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Re: Are you using your F tuba to play anything other than gypsy violin solos these days?
Posted: Fri May 02, 2025 8:19 am
by MikeMason
The Corsair is on the program this week, first time bringing out the f since Verdi requiem last year. So maybe once a year plus quintet church gigs 5-8 per year. Playing and enjoying more sousaphone these days.
Re: Are you using your F tuba to play anything other than gypsy violin solos these days?
Posted: Fri May 02, 2025 9:10 am
by MiBrassFS

- Clipboard May 2, 2025 at 11.09 AM.jpeg (53.51 KiB) Viewed 270 times
Re: Are you using your F tuba to play anything other than gypsy violin solos these days?
Posted: Fri May 02, 2025 9:22 am
by bloke
Yes but isn't that about three times as many people as will have attended?
Re: Are you using your F tuba to play anything other than gypsy violin solos these days?
Posted: Fri May 02, 2025 10:14 am
by MiBrassFS
bloke wrote: Fri May 02, 2025 9:22 am
Yes but isn't that about three times as many people as will have attended?
He has a big family…
Re: Are you using your F tuba to play anything other than gypsy violin solos these days?
Posted: Sat May 03, 2025 7:21 am
by Pauvog1
Most of my playing is CC, but I greatly prefer (my) F for most quintet/ chamber work. Honestly, I probably like my F more than my CC, but both are very nice instruments.
Re: Are you using your F tuba to play anything other than gypsy violin solos these days?
Posted: Wed May 07, 2025 9:48 am
by jtm
I’m completely amateur/hobbyist, but all of my public playing the past 6 months has been on F. It’s great for brass band, and mine is so easy to play that it must be almost as nice as bloke’s.
I was playing a contrabass in a normal wind ensemble, but lately I’m playing trombone with that group, just for the fun of doing something different (and the last concert was all star wars, so that was fun for trombone).
Re: Are you using your F tuba to play anything other than gypsy violin solos these days?
Posted: Wed May 07, 2025 9:53 am
by arpthark
jtm wrote: Wed May 07, 2025 9:48 am
I’m completely amateur/hobbyist, but all of my public playing the past 6 months has been on F. It’s great for brass band, and mine is so easy to play that it must be almost as nice as bloke’s.
I was playing a contrabass in a normal wind ensemble, but lately I’m playing trombone with that group, just for the fun of doing something different (and the last concert was all star wars, so that was fun for trombone).
On a certain Bach 42?
Re: Are you using your F tuba to play anything other than gypsy violin solos these days?
Posted: Wed May 07, 2025 11:49 am
by Mark
The term, Gypsy, is considered poliically incorrect now. Use Roma instead.
Re: Are you using your F tuba to play anything other than gypsy violin solos these days?
Posted: Wed May 07, 2025 11:51 am
by Mark
Yes, coming up:
Wagner - Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde
Lalo - Overture to Le roi d'Ys
Re: Are you using your F tuba to play anything other than gypsy violin solos these days?
Posted: Wed May 07, 2025 12:27 pm
by jtm
arpthark wrote: Wed May 07, 2025 9:53 am
jtm wrote: Wed May 07, 2025 9:48 am
I was playing a contrabass in a normal wind ensemble, but lately I’m playing trombone with that group, just for the fun of doing something different (and the last concert was all star wars, so that was fun for trombone).
On a certain Bach 42?
Yes, indeed! Thank you. It’s a great trombone, and it gives me the confidence to know that if something sounds bad it’s certainly me and not the horn.
Re: Are you using your F tuba to play anything other than gypsy violin solos these days?
Posted: Wed May 07, 2025 12:56 pm
by Mary Ann
just for the record, if I were going to play gypsy violin solos, it would be on a violin.
Re: Are you using your F tuba to play anything other than gypsy violin solos these days?
Posted: Wed May 07, 2025 2:34 pm
by bloke
Mary Ann wrote: Wed May 07, 2025 12:56 pm
just for the record, if I were going to play gypsy violin solos, it would be on a violin.
yeah...If some 350 lb. dude in a too-short T-shirt walked up to my restaurant table and commenced to playing Csárdás on his sousaphone, I'm pretty sure I'd leave...without paying.
Re: Are you using your F tuba to play anything other than gypsy violin solos these days?
Posted: Thu May 08, 2025 12:50 pm
by donn
bloke wrote: Wed May 07, 2025 2:34 pm
Mary Ann wrote: Wed May 07, 2025 12:56 pm
just for the record, if I were going to play gypsy violin solos, it would be on a violin.
yeah...If some 350 lb. dude in a too-short T-shirt walked up to my restaurant table and commenced to playing Csárdás on his sousaphone, I'm pretty sure I'd leave...without paying.
Sure. I don't know what brought up the physique and apparel aspects, but as the sousaphone is not likely in F ...
Re: Are you using your F tuba to play anything other than gypsy violin solos these days?
Posted: Thu May 08, 2025 1:13 pm
by bloke
donn wrote: Thu May 08, 2025 12:50 pm
bloke wrote: Wed May 07, 2025 2:34 pm
Mary Ann wrote: Wed May 07, 2025 12:56 pm
just for the record, if I were going to play gypsy violin solos, it would be on a violin.
yeah...If some 350 lb. dude in a too-short T-shirt walked up to my restaurant table and commenced to playing Csárdás on his sousaphone, I'm pretty sure I'd leave...without paying.
Sure. I don't know what brought up the physique and apparel aspects, but as the sousaphone is not likely in F ...
Yeah. You point out some valid things, but how many threads on this site or any other site end up discussing the topic that was introduced at the beginning? At least, Mary Ann and I are still talking about the originally defined type of music (which I'm now not allowed to define) and playing it on a tuba...but mostly, you killed a joke which at least deserved a B or B-.
Re: Are you using your F tuba to play anything other than gypsy violin solos these days?
Posted: Fri May 09, 2025 12:22 am
by Tubeast
The occasional conductors asking me to help their tuba sections INVARIABLY call for the WILLSON to be blown into. They ALL want but ONE thing...
I feel honored I was allowed / invited to play F-Tuba songs at baptising service of a friend´s recently-born daughter. For reference: "Wiegenlied" by Franz Schubert was among the requested repertoire. The little lady didn´t flinch, so I probably didn´t mess up ALL that bad.
Now that I´m in the process of becoming an old fart, I find myself using my F tubas for personal recreation only.
Might as well produce some good Karma and rent them out to music students for insignificant change. But then again... Naaah...
As to that other sub-topic of this thread:
I consider myself to be a rather conservative liberal.
I believe in old concepts such as "Fröhlich sein, Gutes tun und die Spatzen pfeifen lassen" as well as "Was Du nicht willst, das man Dir tu´, das füg auch keinem andern zu".
I share people´s frustration over the ongoing cycle of euphemisms of today replacing the euphemisms of old. While VERY often these euphemisms are invented and their use insisted upon by folks lacking ANY personal connection, I certainly DO blame OTHER folks reducing the half-life of the current euphemisms by using them tounge-in-cheek or hyphenatedly not (or not PRIMARILY) in order to express disrespect for those named by that euphemism, but to pull the legs of those that keep coming up with new and increasingly ridiculous ones.
In my opinion, both groups of people, the over-sensitive and their "opponents", are feeding and driving that frustrating mechanism at opposing sides of a vicious circle, but in the same direction.
So here´s my strategy:
Ignore the latest euphemistic nonsense, which INCLUDES refraining from bugging those that use them.
And make sure the content of what I actually say about (insert euphemism) honestly reflects what I think about them.