I am in my 53rd year of playing Tuba, and I cannot imagine what it will be like when my playing days are over. Truly one of the great joys of my life. To play with your heart in what you are doing is beyond fun--it becomes a part of you. I play a Besson 3V compensating BBb tuba with a 17" bell, 1975 vintage. Many people tell me it does not sound like a tuba because they are used to a more brassy sound, but I have come to love the rich, mellow tone of the Besson. I would encourage anyone who has an interest in playing the Tuba, if you get the "bug", nothing else will do--you will be sold on the Tuba for life.
I'm an 82 year old geezer, and still play tuba in my church orchestra and 2 community bands, and in a brass sextet. Take GOOD care of your teeth, your eyes, your lungs, and your diaphragm. Don't smoke. It'll still be good for 3 more decades.
Thank you! Learning tuba now. Played trombone and sax as a kid. Guitar as young adult. What a fun and versatile instrument! Always been a goal to be a multi instrumentalist. Hope to be able to sit in w friends in many styles of music
Vincent Beard Unfortunately you're spot on. So many excellent trombone players and tuba players play euphonium terribly because they play it like they're playing a different version of their own instrument rather than a different instrument
Chris - What a story! Pedestrian trumpet player here who likes to noodle around on my baritone. Great respect for the physicality required to play the tuba. Honestly I do not know where you find the air. Love watching you play and manage the tuning with your left hand. Thanks!!!
I'm a tuba player and I like listening to every sax except the soprano. When I hear someone playing a soprano sax I think please! Someone put this guy out of their misery! Euthanize!
I remember in 2017 the only instrument I played was alto saxophone. Then in November there were fourms to switch instruments for competition season and we needed a tuba player. Me and one other person signed up for tuba and a month ago I was 2nd chair tuba for a band of the best middle school musicians in all of Illinois. Now I still play both instruments and I hope to become a professional one day.
I’m a sax player. It’s my primary instrument and what I’m studying in college. But I too was taken into the Cult of Tuba. Tuba was my way into drum corps and I even switch from saxophone to tuba in my college marching. If someone had told me that I’d be playing tuba in marching band and drum corps, I would have said y’all were crazy. Yet here I am
Chris, this is one of the best interviews/demo's Ive ever seen. I now need to go find the Bernstein recording of Mahler's Symphony #2. Also is goading me into practicing more. I'm at the opposite end of the brass, namely trumpet..
I played trombone, and was told that I’d be changing to tuba over the summer before 8th grade. Loved it! Now it’s been 50 years since I’ve played and I WANT A TUBA!!!
I've returned to playing the tuba after a gap of almost 40yrs. Amazed that it was still there. Joined a Brass Band in 2021 and within two months was playing at live gigs and the following year played in the Northern Ireland Championships and European Championships. My advice "Go for it! Enjoy it!"
I had a similar story in eighth grade...too many trumpets/cornets...and I wasn't that good nor aggressive enough to 'move up' to first or second chair. Band teacher suggested the tuba...I guess I was OK, and had nobody to challenge my status as 'first tuba'! Didn't continue band in ninth grade for some reason... Nowadays I want to return and play New Orleans jazz tuba...which is about as far as you can get from the examples here, but hey...it's still A TUBA!
Same. I was a clarinet player. But then I made the choice to switch after being given the opportunity by my teacher. I’ve got to say. One of the best musical decisions I have ever made!
Is there any way to make my slides move faster without lapping them? I grease and clean them pretty much every day and they don’t move as fast as I want them to.
I wish I had a cool backstory with the tuba, but really during the choosing your instrument part of beginners someone told me that people who play tuba can get scholarships, and I just chose it because of that. I don't regret anything though.
At 8:30, Chris is playing along in Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 (New World) a part that Dvorak himself did not write (Dvorak wrote only 14 tuba notes in this symphony, and they appear in a different movement). Is this from the Robert Ryker tuba part revision? Was it Chris' or Gerard Schwarz' idea?
Many thanks for explaining, can you please explain about the piece that you're moving in your left hand, is it to fix the intonation? Thank you in advance.
I see you are playing a 4 valve non-compensating euphonium. Do you prefer that to a compensating euphonium? If so, is it the 4th valve position or some other reason?
6/4 CC tubas are notorious for being difficult to play in tune without slide manipulation. Their BBb counterparts are often more in tune without the need of excessive slide manipulation. The reason being is that most 6/4 CC tubas are actually based off a cut-down BBb that was custom built back in the 1930s by York which is now owned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The BBb variants often played more in tune because they were designed for that key, whereas the CC variants were just cut down BBb tubas. The altering of the bugle by just 2 feet caused the harmonic series to shift a bit out of tune on some partials which is why slide manipulation is so common on older CC tubas and even moreso on 6/4 CC tubas. I own a 6/4 BBb tuba and I have tested it's CC variant. The BBb played better, sounded better (to me at least), and had better intonation tendencies than the CC.
Interesting. He keeps a tenor tuba/euphonium in his arsenal so I'm assuming he gets these gigs in the Seattle orchestra? ... which would be unusual because in my experience it's usually one of the tenor trombonists who picks up a tenor tuba on the odd occasion one's required (because the range is pretty much identical). I think it's a much tougher "ask" to expect someone who usually plays a bass or contrabass tuba to play the euphonium convincingly.
Why do you keep moving the tuning slide? Idk if you cover this in the video I'm early in sorry but is it while playing you have to constantly change who you're tuned to or is it something else?
Tenor tuba is just another name for Euphonium because most people don't even know what a Euphonium is. Baritone (short for baritone horn) is a different instrument; a type of horn and not a tuba; pitched the exact same as the euphonium but with a much brighter sound.
may someone explain why he is moving his slide, i suppose he is correcting his pitch like a trombone player does all the time, but i honestly never have seen anyone doing that
Not true. When you go to music school you have a class where you listen to notes and see how flat/sharp they’re so he is trying to make each note in tune bcuz tubas are not perfect so that is what he is doing. Hope it helps.
Moving slides slightly has to do with the harmonic series, every pitch isn't always in tune. For example, if you have a c tuba and you play a b flat (1st valve) and the b flat is in tune, ideally, one would pull out the first slide slightly when you play an f since on that harmonic, f is around 1.96 cents sharp, so to compensate, you would pull out the slide slightly. This is applicable to every pitch in the harmonic series to allow the player to freely play the instrument without having to bend or change what they do to achieve the intonation they desire (and different pitches on each harmonic each have their tendencies, the 5th partial on a brass instrument is usually around 13.69 cents flat, the 9th partial about 3.91 cents sharp, etc).This is not something that many tubists do, but its something that many professional trombonists (especially bass trombonists) do. Personally, I do this as well. Hope that helped! 👍
Carson Clay im not a tubist, but until someone answers, I'll guess: Tuning. All that plumbing can't make every note reasonably in pitch with just valves.
It's because of the natural intonation tendencies of brass instruments. The 5th partial on all brass instruments will always ride a little flat. The 6th tends to ride a bit sharp. The partials above that vary from horn to horn. The 3rd partial on most tubas tends to get sharper the lower you go in pitch, with the 4th valve slide needing to be pulled out quite a bit to get the D (or C) in tune. As a result you either have to lip up or push in the 4th slide for the low G (or F) on the 2nd partial or it will be flat. Intonations issues on modern tubas tend to be mild and manageable, but the older horns like the Alexander 163 or Holton 345 needed a lot of work to get them in tune.
"bass tuba", well... that's all tubas. In the brass band we call them an Eb bass, to differentiate it from the Bb bass, but either way, they're both still bass instruments. As for that "Tenor Tuba", although technically correct due to the instrument's origins, it is in fact a Euphonium. Yours seems to sound particularly un-sweet.
