Posted by Henry on February 10, 2001 at 15:16:03:
In Reply to: How to switch from Eb to CC/F? posted by Steve Inman on February 10, 2001 at 11:09:04:
Steve,
I played a king BBb for five years (four in High School and one during a break before college) and than switched to an old beat up Miraphone CC about two months before I had to audition for college. I will say that I was not back than nor am I now a great tuba player, but I made the switch rather easily. If you simply force yourself to practice music that you already know, it will be easier, IMHO. Also, my personal thoughts on keys of horns is that if you can play the music and get the job done it shouldn't matter what horn you play. For example, for the first three years of college, I played only a CC tuba. I played in quintets, in the concert band and performed solos with it. I think the Miraphone 186 is a good all around horn and could work in a quintet situation and would work in most small to medium bands. Therefore I would suggest you sell one Eb and buy the CC first, this way you have your all purpose horn that you can fall back on and than buy the F. This way you can still play in the quintets and you can also play in the bands. By the way, one of the few F tubas that I liked was the Yamaha 621. I picked one up and it played very easily. Also don't sell short the idea of a good BBb instead of a CC, people are becoming tolerant of the idea of BBb tubas again.
Good luck with your decision and I hope my rambling helps.
Henry Gertcher