Posted by Rick Denney on June 05, 2002 at 13:31:08:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Good 3/4 F Tuba for Solos? posted by MA on June 05, 2002 at 11:03:55:
I think of the Yamaha as a high-school cheerleader--lots of fun to roll around on the floor with, but not overly refined. The Alex is more like a high-maintenance fashion model--beautiful and knows it, and requiring considerable respect and a high tolerance for not always knowing how things will turn out. If you want fashion-model beauty, you have to live with the consequences, heh, heh.
When I pick up the Yamaha, I just plain have fun. It goes where I point it with amazing willingness, and I feel like a geek with no life who asked a cheerleader to the prom and she said yes. When I play the Alex (or other "difficult" rotary F tubas), I have to stop every five seconds to ask, "How did that sound?" It seemed to require a lot of self-assurance to know where I stood.
But if a Yamaha 621 that you tried sounds to you like a euphonium, then I suggest trying it again with a decent-size mouthpiece. I use a Doug Elliott 132-2NR5, which is about the size of a large Conn Helleberg but with a bigger rim. It's the same mouthpiece that I use on the Conn 20J. That large mouthpiece really opens the bottom of the little Yamaha. A typical F-tuba mouthpiece like a PT-64 was for me a complete disaster on the 621, though I preferred it on rotary F tubas that I tried at the time. Too small a mouthpiece on the Yamaha makes it sound strident to my ears, unless under the control of a master (which I'm most emphatically not). The bigger mouthpiece doesn't make it any more refined, but it does keep it in the tuba category.
Rick "who married the ex-cheerleader" Denney