Posted by carl on May 22, 2003 at 00:02:00:
In Reply to: Vaughan Williams on BBb? Why not? posted by Lan on May 21, 2003 at 22:45:43:
what's wrong with playing fountains of rome on F tuba?
it's got nothing to do with hitting all the notes and keeping it from sounding bad. it's just that some pieces sound better on certain horns. simple as that!
try this experiment...find an accomplished, musical player to play the 1st mvt. of the vw on a BBb/CC tuba, then play the exact same thing on an Eb/F tuba. everytime i've seen this done, the Eb/F always wins. always!
sure, it's good for your contrabass tuba playing if you *can* play the vw on it and if you can make it sing. but do the same thing on a smaller horn and it just sounds better.
it goes the other way, too. fountains on the big horn, then the small one...the big one just sounds better.