Tuba puzzle

Not my tuba at all but this is just a convenient place to put a photo for a puzzle I am posing on Tubenet.

Symphony Orchestra

Well the practice has paid off somewhat. This week I got to sit in on a local Community Symphony Orchestra rehearsal. They were a pretty good orchestra!! We practiced Smetana's "Moldau" (or "Vltava" in Czech - from "Ma Vlast") and Tchaikovsky's "Capriccio Italien" for their upcoming concert. Great tuba parts in those two pieces and, although I say it myself, I thought I played pretty well and the new tuba sounded awesome - just filling the hall with beautiful sound when needed, and blending well with the rest of the brass in the quieter sections. This was my first time playing in a symphony orchestra for 30 years - I miss it. My old B&H EEb wouldn't have been anywhere near so good with this crowd - I just couldn't get anywhere near the same tone from it. Hopefully I might get to play with them again although they do have a university student who has helped them out on an "on call" basis so rightly they feel they need to ask if she is willing to be a regular member of the orchestra first. I shall just have to wait and see.

First concert - glad I have been practicing

Well today was the first concert playing the new Tuba in the Concert Band - I thought it went pretty well although I messed up the exposed high bit near the beginning of Fall Fair even though I had practiced it like mad - still more work to do to get that stuff cast iron.

I have been taking some lessons so as to do the new beast justice and they have certainly paid off. From only ever having had a couple of lessons about 30+ years ago so essentially being self taught I had a bunch of bad habits to unlearn and some new tricks and techniques to learn for the first time. Plus it has given me an incentive to

PRACTICE!!!

What a novel concept!!

I am now enjoying trying to fit in daily practice and get to know my instrument better and develop some techniques that I had basically ignored before because I could get away without using them. Things like ascending slurs (always soft toungued them in the past). They aren't as hard as I had thought.

Going to keep up this practice and lessons - makes it much more satisfying in the long run. But now I have to share the parctice time with my 12 year old son who is just starting to learn the trumpet. He's pretty keen - so much so that allowing him to practice is currently working as a reward for finishing his homework!!

Maintenance

Need to figure out how to properly maintain this thing. It didn't come with a manual!! Obviously they quite reasonably expect that anyone buying one of these things is reasonably knowledgeable already.

I found Jeff Funderburk's videos which seem pretty helpful. I wonder if there are other schools of thought though so I posted a query on Tubenet - we'll see what response that generates.

2nd valve trigger

Took a couple of photos of the second valve trigger to show its operation - click on the image for a scary, more than full sized, view of my hand!!

Normal position



Fully extended

Getting Lessons

Had a chance to blow on it a bit now. Man can this thing make sound. After 30+ years of being self taught I've decided that now is the time to take some lessons if I am to do this instrument anything close to justice so I found a local professional player and have set up an initial schedule with him. Need a couple of scales (2 octaves) and "something lyrical" for the first lesson (so I wrote out "The Ash Grove" in F - covers an octave and a third, has some sluring - should do as a start). I guess that will expose all the area I need to work on - I think I know some of them but some experienced insight will be invaluable.

Got to get out of the habit of those Eb fingerings, especially above Bb!!

Unfortunately I probably won't be able to have my first lesson until after Labour Day because of all the other stuff I have going on this month. Still - it gives me time to practice a bit.

I'll try and get some photos of the detailed bits - figuring out what to pull when is interesting - I think the 4th valve tuning slide might get some action with this fella.

Some details

Finally found some time to take some pics:

Back side


Front side:

On its side:


2nd valve trigger slide:



What was inside:

RM 0 and RM 0. (larger backbore than the RM 0) mouthpieces side by side:

Dwarfs the old B&H EEb - but I won't be completely putting that aside:

It's arrived

No mailman on his bike for this delivery:


Need to use the hydraulic lift:


Safely strapped in:

Onto the dolly:

and into the front hall (plus figuring out how to turn the camera back to "colour" mode):


Takes almost the WHOLE front hall:


Trying to figure out how to get those pesky metal straps off:


Open at last:


Wotta lotta packaging - at least it kept it safe:


Still more layers to unwrap:

Case safely opened:


The first blow:

Tidying up all the packaging:


All the cardboard nicely cut up for the recycling man to take away:


Detailed closeups of the instrument to come later...

Delivered doesn't mean "Delivered"

Apparently it means delivered to Manitoulin transport who then still have to deliver it to me!!

Website says delivered - but it's not :(

So where is it????

Not here yet

It's gone 5pm so I guess it's not coming till tomorrow - grrrr

Waiting

I'm getting a brand new Rudolf-Meinl BBb "Bayreuth" 5/4 size tuba as a birthday present from my most generous mother - overkill for someone of my talents I know but what the heck. At least I won't be able to blame the instrument when the wrong sound comes out!

It's finally cleared customs and they tell me it should get delivered today or tomorrow morning. After having first visited the Meinl factory in May the wait is nearly over.

Getting excited now.