Re: Re: Glassl fibreglass BBb tuba


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Posted by Klaus on November 16, 2002 at 13:58:51:

In Reply to: Re: Glassl fibreglass BBb tuba posted by Question... on November 16, 2002 at 13:01:36:

If one has the chance to follow the folksy/village level band playing in Germany, and German TV gives me that chance even if I am very far from the South German band centers, one will see, that sousaphones (mostly Amatis) are known, but rather rare.

The primary German marching bass is a BBb rotary tuba. Outside the pro bands, mostly military ones, and the more ambitious of the amateur variety those BBb's always have 3 valves no matter how large the bells might be. I constantly feel these wonderful large corpuses wasted because of the limitations induced by the lack of a fourth valve.

I have not heard of the plastophones invading the school market. That might be because the German bands are more related to private associations than to schools. The German tradition of Schützenvereine (social riffle clubs, very much less militant than their US equivalents), voluntary fire-fighter squads, Trachtenvereine (clubs promoting traditional regional clothing), and carnival-clubs (often with names related to local royalty and nobility of the long gone days, when Germany was a patchwork of tiny states) all have lots of marching bands within their frameworks.

These band sometimes are fairly small. I once heard a band with 3 trumpets, a Kaiserbariton, a BBb tuba, and a side drum playing old Prussian marches intended for much larger bands. Sounded extremely good (I have a suspicion, that these players were symph pros in disguise) and that band anyway was at the lower extreme of band sizes.

Another large factor in German brass playing is associated with the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church. These Posaunenchöre (trombone choirs) contain all sizes and sorts of brasses. They might share players with the marching band, but the church band don't march that much.

The picture, that hopefully appears here above, is from a camp arranged by the Posaunenchor organisation of the midsouth German state of Hessen. The young guy in the center happens to have his hands on a 4 valve Glassl fibreglass BBb and a B&S/PT 5 valve F.

Klaus, reporting from the distance



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