Posted by K on February 27, 2004 at 16:08:25:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Raising the Pitch of a Horn posted by dp on February 27, 2004 at 13:32:24:
The Fletcher cut made use of a certain feature on the old Eb B&H Imperial and Besson New Standard basses during the period, when they were made in the high pitch (A=459) and the low pitch (A=440)versions.
The low pitch version had the longer piping added as cylindrical portions of the inner body bows.
The legend has it, that the test player on the B&H/Besson factory was a cornettist, who used a very small mouthpice when testing tubas. Around 1980 I saw a promotion movie from the factory, where two test players moved from instrument to instrument both covering all sizes of instruments.
Just took another look at the back bows of my own 981: there are no portions of cylindrical tubing there. They may have been removed from the design, when the radically expansion of the bell happened (15" to 19"). There is some formula describing the relation between tube length and bell diameter. An F tuba has a shorter main bugle than a single F horn.
Anyway the Fletcher cut hardly will apply to the 983, as that model was designed more or less from scratch after the far too early dead of John Fletcher.
Klaus