Seriously, why?

[bloke]

Yes!
We in the US are experts on the most important orchestral music: playing ten-year-old movie.scores (along with the video portions of those movies with the movies' music tracks turned off) on our factory cut-to-C tubas, along with playing donuts behind 75-year-old rock musicians or cover bands thereof. Those German orchestras and their individual sections and musicians have no idea how to play central European music. They need to be schooled on that body of music by Americans. Just imagine if we had players over here who spent years working on that music.
Yeah... That tuba player... His playing has "issues'. The sound is just too clear, too centered, too locked in with the trombonists. Sonically, what he's doing needs to sound more "fluffy". He obviously needs a Chinese C tuba and some sort of Helleberg Iii style mouthpiece.

I've additionally noticed that the bass sections of orchestras seem to be working really hard over there, come to think of it. I wonder if they're even aware that the Chinese make some really affordable 1/2 size and even 1/4 size double basses. My understanding is that they're much easier to deal with, and they produce all the same notes...

C tubas vs. "years of work" B-flat tubas..."cheater" tubas for Americans, then?

[Doug]

The model certainly looks a lot like a Yamaha.

And that Yamaha model certainly looks a lot like a York. Were you trying to make a point?

No. I was just trolling for people who are easily triggered.
Did I find one?

Joe Sellmansberger, CEO of Mid-South Music, Incorporated
Sellmansberger Mouthpieces Artist

I was genuinely wondering if you were trying to make a point.

I think some of the hate on big B-flats is just an issue of familiarity. The US market is so oversaturated with good enough used big CC tubas and not so many great big B-flat tubas. I also really like my Miraphone 190 B-flat, and on the few occasions where it was the right tool for the job, it was awesome to use.

[bloke]

I just needed something different after nearly 50 years of the C tuba thing. It's been good. The older people get (like me) we really need to make sure we don't fall into really drudgery type routines. (That's the worst thing - I believe - about people who end up in nursing homes.) Forcing my brain to look at pitches like C-sharp etc etc and pressing down valves two and three or the second valve... It makes the brain find new connections.
... and like you hinted at: the resonance thing. two more feet of expanding bugle.

[tubanh84]

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 practice and ensemble work). But while it was my main horn, I never had an issue. I could play long phrases. Make a lot of sound. I never felt like it was a lot of work. Then I got my PT6, and for a few months I had both horns. After getting used to the PT6, I went back to the Rudy and immediately felt like it was an air hog. How did I ever play this thing? So clearly it took a lot of air, but when I was playing it all the time, my body adapted. I probably also learned how to play more efficiently without realizing that's what I was doing.

I also have a sneaking suspicion that bore size has a lot more to do with it than the length of the tube. Playing a 4th valve D below the staff on a CC tuba uses the same tube length as playing it with 1 and 2 on a BBb tuba. Same with 1st valve vs open Bb. It's not like CC players don't play those length of pipes. But my 184 feels less efficient to play than my Gnagey, and they differ in bore and taper, not length.

All that to say, if you can play a CC tuba well, it likely wouldn't take a ton of time to get use to BBb. Making the fingerings feel natural would probably take longer than learning to blow it.

[bloke]

Everyone knows I have a really large German B flat tuba with a Holton 345-shaped/sized bell and a 21.2mm bore (all large)

I think the thing that makes so accessible is the fact that the choke point in the mouthpipe is not gigantic.

When I had the RM 5/4 (C) after the first year year or so that I owned it, I made the half of the mouth pipe which wraps around the bell detachable and interchangeable with the original. That defined the instrument as much more accessible, because the factory mouthpipes on those things - made back in the 1970s and '80s - feature gigantic capillary bores.

I'm pretty sure that's what defines the heavy lifting with some of these tubas more than anything... and I'm not sure that a larger capillary bore in a mouthpipe offers many advantages.

All of that said, moving from the 32" tall 19" bell York-33-ish Holton (with a .687" King valve section) over to that great big tuba, obviously have to use more air, because I know that I'm having to be far more conscientious in my breathing discipline when playing it.

In contrast - when playing my F tuba, I catch myself getting pretty sloppy about air (with apologies to euphonium players, perhaps sort of euphonium-sloppy with air, as euphoniums require so little), because I'm thinking that the choke point of that F tuba's mouthpipe tube is not even quite a half an inch in diameter.

[bloke]

It happened like this:

A few years ago, I realized that - over-and-over/decade-after-decade - I had been seeing Americans posting (I need/I'm looking for a) "C tuba for college".

Then I began thinking about what most American tuba players in college discuss on the internet:
They discuss excerpts and orchestra auditions.
...so what's always listed on orchestra auditions? European music
...and what instruments do most Europeans use to play orchestral music? B-flat tubas
...but we know much better how to play their music than do they (even though this low brass orchestral quartet in Cologne wipes the floor with all but less than a handful of American orchestras' low brass quartets (and is certainly as good as the best of those here in the USA).

...and then I circled back to "I need a C tuba for college"...which is when I asked MYSELF the (name of this thread) "Seriously, why?" question...
...with no good answer, and the only answer (a nonsensical answer) being "because, America".
That's when I began laughing and suspecting that the European orchestral players (as European orchestras first played European orchestral music) might look askance at so many of us who believe that we know better than them (and why so many of them require auditioning with and using a B-flat tuba).
I've owned some damn good C tubas. (Ask the freak jury...) I've sold them all.

I'm old...It's been a pretty challenging transition (from factory cut-to-C tubas - after roughly 47 years - to working towards the mastery of playing an orchestra tuba). I'm old. We old people don't learn new things as fast. It's been worth it, and enlightening.

handy: B-flat orchestra tubas can play "low F's" without the need for a 5th valve.

[JC2]

Search your feelings and find the answer, you will.

[bloke]

I've searched my feelings and I've been to the mountaintop.

BB-flat

[Mary Ann]

There is someone on here who does not recognize sarcasm intended as humor.
Oh well?

[catgrowlB]

I like and appreciate both the big 6/4 York tubas, and the big 6/4 kaiser BBb tubas. They are both obviously "large ensemble" tubas, but with very different sounds.

I think I'll use flavors to describe sound qualities here. To me, something like the MW-197 kaiser is like a dark chocolate bar, and the YamaYork is like a big puff of cotton candy, soundwise.
Then you have outliers like the old MW-2165, VMI Neptune, etc which have their on thing going on. MW-2165 is like a big chocolate chip cookie and the Neptune is like a caramel frappe.

Back when I was in college 25 years ago, most tuba players were on 4/4 and 5/4 contrabass tubas. 6/4 contrabass tubas were specialty tubas only used in a few large orchestras and large military bands. It was somewhat rare to find someone on a 6/4 tuba outside those large/major ensembles. Some college studios would have a 6/4 player, but most would be on 4/4 and 5/4 tubas. These days, you have a large percentage of tuba players seek out 6/4 tubas, mostly of the cotton-candy-sound York variety.

[JC2]

Enjoy

[russiantuba]

I encourage my music education students to stay on BBb tuba.

I don’t even force CC on performance majors. Those who want to go to CC, I strongly advise against York style 6/4 tubas.

The top pros who play on them seem to have a well defined sound concept from smaller horns and carry those over.

I’ve had students the past few years on Bbb beat out many playing on CCs. I had a student audition at a conservatory where he was accepted into the live round, and the professor, a tubist in a top 10 US orchestra, didn’t even realize that he was on a BBb tuba. As I tell my students, listen with your ears, not your eyes.

[prodigal]

bloke has a serious point about keeping the brain going. The challenge alone is worth stretching the mind. I've watched my parents age, and they really haven't pushed themselves into learning new things much, and it is not hard to see their cognitive decline.

I like practicing all 3 3 keys of my horns, even on the same music, to try to get equal timbres in all ranges on them?

Can I get a richer low range and resonance on the 186CC?

Can I make the middle C range as clear and clean on the PT-1 as the 186CC?

Can I make my low range on the PT-15 sound like a tuba and not sound like a Euphonium overdosing on testosterone?

I'm playing for fun and to teach my children and students.

I think I might try this with my orchestra students after our early concert. I'll pick a section of something, and go down the line of horns and have them describe the differences in sound.

I'm kind of an edgy dude. I like my tubas sound to show of my disgruntled attitude with life.

[bloke]

It didn't occur to me to pull the bass guitar (a damn good one - I was so fortunate to stumble across it in 1979, and so fortunate to have never pushed very hard to sell it over the past 35 years - having not played it much at all for that long) out from under the bed, after several decades.

It was a guy who was hiring me to play a biweekly dixie job in a bar/restaurant who - hearing my bass lines - guessed that I had also been a bass player, and asked me if I would bring the bass to some subsequent gigs.

As far as "keeping the mind active" is concerned. Pushing my mind and body to move from C instruments to B-flat instruments (seriously, exploring what the "European orchestral tuba-playing model" is all about, listening to the top European players play the orchestral excerpts (linking arguably THE BEST one here in this thread), listening to them talk about playing on videos, etc., etc.) has kept me engaged...and I went back through ALL of the etude books (the difficult ones, not the easy ones) over-and-over during ... lenged my mind (AND HANDS) far more than the C to B-flat thing has.

Those cats play/played a BUNCH of stuff, and CONSTANTLY. (They don't just come in during the loud parts - as do tuba players in symphonies - and play a few loud eighth notes, quarter notes, and donuts. Rather, those guys' playing is CONSTANT, BUSY, and FAST-MOVING. Even when repetitive, try playing the stuff they play over-and-over for three minutes at a time or longer (per their recordings). It's a lot of fast-moving, physically taxing, and mind-challenging playing (ie. "OK...how many times have I played this now, and is it time to move to that next thing?"...etc.)
"Chicago" transcribed bass parts...(Peter Cetera was/is a genius/wild man...and - curiously, I've since discovered - his equipment was very similar to my own)...those CERTAINLY push the brain and the fingers to WORK - particularly if those bass lines that he created are recreated WELL. )

OK...If not pop/rock/funk/country/standards/etc. with electric bass, pick up a typical DOUBLE BASS ("string" bass) part to a typical symphonic work, transpose it down to the "sounding" octave, and play through it from start to finish (an overture, and entire symphony, whatever) with your tuba...busy, busy, busy...(more challenging that many tuba "solo" works).

...It's a bunch more fun to keep my mind engaged this way than to buy quack OTC "brain supplements".

...and for those of you who've not yet found this young gentleman:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61577478992061

[russiantuba]

When someone can make a York 6/4 CC sound like this, I might consider testing that exact horn (Kaiser BBb, I think a Fafner if it is Roman on the recording)

https://youtu.be/m8fQKKh24Gg?is=tQEI-3-6Zznhnxq_

[bloke]

Not so much commenting about the tuba sound - which is great, but notice how much louder this performance seems than so many others, simply due to the fact that it's in tune.

I have posted endlessly about my B-flat tuba which is a crossover B-flat with basically a kaiser valve section and body and a Holton 345 (so-called American 6/4) shaped bell.

I've experimented with some true blue kaiser B-flats, but I just wasn't quite ready, and this thing plays in tune so easily that I just had to get it. That said, the latest mouthpiece that I have been promoting (without being a shallow-cupped mouthpiece) adds enough "fist" to the sound of this tuba that I'm pleased with what I'm getting out of it.

[dp]

When someone can make a York 6/4 CC sound like this, I might consider testing that exact horn (Kaiser BBb, I think a Fafner if it is Roman on the recording)https://youtu.be/m8fQKKh24Gg?is=tQEI-3-6Zznhnxq_

Now you're just being obtuse, even if this thread wound up in hey-look-a-squirrel land about 10 comments ago...

anyway, Moscow is probably the only remaining orchestra more singular in music style and tradition than Vienna.

[bloke]

Moving from C to B-flat is sort of like quitting smoking, and it's kind of fun to trigger those who are still addicted.

[AvrTuba]

When I was playing in the air force band, I switched from C to Bb. Nobody said boo, except for the trombone section who immediately noticed how much easier it was to blend and play in tune with an instrument on the same harmonic series.

[Heavy_Metal]

.........I think I might try this with my orchestra students after our early concert. I'll pick a section of something, and go down the line of horns and have them describe the differences in sound.

Let us know what happens!