Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: BBb versus CC


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Posted by Jay Bertolet on July 04, 1999 at 08:16:59:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: BBb versus CC posted by Chuck on July 03, 1999 at 10:22:27:

Not to dispute what other have said, but I feel that there is a definite difference in the sounds of most BBb and CC tubas. I was in the enviable position of owning a York Master model BBb tuba. This horn had 4 front action pistons and had average intonation for a York. But there were things I just couldn't do on that tuba at that time. Obviously, I don't know how I would feel about that tuba today because I don't remember so well exactly how it played. Anyway, the point is moot because the fellow I sold it to had it cut by Rob Rusk into a CC. I met him (the guy who bought the tuba) years later at an audition and he let me play the new tuba and it was pretty good but it had some awful intonation problems and a couple of really bad notes.

The point I'm making here is that I could have kept the York and stayed on BBb. At the time, cutting the York into CC was also an option but too big a gamble in my opinion. I chose to do neither and instead sold the York to finance my Rudy CC. Having played a few of the cut Yorks, I can say there is a serious difference in the sounds of the two keys of instruments. Without trying to get into the specific descriptive qualities which are vague at best, there are two concrete things I remember about the two tubas. One was that the horn felt sluggish. In my senior year of high school, I was playing the Wilder Sonata for Tuba and Piano and just starting to look at the Kraft Encounters II. Both of these pieces have some serious technical challenges and the York was really hard to navigate through these types of pieces. Lip slurs were a constant struggle and well as any faster passages. Also, the high range was really rough. I was also competing with the 1st movement of the Vaughan-Williams and it was a real struggle to play anything on that tuba over a D above the staff. Both of these characteristics are typical of the BBb tubas I have played, with a couple of notable exceptions. Both the Rudolf Meinl BBb and the VMI 2103 tubas that I have played have felt very much to me like CC tubas. They are also designed almost exactly like their CC counterparts. The same could be said for the Mirafone BBb though I haven't played many of those. So it is possible to get a BBb that plays like a CC but when comparing the designs, it becomes obvious that the primary differences are based in the designs and not in the keys of the tubas.

I've seen the discussions about BBb vs. CC tubas on this BBS many times. And this thing about the keys always comes up. It really is true about the fingerings being easier for CC tubas in sharp keys and it also is true that the majority of orchestra music is written in keys with sharps. A great example is the Sousa March Stars and Stripes Forever which is in Eb in the band version, D in the orchestra. But the difficulty of the fingerings isn't the issue as much as the intonation tendencies of the hard fingerings. For example, if you're playing a bunch of first valve notes and second valve notes, they're probably going to be better in tune generally than 2-3 combinations. So, I'm guessing that the bad keys are not just bad for the difficulty of fingerings.

Sorry for the long post, I guess vacation affords me the time to be overly thorough! :)


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