"C tubas suck"

[the elephant]

Which Ed? I don't know any Ed who hires around here. Do you mean Ed at Valley? He does not hire anyone where I live and work. We are too far apart. He subbed with us the other day, by the way. Great job, too.

[the elephant]

We need to meet up to play each other's horns, anyway. If I can ever get my wife to get her car trailered down to the dealership for a new head gasket, I can then take my vehicle out of service to replace the rockers, lifters, and one of the cams. This will take about a week, as I cannot know which cam needs to be ordered until I do the five-hour teardown to actually take out the lifters and rockers and examine the dang cams.

Once I have it torn down, I can find out which of the four cams is damaged. Then I have to wait for the part to crawl to my house. (Have I ever mentioned how bad shipping is in Mississippi?) The full process will likely take me two weeks, and I will be without a vehicle during this time. And I have to have suitable weather, of course. So this is looking pretty grim. Maybe end of Spring '26…?

Once I have a working vehicle again, I could probably carry myself up thataways…

[prodigal]

It seems CC vs BBb parallels the 270 vs 30-06 debate in the hunting world.

I use them all!

[the elephant]

To me, personally owning excellent CC tubas, it is more like the whole 223 Remington versus 5.56 mm argument…

[bloke]

this:

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1Lj9HgNHZM/

[Grumpikins]

Granted, at rehearsal last Monday, I couldn't seem to play Sleigh Ride on the CC, too much muscle memory from the BBb from the 90s. (Lame excuse for being stupid.)

I run into this same problem when playing Marches. We played a lot of them when I was in school. They were written for Bb instruments. For example, 'stars and stripes' is a real knuckle buster on Cc, a breeze on Bb.

I wouldn't say Cc tubas suck though. They just offer different advantages and disadvantages as do all different keyed instruments. I think that Bb instruments have the longest history of development in the winds sphere. I wonder if early craftsmen and/or composers found that the key of Bb was the most resonant and best intonation on wind instruments? I may be totally wrong. I have a very limited knowledge of the history of manufacturing instruments, especially pre industrial.

I find myself often thinking of trading my Cc for a comparable Bb. But I really love my Cc tuba and have a lot of time invested in it. It's hard to make that leap. I've also toyed with the idea of putting a 4th valve on my old king. But that seems kind of silly when there are 4 valve kings out there...

[bloke]

I'm reading something into the previous comment that probably is there (but might not be there). I'm making the assumption - when it is claimed that Stars and Stripes Forever (E flat major) is a "knuckle buster" - when playing the C tuba - that the person struggling to play it on a C tuba is playing a typical C tuba whereby the fifth partial is hopelessly flat (a characteristic which seems to be widely accepted amongst C tuba players).

Playing the opening phrase after the introduction, the little grace notes and such are quite easy on a C tuba if the fifth partial is in tune, because most all that stuff simply involves wiggling the first and second fingers.

Even playing it in D with a symphony orchestra on B flat or C tuba still involves mostly wiggling the first and second fingers... as long as the beginner band book fingerings are in tune enough to use.

On most jobs - other than jazz combo jobs and some other exceptions - I'm using a very large B-flat tuba with a very large valve section bore. I use all of the beginner band book fingerings, including 1-3 for C below the staff. Yes, I manipulate the first valve slide and I use 2-4 for B natural, but I'm not sure that anyone would consider 2-4 for B natural to be an alternate, and most everyone would consider the beginner fingering chart listing of 1-2-3 to be quite sour.

[bloke]

A video link that I supplied a couple of posts back got covered up really quickly. If you have facebook, please go listen to it. It's not long.

... and along the lines of catgrowl posting about F tubas also sucking, it seems to me that - at least, in the United States - they mostly get used to fulfill recital requirements amongst students and faculty. The percentage of European orchestral music programmed in the United States written between 1840 or so and around 1860 or so -:which involves a tuba - is fairly low, and - even so - a whole bunch of Americans are going to bring their big tuba to play many of those works, in spite of the instructions at the top of the page. I would wager that even some full-time orchestra tuba players' F tubas tend to stay in their cases and - when pulled out - require that their valves be busted loose.

[JC2]

Ooft…

I’m not taking the bait on this one.

[MiBrassFS]

.

[prodigal]

To me, personally owning excellent CC tubas, it is more like the whole 223 Remington versus 5.56 mm argument…

That's even better. I hate both of those cartridges, even though I own both.

My 186 is so old, it has to be a 222 in your argument, and it wins in the accuracy department!

[JC2]

Ooft…

I’m not taking the bait on this one.

But, yet, here you are…

“Included in the fray…”

I know right. Tempting as it is, I don’t think there would be any positive outcome. Enjoy your music making

[bloke]

Which Ed? I don't know any Ed who hires around here. Do you mean Ed at Valley? He does not hire anyone where I live and work. We are too far apart. He subbed with us the other day, by the way. Great job, too.

Yeah, he hires people for gigs around Greenwood and such, and that would put me within easy commuting distance of Yazoo. Additionally, his parents have moved to Greenwood, and they have a spare bedroom for me.

I haven't played your Holton in its current enhanced config, I haven't played your F tuba, and - though I've played a Yamaha before - I haven't played yours.

You tooted briefly on my F tuba years ago, but you haven't seen the cimbasso, nor either of the b-flats. I have no idea whether you'd be interested in blowing on the recording E-flat compensating Besson. I could probably stuff all of those in the car.

[Grumpikins]

Bloke, I double checked and my memory of the title I was referring to was correct. Im referring to the lower contrabass part. I was laughing about it with a young college student I played in band with this summer because his tuba professor (Tim Northcut) assigned that specific lick for him to master over the summer break on his Cc tuba.

Maybe that part never posed a problem for you (on Cc tuba). Everybody is different, have different levels of talent and ability. I'm not as good as I used to be, and was never as good as I'd like to think I was. I hardly practice anymore. Just another washed up schmuck. But, that part was never difficult on Bb tuba. On Cc, it's really difficult for me.

Along the same thought lines..

Is an Eb tenor horn the Eb version of a Bb baritone? Like Eb and Bb tuba.

Why is there no Cc euphonium?

I would guess that euphonium in Cc would be a useless redundancy and Eb tenor horn just overlaps French horn, tenor trombone, etc also being redundant... another argument against Cc tuba? Now I'm rambling like a nutcase.

[bloke]

Bloke, I double checked and my memory of the title I was referring to was correct. Im referring to the lower contrabass part. I was laughing about it with a young college student I played in band with this summer because his tuba professor (Tim Northcut) assigned that specific lick for him to master over the summer break on his Cc tuba.

Maybe that part never posed a problem for you (on Cc tuba). Everybody is different, have different levels of talent and ability. I'm not as good as I used to be, and was never as good as I'd like to think I was. I hardly practice anymore. Just another washed up schmuck. But, that part was never difficult on Bb tuba. On Cc, it's really difficult for me.

Along the same thought lines..

Is an Eb tenor horn the Eb version of a Bb baritone? Like Eb and Bb tuba.

Why is there no Cc euphonium?

I would guess that euphonium in Cc would be a useless redundancy and Eb tenor horn just overlaps French horn, tenor trombone, etc also being redundant... another argument against Cc tuba? Now I'm rambling like a nutcase.

Yeah, I would agree that playing the lower part on a C instrument is pretty stupid. It was written to be played on B-flat sousaphones. That having been said, even when it's played quite well in the lower octave, still sounds like a bunch of growling, and the lower octave is mostly buried by all of the percussion noise and loud playing of the winds.

There are certain pieces that just don't lie well on certain instruments built in certain keys. I prefer to use my f tuba to play most gymnastic / recital quintet pieces, but when someone programmed the Arnold quintet, in the past I would use the C instrument, because some of the fast passages are just easier... but today - were I to find that I was asked to play that work - I would probably pull down the E flat compensating bass. If not the E flat, the 4/4 B flat, both of which more ease of playing the Arnold work than a C instrument.

Over the last short years of mastering B flat playing to the level that I had mastered C playing, one of the pieces I worked on was Fountains of Rome. In order to play the most exposed excerpt of that piece to my satisfaction on my C instruments, I always had to work for weeks on that piece. Once the B flat fingerings became second nature, I discovered how much easier it is to play on a B flat instrument (even though I'm obviously older than I ever was). The same is actually true for Ride of the Valkyries, even though it's pitched a semitone above the open key of the B flat instrument. The same goes for Mahler symphonies. The way the pitches hit on an excellent B flat tuba with five valves, the Ride can be played quite nicely in tune with no compromises and no frantic slide pushing or pulling.

[prodigal]

The contrabass part of Stars and Stripes is definitely more complicated playing a CC than a Sousaphone. There were weekends in college between my community bands where I would play it marching on my Sousa, and then on my butt with the 186CC. I finally gave up with the Sousa and moved to trombone for marching.

[gocsick]

The contrabass part of Stars and Stripes is definitely more complicated playing a CC than a Sousaphone.

Too many 3rd and 4th valve notes on CC for my liking.... 1st valve Eb's and Ab's just seem a lot easier to my monkey brain.

[bloke]

I chose the title of the thread obviously to be provocative, but also because a really fine B flat player friend (who has actually put together and sold some C tubas) recently said "C tubas suck", whereas decades ago I recall a tuba repairman and salesman muttering to me "B flat tubas suck".

[prodigal]

I chose the title of the thread obviously to be provocative, but also because a really fine B flat player friend (who has actually put together and sold some C tubas) recently said "C tubas suck", whereas decades ago I recall a tuba repairman and salesman muttering to me "B flat tubas suck".

Ha Ha! I think there are sucky tubas in every key.

[prodigal]

The contrabass part of Stars and Stripes is definitely more complicated playing a CC than a Sousaphone.

Too many 3rd and 4th valve notes on CC for my liking.... 1st valve Eb's and Ab's just seem a lot easier to my monkey brain.

At our Fall Concert, we played it for an encore. I didn't know that all of the brass players were supposed to stand for the second trip through the trio.

There was a lot of looking down going on and fighting the urge to go to muscle memory!