Posted by Joe S. on July 02, 2001 at 19:50:33:
In Reply to: German? American? A rose by any other... posted by Rick Denney on July 02, 2001 at 10:39:43:
Generalizations that pertain to all of the German-made F tubas (or any tubas from anywhere) are about as valid as generalizations about people of the same race or of the same religion.
I cannot think of three models F tubas that are more DIFFERENT from each other than the three that you mentioned above.
A lot of people like the Japanese model of F tuba that you own and enjoy, but its invention was not brought on from someone's desire to offer for sale an F tuba with the characteristics that you accurately outlined. Rather, it was the last thing (of several) that Yamaha could think of to do with that particular bell and body, which have indeed given them incredible "model mileage".
Its easy to stereotype and categorize tubas (and people), but rather than "forcing" categorization (such as, "There are only two types of people, those who are wearing hats, and those who are not.") let's let our tubas (and our playing of them) "speak" for themselves.