Posted by Frederick J. Young on March 17, 2001 at 10:40:13:
In Reply to: F Tuba posted by Band Director on March 16, 2001 at 22:31:49:
I played the F Tuba in a band with Phil Catelinet for several years. We both had Boosey & Hawkes compensating 4 valve F tubas. In general the F tuba is very agile and it may be more agile than the euphonium depending upon the characteristics of the player. One can produce notes of the F tuba down to the C one octave below the pianoforte keyboard. The fingering down to low F# below the piano is conventional. To get the double pedal F one uses the first valve and all lower notes are fingered one tone lower than they sound. However, the F tuba losses almost all of its fundamental below the last F# on the piano and that F# tends to be just as sharp as it would be on an uncompensated CC tuba.
The F tuba (not counting the compensating valve part) is the same length as the F side of the French horn. F tubists who can read horn music can play everything written for the horn including the high C's which are Fs at the top of the treble clef staff. Doing such is good practise for building a good lip.
Technically speaking, a compensating F tuba is a double tuba in F and CC. That makes it 5 semitones lower than the standard French horn which is in Bb and F. Although double horns can be made as compensating horns to make then lighter the pro hornists don't use them because of their stuffiness. It is also a good idea to use full double tubas rather than compensating tubas. The full double tuba can be obtained from the Herbert Gronitz Co. in Hamburg, Germany.
I think the use of F tubas in the schools would be a good way to get agility in the lower brass.
When I was a school boy this was accomplished by the use of the Eb tuba with BBb tubas being the exception.