TubaForum.net

Hi,

As I have been getting my chops back, kinda.., my youngest of 4 (going in to 3rd grade) has shown an interest in learning the violin and the tuba. I've got the fiddle covered with all sizes from 1/4 up, but what are your recommendations for a small beginner tuba?

He has been playing his brother's trombone, and is doing pretty well at matching pitch, reading notes, and the right positions, but he is eager to learn! He is focused and is a good team player, and he doesn't let his size hold him back. He lines up on left tackle in his football team against kids twice his size. He's 46 inches tall and a whopping 59lbs. He is a strong square young lad, he moves kicker bales of hay that way nearly as much as him! Sized more like Momma than Daddy, I'm 6ft. 223 lbs. (I'm working on it!)



My thought is to see if I can borrow a surplus bell front baritone or euph to get him used to using valves over slide positions, and then move him up when his tone is full. Is this a good idea?

What are your thoughts.
Your thoughts are priceless as always!

That's what I was going to suggest --- some kind of baritone. To fit his size; sounds like he will be tuba-sized when he's older.

I have an ugly/brown/not-dented-up bell-front baritone here...(Olds...??)
$250
(There's shipping though...The case features a huge hole, so I'd recommend that the case not be part of it, and just shipping it in layers of bubble wrap.
btw...
I don't expect you to be interested in this, and "no response" is perfectly fine.

There is a teacher in the UK that had a elementary age student, I believe her name was Lily, play standing up with the tuba on a stand. I could see getting a smaller horn with a tuba tamer (if you can find one) being sufficient. Perhaps doing one of the "cool wind" model tubas for the weight?




Side note--Sumner Erickson used a tuba tamer and stood up on multiple occasions when he was the principal tubist with the Pittsburgh Symphony.

A Yamaha YBB-103 Bb tuba is a great starter horn for beginners. If you feel like experimenting, the ZO radiator-looking travel tubas are the least unpleasant of the travel tubas I've played.

This begs the question:

Is you is, or is you ain't my tuba?

Is it more common in some areas (or countries) to start smaller players on EEb tuba, then move to BBb when or if the larger tuba is appropriate?

I like that as an option, as you can more often find decent EEb tubas for bargain prices.

In the US, before the war in Vietnam, public schools frequently started little ones on Eb tuba. This was fairly common in the 1940s and 1950s. It started to fade out in the early 1960s and was uncommon by the 1970s. I was told this by my band directors, who worked in the field back then. (This was in Texas, but it seems to have been more or less nationwide practice way back then. But I do not know for sure…)

the elephant wrote: Thu Aug 14, 2025 12:58 pm In the US, before the war in Vietnam, public schools frequently started little ones on Eb tuba. This was fairly common in the 1940s and 1950s. It started to fade out in the early 1960s and was uncommon by the 1970s. I was told this by my band directors, who worked in the field back then. (This was in Texas, but it seems to have been more or less nationwide practice way back then. But I do not know for sure…)

On the old site, a couple older members mentioned they had been started on Eb here in the states post WWII. Growing up with the Hal Leonard Band Methods and looking at older methods, it always gave the fingerings for 3 valve Eb tubas. I always assumed this was the case when I was younger. As I got older and realized the British referred to them as basses, and these said “basses”, such as the Tyrell book, made me reconsider that these methods were used for British Bands. Something that further baffles me now is that why were they not taught in treble clef. I guess some digging is in order on those methods.

They referred to our tubas as basses, and trumpets as cornets (regardless of whether you had a trumpet or cornet).

That is also a brass band term. (There are no trumpets in a brass band; the collective term for brass instruments in the UK is "trunpet" in the same way we use "horn" generically.)

Things were different back in the day, but our brass band "parallels" were still visible back then.

russiantuba wrote: Thu Aug 14, 2025 12:29 pm There is a teacher in the UK that had a elementary age student, I believe her name was Lily, play standing up with the tuba on a stand. I could see getting a smaller horn with a tuba tamer (if you can find one) being sufficient. Perhaps doing one of the "cool wind" model tubas for the weight?




Side note--Sumner Erickson used a tuba tamer and stood up on multiple occasions when he was the principal tubist with the Pittsburgh Symphony.

I met Sumner, and ended up buying his B&S! My HS teacher was a student of his, and we had one of the stands, it was interesting.

.

the elephant wrote: Thu Aug 14, 2025 12:58 pm In the US, before the war in Vietnam, public schools frequently started little ones on Eb tuba. This was fairly common in the 1940s and 1950s. It started to fade out in the early 1960s and was uncommon by the 1970s. I was told this by my band directors, who worked in the field back then. (This was in Texas, but it seems to have been more or less nationwide practice way back then. But I do not know for sure…)

I played an Eb for a while in jr high while the Olds I was assigned was getting relacquered and repaired. Then the 184 showed up!

That will force me to really learn Eb fingerings. He ain't getting the F first, well unless I can upgrade and give him the Cerveny..?

I have a baby tuba, a Wessex - only about 2 feet long. But, its small sized is made up by the addition of many tubes so it is heavy, heavy, heavy...

Everything Wade said is correct.
My high school was built around 1958 or so, and thus there were no E flat instruments... just late enough for Wade's correctly reported trend to have disappeared.
At first, there was a mixture of Conn, King and Holton brass sousaphones, along with a single King 1240 tuba to which my jazz trombonist band director referred as a "bass horn".
I'm not sure that we said the word "tuba" very much at all at our high school. My matriculation there was between 1968 and 1974.
At least by 1970, there were a couple of used Holton fiberglass sousaphones (even then, I noticed that the open D naturals were very flat) and a couple of brand-new Conn 36K fiberglass sousaphones. By the time we had perhaps four 36k sousaphones, the school decided to only hold on to the King brass sousaphone and all the rest were sent back to the board of education warehouse.
I've said this many times, but the valves and casings were so worn (or school system repair shop ruined) on that King 1240 tuba that none of us were particularly fond of playing that instrument, though in the 12th grade I decided to play it anyway (using the King sousaphone's pistons, but the casings were still worn).
I believe when I was in the 11th grade, we got one of those so-called Miraphone "Standard" three valve top action model 1270 tubas in those cool curved wood Australian made cases (which I judged to offer a grunty type of sound, and I still judge those instruments that way to this day), and when I was in the 12th grade we got a Reynolds TB-10 (same as Olds O-99) which came form packed in two giant pieces of Styrofoam. I recall another high school actually taking those two pieces of Styrofoam, framing them up in aluminum, and making a case out of them. I wasn't really interested in playing the Reynolds, though my buddy - whose parents had bought him a beautifully and carefully re-lacquered four-valve King 1241 - liked playing the Reynolds at school and leaving his tuba at home. Actually, he liked playing the Reynolds even when his King was at school.
... Back to Wade's subtopic, yeah - we got called all of those things bass horns. Not only did we virtually never say the word "tuba", but we almost never said the word "sousaphone"... This, though we managed to hold on to the first chair in the All-State band for about 7 years in a row (using those fiberglass sousaphones and no-name mouthpieces). None of us had any lessons ever, and none of us knew anything about tubas - other than - apparently...?? - how to play them.

In my school we had sousaphones and basses, never used the word tuba. Also, euphoniums were called baritones.

Mark wrote: Sat Aug 16, 2025 12:48 pm In my school we had sousaphones and basses, never used the word tuba. Also, euphoniums were called baritones.

Our school actually only owned American Bell front "baritones". As we all know, those are sort of "almost euphoniums".

One year, we had a couple of All-State baritone players.
Neither one of them had any private instruction either..
No one's parents in our school district had a nickel, but after one of them made All-state, I think their parents bought them some funky little non-compensating three valve English style baritone that was either sold by Getzen or DEG. It was the first time I'd ever seen anything like that, I obviously didn't know anything about anything, and just shrugged my shoulders.

Here's a funny name:
We had one of those Paris, France Leblanc all metal BB flat contrabass clarinets with the original (very desirable these days) mouthpiece. Today, those sell for a fortune. We didn't know the proper nomenclature of it, and everyone called it the "screwball".

Update:

I borrowed an "undesirable" Olds Ambassador bell front baritone with stuck valves from my school for my son. I borrowed it because its valves were in better shape than most of the other old ones around. The slides were all stuck, so Kroil and Wd-40 fixed that, with a little bit of elbow grease.

I tried playing it and something seemed plugged in it last night, so off to the garage and the air compressor through the leadpipe. Out shot one of those plastic/vinyl mouthpiece covers/cases. The valves weren't correct, but once aligned, all was well.

Lots of hot cross buns being served!

The munchkin had eyes on my 186CC....

Excellent... My daughter started on a 3 valve bell front York Euphonium in 5th grade.. Now two years later she had commandeered my Chinese compensating Euphonium for her honor band and calls it her Euphonium.

She plays tuba in the school band now... She is 5'1” and manages a new style King 2341 (school) and a Yamaha 103 (home).

A friend of mine got a decent shape Yamaha 201 euph at a thrift shop for $50. Couldn't move air though at all, clearly valves in wrong. It took five minutes to get the valves in the right places and now he has a euphonium for $50. One does feel sorry for the person who couldn't figure out why it wouldn't blow and gave up and gave it to a thrift shop.