Posted by fred young on November 07, 2003 at 14:02:36:
In Reply to: 3 valve comp? posted by Matt G. on November 04, 2003 at 21:29:00:
If you have your slides properly adjusted three valve compensating tubas and euphs are the best in tune of all valve instruments with an RMS error of about 2 cents plus or minus. Four valve compensating instruments run at about 8 cents! If you play a compensating BBb tuba you can play just about all the notes any conductor wants in tune! If you get notes below low E and take them up an octave I doubt that you shall ever get a conductor who complains. The odd fact is that conductors are libel to complain if they hear notes like 5 line below the staff D and accuse you of playing pedal notes.
However, if you play in a British brass band, many of the parts require such low notes!