Which to me says something...It's a smaller cup diameter - 32mm - than his other mouthpieces. I think it was the smallest diameter Mike Finn produced when he was making it.


32 is too wide. What I'm comfortable on and have several makers' versions of is 30-31mm. It actually amazes me the ...

I like the MFinn H cups but they are just too much combo of width/volume for my size and air supply.



Just to be clear - I don't mean like a 3H or 4H or anything. I mean the Mike Finn "H." I don't see that he makes it anymore. But it is the best mouthpiece I played both on my PT6 and Gnagey ...

I know you're an experienced player, so this is more to say things out loud than give advice. I've had a similar but reciprocal issue going on for the last year. I don't play nearly as much as I used to, so I'm not "in practice" on everything the way I used to be. For a while I was just playing my ...

the textures they were able to bring out of the music.



Can you explain what this means?


Balancing the sections such that parts you don't normally hear are more present. And/or that you can hear more of what is going on at any given time. Just like hearing a great concert pianist bring ...

I would generally agree.

However, during the time I was in Pittsburgh, I heard from several members of the PSO how much they enjoyed working with certain conductors because of the textures they were able to bring out of the music.

With that many talented, practiced, skilled, and opinionated ...

Even doctors and lawyers have trouble paying off crazy large tuition loans of this size. This isn't Democrat or Republican, this is reasonableness. Were it that any president - who I would never vote for - pushed for this measure, I would be enthusiastically for it.



I want to highlight this ...

He dead

Ouija Board. Easy.

Everything else aside, this is easy. You get to perform Mahler 1. You've always done the solo on your F. Don't compromise. What will six-months-from-the-concert you think? Oh man, glad I didn't burden myself bringing two horns? Or oh man, I finally got to execute that ...

Late to the party here, but my guess would be that you could have the same or better intonation with a 2nd valve slide kicker on a BBb and make it fully chromatic even in the pedal register.

There would be some trade-offs. I do like being able to use the 5th valve to keep some passages in the same ...

I've said it before, but the standards we hold young brass players to vs young string players is stunning. I get that they are vastly different instruments and what is easy on one is hard on the other, etc... However, the standards for 10-year-old violin players, taking into account note accuracy ...

I live in a pretty small-footprint city, so it's easier for me than most to get places, but I find that going to a FedEx store or UPS store (or the post office even) gets me very good service, and they have a lot of information that you can sweet talk out of them that you won't get online or over ...

If Borodin didn't want it to be a solo, he could have written it for a tuba section. But he didn't. He wrote it for a solo tuba. 10/10 no notes.

I haven't played a BBb tuba in a long time. But I've played some big horns. I've played small horns. I've played medium horns.

A quick anecdote: I played a Rudy 5/4 for two years during college. I loved it. It took a couple weeks to get used to it (playing several hours every day - focused ...

That technique will follow music. I.e., if you can play the music, you have the technique.

Tuba playing is a physical skill like anything else. Just like throwing a football or swinging a baseball bat, you need to work on your fundamentals so that your performance when it matters has a solid ...

I tend to overdo things and not stop when I should. So I hear you there. I learned to play bass with my left had draped OVER the neck when I had a broken wrist and couldn't turn my arm over because of the cast. Played a jury my junior year with stitches on my right index knuckle where the finger and ...

Out of everything you've mentioned, the PT6 would make the most sense. It's a great horn. Probably the best orchestral horn you can buy. Mine was markedly easier to play than my Rudy 5/4, and if it produced less sound than a York-copy-inspired-6/4 I never noticed.

Having said that, I've since ...

During my time in college:

Me, over the 4 years - MW 2155 then Rudy 5/4 then PT6, with brief stints on a Scherzer (basically 186) and a Miraphone 184-5U; F tuba I played a PT10 that the school owned until my last semester when I bought a MW 182. Played a Conn 2J for a week when my 2155 was in the ...

The big one

We could all petition our towns to program the 1712 Overture by PDQ Bach instead. Same idea. More on-point themes.

This reminds me of two things...

1. 1812 - I played with my home town pickup community band one July 4, and I had my Rudy 5/4. I was 20. After the concert, my mother said, "I was going to compliment your restraint until the end of the 1812 overture." Listen, ok, the town contracted with the local ...

My wild guess is that it's a Reynolds "Dr Young" mouthpiece that someone unartfully altered on the outside.


That was my first thought, but I'm not a machinist. Do you think the three "stripes" on it are lathe marks? I've never seen a Dr. Young mouthpiece up close, so I don't have a sense of how ...