Yamaha tuba

Every once in awhile you find out that a myth is actually true and it changes things for you. I thought it was something of a myth that better horns are easier to play and sound better. I got a better tuba from my supplier and it is definitely easier to play. I'm not sure you could hear a difference between my old Miraphone and my trial Yamaha on easy, flowing material. But because it is easier to play, the Yamaha would sound better when pushed in its range. I've always known this with guitars but I didn't want to believe with the tuba.

One of my co-workers and fellow brass players sold me a Miraphone tuba last year. I love it. It re-kindled a lot of good feelings for me. In a strange way, it even offered me another way to connect with Dad because he used to take me to my tuba lessons and always thought I was pretty good. You can't beat that. You do something you love and you get to have a moment with your father. Rare, precious.

My co-worker, Matt, sells instruments as a sideline. He is a tech writer like me and has even written a book on programming. He went to Oberlin where he studied trombone. Matt and I are very different in some ways, but I've grown to like him despite the fact that he pushes instruments like drugs.

I've waxed about the Yamaha tuba before I didn't have much of a lip and sounded pretty thin last year when I played a big Yamaha tuba. Sounding thin is a cardinal sin in my own training. Hank used to stress (like other teachers of his ilk) that sound is more important than anything, e.g. technique, range. He said if someone walks in a room and you sound crappy, nothing else matters. Yhey are going to think that you sound crappy.

He stressed "air through horn" as the cure all and mostly, he was right. Arnold Jacobs, the great tuba player of the Chicago symphony, would have loved Hank for that reason.

My problem at Lowell was that not all teachers are like Hank. I didn't get along with the guys who were all about technique and repetoire. I had very good tone. I had good technique, but it was in a narrow band of music. I smoked any kind of march or circus music. Most orchestral music isn't that challenging so I was content with my ability. I had a closed mind.

The closed mind led me to to distrust the idea that the horn itself does matter that much. It isn't only the quality of the player. I never played a lot of tubas.I didn't want to experiment that much. Perhaps, I knew in the back of my mind that we could never afford a high end instrument so it was a convenient bit of denial.

That led me to the contrary belief that the horn didn't matter that much. I was wrong. I'm playing a CC tuba today, thanks to Matt, my pusher. It is a Yamaha 5 valve tuba. Now that I have my lip back I can really appreciate the difference between this horn and my Miraphone. The low notes sound especially good and are remarkably easy to produce. The horn does matter.

This is a more expensive horn. Most players would expect it to sound/play better. I want to be wrong because I used to make fun of guys who had really expensive tubas - just like guys who have really expensive golf clubs. I was right to make fun of them - most of them were idiots - but they probably did have easier horns to play and I was just holding myself back by not having a more open mind about it.