Posted by Dale (again) on January 02, 2000 at 22:27:04:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Tuba Major Horn Reccomendations posted by carrie on January 02, 2000 at 21:47:39:
I am agreeing with Carrie here with regards to price-wise-ness. I am NOT sure I wanna address Tom's remarks, BUT I DO know a LOT of people went quite far in college
and the early part of their orchestra careers using (gasp) Mirafone tubas!
My teacher won his job on a 184 20 years ago, and it was pretty much his main horn until he got the money flowing. NOW he's a monster as far as equipment goes, but most of his young students when they get a new horn get Mirafones. The only new tuba I ever bought
was a Mirafone. Most every pro on this bulletin board has either had good personal experience with Mirafones, or has a student or teacher who did. That says something, I think. You can get a 186 with a case for under 5 grand, these are great consistent
predictable horns with a wide range of flexibility. The value to a Mirafone's
style of flexibility is this : unlike Grand Orchestra tubas ... or their variants
(i.e. most of the current crop of large piston tubas) the Mirafone does not require
some truly instrument-specific approach to playing. The big horns, each has a lot of foibles, and these are dealt with by the pros who buy them. But the pros also can afford
multiple horns, so their big horn works when they play with the orchestra, and they hazve something else they use with their quintet, and sometimes something else again when they are soloing or doin a gig with a band. Most aspiring tuba majors cannot afford multiple horns, and if they can afford them ... well perhaps they should be spending some money on lessons so that their teacher can give them advice based on how they play. Make sense? Seems more sensible than looking for advice from strangers who've never heard your sound, you know? Again, I'll say...as a stranger who has never heard you play, for under 6K get yourself a 5-valve Mirafone 186!