Posted by Joe S. on October 22, 1999 at 00:06:38:
In Reply to: sizes of tubas posted by mh on October 21, 1999 at 10:17:02:
The first time that I saw the term "6/4" used was in a very old T.U.B.A. Journal article when Hirsbrunner was first hawking their "York" model. Actually a misnomer (in my opinion), it has - for all practical purposes - (am I correct?) come to mean "fat-bodied instruments with piston valves, or maybe all of the piston valved fat-bodied ones PLUS the Mel Culbertson Model". The family of "6/4's" (in general, York copies) sometimes aren't as large as other tubas labeled "5/4", because most of the "6/4" instruments have a .750" bore in the valve section and many of the "5/4" (so called) instruments have bore sizes in the valve section (often utilizing rotary valves) of .835" or larger with roughly the same big fat body sizes as the designated "6/4" instruments.
The term "4/4" is pretty easy to deal with: That is just a normal-sized tuba. (right?)
And "3/4" size tubas are all of those little junior high tubas and any professional quality ones that are small like that, also.
No exact science here.