Posted by Frederick J. Young on December 03, 2001 at 19:48:13:
In Reply to: Re: False tones... posted by Rick Denney on November 30, 2001 at 12:04:31:
There is no so-called false tone Bb on my Boosey & Hawkes F tuba which is a twin to the one Phil Catelinet used to premier the R V Williams Concerto. Its pedal F was real. On the other hand my Besson Eb tuba is tapered differently and has a fair open Ab three lines below the bass clef staff.
I have computer programs that calculate the open tones of brass instruments from their bore at each station along the horn. I unfortunately have no reliable measurements for tubas but do for trumpets, fleugel horns and alphorns. For Bb trumpets the fundamental is much lower than the Bb at 233.08 hertz and is 38 cents flat of the F below the aforementioned Bb. Good fleugels have a well in tune fundamental. The fundamental of the alphorn in F is sharp at around Ab instead of F! Swen Bring gave me his dimensions of the Melton F tuba. I believe he has had great difficulty producing many of the notes that should be easy on an F tuba. My calculation indicate a fundamental at 16 cents lower than the A at 55 Hertz. Mr. Bring says he cannot get the F four lines below the staff that one might think the fundamental should be. My guess is that after the valves the instrument tapers too quickly. However, my calculations are only as good as the measurements of the bore. For the trumpet, fleugel and aplhorn the manufactures went to great trouble and expense to get the measurements.