Posted by Rick Denney on August 11, 2000 at 12:20:08:
In Reply to: Lost art form or evolution? posted by Dan on August 11, 2000 at 11:43:10:
Good topic.
I think you have to distinguish between professionals and amateurs. For a prospective professional, in school, looking to build a career, then I can't imagine anything more important than mastering every single fundamental before specializing. After all, do not break the rules before learning them.
Whether mastering every fundamental requires using just one horn first and then branching to other instruments or not I'll leave to those whose know better than I.
But for amateurs, we may never be able to put in the time, or overcome the limitation of talent, to master every fundamental. If a specialty horn opens the door to a branch of music-making that would be closed to us otherwise, then where's the harm? I played in quintets, for example, before I got my Yamaha F tuba. The Musica F tuba I previously played was too specialized for quintet--it did not have the low register demanded by the literature (only four valves was part, but not all, of the problem). So I used my big BBb horn. But that closed the door to literature with a wider tessitura than I could achieve on that horn. Some pieces went too low for my little Musica, and too high *for me* on a BBb.
It's easy to say I should have been better. But I wasn't, and getting better requires years, not weeks. I could also have walked away from the opportunity to play in a quintet, but that would not have done me any good either!
When I bought the 621 F, suddenly I could play just about anything the rest of my quintet could play. I've never for a day regretting burning a hole clear through my credit card to buy that instrument.
Buzzing is buzzing, and I suppose if you can buzz a high E or F on an F tuba, you can buzz it on a BBb or a CC. For some reason, though, all those intervals and high notes pop out with ease on the small F and don't on the big BBb. A crutch? Probably. In my case, it's not a lost art form, because you can't lose what you never had.
Rick "I need all the help I can get" Denney