Posted by Scott Norberg on November 09, 2003 at 12:59:36:
If you're a free-lancer and only have a limited amount of money to spend, for the sake of discussion let's limit it to $6500, what instruments do you buy? I've recently decided to sell my CC to make an F my main instrument since I'm going to be doing mostly solo and quintet work for the next couple of years, and I feel better about doing that on an F than a CC. I figure it's a lot easier to pick up a BBb for $2000 that plays well if I need it than it is to try to expect to find a contrabass as my main instrument and pick up a reasonably priced bass tuba for the same price (unless I want a YEB-321 I suppose). Then the post below about $30K and below orchestras got me thinking that more people would benefit from this approach, yet it seems that most people seem to think that it's more important to get a contrabass that plays to their liking than a bass tuba. So I'm curious to find out what everyone would do if they were on a limited budget; get a good contrabass and a mediocre bass tuba, vice versa, or spend all that money to get one fantastic tuba that can hopefully do it all?
Scott