Posted by Steve Dedman on February 23, 2000 at 23:26:44:
In Reply to: CC or BBb??? posted by Sterling on February 23, 2000 at 20:48:21:
Joe's reasoning seems solid enough to me, (amateur that I am) provided that the player is of good enough quality for that response time to make the difference. (As opposed to someone like me that sometimes consider "good response" to be just getting the durn thing to speak) ;^)
Seriously - I think that there is enough of a difference in sound from BBb to CC to make a difference in an orchestra. The tuba gets the "string bass" role in the band, whereas in the orchestra it's more about blending with the other brasses on parts written with the tuba sonority specifically in mind. (As opposed to band music, where the composer often gives the tubas string bass-like parts by default) How many times have we heard a band director say something like this:
"Basses (not tubas, mind you - basses) I need that part to sound nice and fat. Just like a string bass."
That's the sound that most band directors want. In a band, you function as a string bass, you always play the string bass cues, and in transcriptions, you are playing the string bass part.
In an orchestra, you want the tuba to sound like a tuba. In my opinion, a CC more readily blends with the other brasses. In an orchestra, that's almost always the desired effect. Of course there are those pesky sections where we double - you guessed it - the string basses, but you don't sit in with them in the audition like you do the other brasses.
I can't give you a reason why the CC sound blends better, it's just what my ears tell me. Maybe it's a function of Joe's explanation of the horn being shorter.
No offense to string bassists out there. It's just not what I play.