Re: AMERICAN & GERMAN


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Posted by K on February 15, 2004 at 19:01:19:

In Reply to: AMERICAN & GERMAN posted by LDC on February 15, 2004 at 12:47:21:

There are immense numbers of cross-overs between German and US tuba sounds, but the extremes should be describable in terms of physics.

The German instruments are strong in fundamentals and they have a rather narrow band of formants (high overtones), which gives then a quite clear definition of sound, none the least when it come to attacks.

The larger and better tubas rooted in the US tradition have a much more complete resonance of all of the overtones. Some call that sound mellow, dull, and lacking in definition. I call it full.

Some find that players of US instruments sound like they play late, because they have no explosive definition of the attack. That point of view of course is wrong, but it still has had some even high level pros avoiding the full benefits of their wonderful hugaphones representing the US tradition. They play these fine instruments with far too small mouthpieces.

Playing one of the wonderful first generation Hirsburners with a hand hammered bottom bow trough a Conn Helleberg is nothing short of a crime. If players of such instruments want to blend with the trombones in the German-Viennese Brahms tradition, then they should play an appropriate German-type instrument with rotary valves and bells out of thin brass.

There have been made some measurements on partial contents of the two main tuba types. I will start finding such measurements relevant, when they are measuring first rate players out of the two respective schools. I have a strong suspicion, that the German type instruments have their strengths in resonating some octaves and fifths, whereas the US type instruments will display a much stronger representation of the thirds, sevenths, ninths, and other uneven partials.

Klaus


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