Re: Re: Re: Discriminated BBb and Eb ???


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Posted by Lee Stofer on June 15, 2002 at 17:27:34:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Discriminated BBb and Eb ??? posted by Volker on June 15, 2002 at 16:49:30:

Volker,
I think you have made a very good point. I felt as if I jumped off the tuba fashion wagon six years ago when I sold my expensive CC tuba and started playing a large, antique Conn BBb with 4 top-pistons and a recording bell as my primary instrument. I have lived through many jokes about it, but the proof is in the performance. Last week, I remarked to a co-player before a performance, "It's all fashion. If Arnold Jacobs had played a recording bass in BBb, then a Swiss tuba maker would have been copying these and every aspiring orchestra player would want one." To further the point, I started out as a euphonium player, and virtually all serious euphonium players want a 3+1 compensating instrument. I have played a 3+1 BBb Besson tuba, and it was a great horn. If not many people are playing them, it's tuba fashion, not that they aren't a good horn. I didn't even think of seriously playing an Eb tuba for a long time - it just wasn't done. Then, I happened to buy a trashed Eb at a junk store and repaired it a little, as a lark, and was flabbergasted by how well it played, enough that it soon surplanted F tuba as my favorite solo- and quintet small tuba. I think i've seen a trend of increased open-mindedness about instrument selection, and I hope it continues. Don't play a certain horn only because someone else plays it!
Lee Stofer


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