Posted by Rick Denney on January 20, 2003 at 17:10:32:
In Reply to: one note wonder posted by N.Dwyer on January 20, 2003 at 09:48:45:
For what it is worth, this note is just plain notorious on a lot of BBb tubas, for some reason. It is on the 8th partial when fingered 1-2 or 3, and the instrument might resonate a bit better if you play it on the seventh partial (which is usually quite flat), fingered 2, or on a higher partial with a valve combination that works.
But it is also possible that this frequency just doesn't resonate well on the tuba. I had a VMI-made Vespro that could not play the fifth partial D, and I had to play it 1-2 while pushing in the first valve and the main slides (using a tuning stick that I constructed). It was still stuffy but at least it was in tune. Everything else on the horn was lovely, but I eventually sold it. Fortunately, the G comes up a lot less often than that D.
Few horns are absolutely clinker-free. When Ray Grim comes to town on Wednesday, he will borrow my Miraphone BBb for the reading sessions at the Army conference, and he will complain that the G you mention just doesn't exist on that horn. As it happens, I can play it, and it sounds no worse than all the other notes. Sometimes the clinkers are hidden by general incompetence.
Make sure it isn't a hole in your buzzing. I have a hole in my buzzing range about an octave below that that I'm working on. If you can buzz the G on the mouthpiece alone with the same sound as the other notes, then it's the horn.
I read somewhere that Arnold Jacobs said most BBb players had trouble with that note because most BBb tubas didn't resonate it in tune, but that doesn't seem to be your issue.
Rick "hoping you'll figure out how to eliminate clinkers and then tell me" Denney