each valve has two sets of branches. I would be most surprised if the horn could be commercially made and moderate production standards for less than the most expensive current handmade instruments.
But there is another question, too. Clearly, the focus of this instrument has been on the correction of inherent intonation problems. Managing intonation is a major activity for most tuba players, whether they use an equipment solution or their ears. In all my experience at the amateur level, playing with tin-eared playing partners (and having somewhat of a tin ear myself), I've never yet played in a group that played an equally tempered scale as does a piano. With brass instruments, out of tune thirds of chords (for example) must be played flat for the chord to sound in tune. The actual temperament used by singers and string players (why MUST tune by ear) follows the Pythagoran scale, where the notes of the scale are geometrically related to the root. This is what sounds in tune to the audience. Have you ever played a chorale on a MIDI synthesizer? Did it sound in tune? In my experience, no. And the reason is that it follows an equally tempered scale. We are used to these discrepancies on pianos, so they sound correct. But not for instruments of purer tone. Consequently, the need to hear and adjust pitch during the course of the music is anavoidable.
That Dr. Young's horn fits closely with three-valve compensators and not with other instruments means only that it was designed to. Whether this will be in tune in a real playing situation is a different and more difficult standard.
And the quality of the sound is another characteristic as important to tuba players as intonation. Many people work with intonation problems on their horns to get a particular quality of sound. Yes, Arnold Jacobs helped define that sound for American orchestral tubists. But he is the master musician, and the reason people revere his sound is because of their musical emotional response to it. So we use horns built to provide sounds that tend in that direction, and work with intonation problems if necessary, considering it a good trade-off. Solving intonation problems (even if it were possible in real playing situations) at the expense of a coveted sound is interesting from a technical perspective, but ultimately musically unsatisfying. If we must play instruments with too wide a taper to get that sound, and work with the resulting characteristics, then so be it.
I somehow doubt the notion that the relationship between taper and the intonation of harmonics is as deterministic as Dr. Young suggests. There are too many examples of nearly identical horns that differ markedly in this regard. And there are examples of horns that break these rules that play perfectly in tune. There are even examples of the same horn being in tune with one player and not with another, with neither aware of any efforts at adjusting pitch. And let's not forget that some horns are sensitive to the mouthpiece when it comes to intonation. There is much more to intonation than the length of the tubes.
And, of course, there is the need to hire four native bearers to move around the horn. These practical considerations may seem banal, but they are very real.
Rick "Respectful" Denney