Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Anyone knows this tuba?


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Posted by Is the Amati..... on January 29, 2004 at 05:24:32:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Anyone knows this tuba? posted by Hermann Vogt on January 29, 2004 at 03:05:17:

..which you mention the BBb tuba?

Amati, but not only Amati, traditionally have put put very small mouthpieces on their new instruments.

The scheme behind that is, that if a beginner or a person with no brass experience at all enters a store to buy an instrument, then that person immediately can screach some high notes, which makes him/her feel like a great player. That always is a good sales argument.

A store in Copenhagen had the practise, that buyers of new instruments could pick a mouthpiece of their choice for free, if they left the original one in the store. That was bad business, but was good for the reputation of the store.

A certain German store also does so, and then it sends the left back mouthpieces to one of the very poor Eastern European countries, where they are very much welcomed, because they after all are larger than the old ones they used to have.

Red Russia had lots of cheap editions of good music, but the musicians were not allowed to import western mouthpieces. So one of my teachers told, that when his orchestra toured there, the Russian musicians would give them piles of good music in exchange for the spare mouthpieces of the Danish brass players.

(An anecdote on the side: During the GDR era the top orchestras were given high class western made strings. But only of one certain make. In one certain Berlin orchestra, the celloplayers didn't like those strings. Yet they took these strings, had them smuggled to Copenhagen, where they represented good value in a store, which gave them the desired strings in exchange, whereafter these new strings were smuggled back to East Berlin.)

Even an reputed mouthpiece maker like Vincent Bach writes in his texts, that his models offered in the music stores have scaled down backbores, because they mostly are bought for school, amateur, and marching use. One can get the models with the symphonic backbores from the factory. OK, VB died several decades ago, so I don't know, if the situatin still is so.

One of the regular posters here has told, that he has had Schilke providing one certain tuba mouthpiece model with an enlarged backbore for his store. He can elaborate on that himself.

I also open up the backbore of most of my mouthpieces. Generally I am reluctant to open up the throat, because that ruins the geometry of the smooth curve at the entrance into to the throat. The topic is big, and you may find more on the topic in the archives.

Klaus


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