Posted by Rick Denney on December 18, 2001 at 11:45:38:
In Reply to: CC or BB? that is the qq posted by Brandon Ostrom on December 17, 2001 at 22:18:50:
I will attempt to answer your question simply, and save the editorial for my sig.
A BBb tuba has 25 inches more tubing than a CC tuba. That extra 10 or 11% means that there is perhaps slightly more work involved in making it speak, though differences from one tuba to the next are bigger than the differences from BBb to CC.
They don't sound different, when all else is approximately equal. A BBb Miraphone 186 sounds the same as a CC Miraphone 186, to my ears, at least.
CC tubas are more expensive than their BBb counterparts. A Meinl-Weston Model 32 CC is more expensive than a Model 25 BBb. A Miraphone 186 CC is more expensive than a Miraphone 186 BBb. This difference applies to used instruments as well, and perhaps to an even greater extent. On the other hand, BBb tubas at the lower price points sell to a larger audience and therefore sell more quickly than CC tubas.
The most expensive hand-made instruments intended for top professional use are made in CC, because that's the pitch used by most pros in the U.S. Therefore, there are more expensive CC tubas on the market than BBb tubas, and more inexpensive BBb tubas than CC tubas. But a CC tuba can be no better than a cheap BBb, and a BBb can be just as wonderful as a great CC, if someone wants to build it that way.
BBb tubas weigh more than similar CC tubas, but not by much. A Miraphone 186 BBb is a little heavier (and has a taller top bow) than a Miraphone 186 CC. On the other hand, most professional CC tubas have five valves, while few BBb's do, which makes the C's heavier. The fifth valve is important for making the commonly seen low F on a CC tuba, but the BBb doesn't need the fifth valve to make that note. Therefore, the BBb doesn't need the fifth valve for playing the sort of literature that most folks like me encounter.
BBb and CC tubas of similar quality function similarly. Nobody in the audience, and probably nobody on the podium, will be able to tell the difference. If the conductor tells you to play a C tuba, and you play a BBb tuba, just tell him it's a C and he'll probably never know better. Even my band director asked me, when I first joined the group, if my York Master was a C or a BBb, and he is a professional tuba player. He could not tell by the horn's appearance or by my playing, and he had not watched the fingerings when I played.
As to Klaus's comments about dedication, I will only say that being a dedicated person and being dedicated to learning new fingerings for a different tuba are not the same thing. We amateurs have to pick and choose the challenges we tackle in order to meet varied responsibilities. A professional has different constraints and objectives, and some amateurs have been compelled to play CC for reasons that rise to a priority higher than the other priorities in their lives.
Rick "a hobbyist who might switch to CC someday but who has yet to face a compelling reason" Denney