Posted by Rick Denney on July 25, 2003 at 09:21:36:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: F-Tuba Sound posted by Matt S. on July 25, 2003 at 07:30:43:
I would take your golf analogy further, but not with the putter. The putter is completely a specialty club with only one purpose, kind of like a tuba player owning a tenor tuba just to play two pieces of music every couple of years. When you need it, you need it bad, but you don't need it often. To me, the F analogy is more like the difference between a driver and a 9-iron. A pro can hit a driver 260 yards and a 9-iron 160 yards, or thereabouts. But the distance is only a small part of the issue, because a pro with sufficient skill can also hit a driver 160 yards, and one doesn't really need 260-yard drives except occasionally.
But if you hit a golf ball 160 yards with a driver, it will approach its target at a low angle and keep rolling. With a 9-iron, a pro can drop the ball on the target from nearly straight up and make it back up to him because of the back spin. No amount of skill can make a 9-iron shot roll for a long way or a driver shot back up on landing.
So, while within a certain range both can play the range, one solves different problems than the other. That's the point, it seems to me, for having an F tuba in addition to a contrabass. I may be able to play above the staff with my BBb, but I can do it more securely, with a sound more appropriate to the music written there, and with a much lighter approach using my little F tuba.
And I can play parts in the basement as well with my F tuba as with my BBb, but with much more complicated fingerings and with much less quantity of sound.
Rick "for whom having the two instruments provides expanded music-making opportunities" Denney