Re: Re: Re: Re: good BBb?


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Posted by Joseph Felton on March 23, 1999 at 12:09:19:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: good BBb? posted by Dale Phelps on March 23, 1999 at 10:39:54:

I've taken one lesson from Fred. He teaches out of his basement in Cincinati, OH. Interesting man to meet for historical reasons if nothing else. He studied with Bill Bell and knew Hellebery. His basement is like a museum. He loves his horn designs and is always anxious to buy another. He has several original Hellebergs laying around. He's still a little disgruntled about whatever fallout happened when they stopped production of his horns. The best explanation I've heard to date is that his horns were very dark at a point in time when a brighter tuba sound was becoming more popular. My personal suspicion based on my *very* limited knowledge is that there is more to the story than that and that the real story will be lost in time. On a more positive note Fred is still a very good player and a treat to meet. His pedagogical ideas are not the standard Jacobian ideas that we are used to thinking in terms of. Much more interested in the mechanics of embouchure. I suspect based on some of the stories he
related (he tells lots of stories) that much of his ideas are from Bill Bell himself. But as he is prone to saying, "the proof is in the pudding." All in all a truly neat guy and someone that I think would be interesting to read about in the TUBA journal. If someone more knowledgable doesn't beat me to it that is. ;b


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