Periphery

I like really big mouthpieces. Everyone is different, has different teeth and jaw structure, et cetera. Some on here think that a Conn Helleberg 7B works well on those horns. I think that the 7B is one of the worst mouthpieces ever marketed, save for the (old numbering system) Miraphone C4. Again, this is only my personal opinion. But I have had very poor results with these two pieces (as well as the Bach 24 AW) with my students over the last 20-odd years of teaching. It is not some sort of bias, either. I have thought that one through pretty thoroughly. I am a very big believer in locating one decent mouthpiece and learning to play it properly through diligent practice of fundamentals. I have four tubas and one GG contrabass. I have one mouthpiece per horn that I use most times, unless I need something VERY specific. In other words, once I find a mouthpiece that does what I need sound-wise and has decent pitch, I tend to use it for many years. But each horn is different, so I look for a new mouthpiece for each horn that I acquire. So whatever you get, so long as it is not something really extreme, ought to work just fine for you, PROVIDED THAT YOU PRACTICE YOUR FUNDAMENTALS PROPERLY . . . see where I am going with this? Anyway, getting back to the G&W stuff, the Bayamo is the largest one that they make. It does not work too well on my King K-90 . . . not too sure why. It also does not do too well on my Alexander 163. But MAN-OH-MAN, it is tremendous on my Yamaha YFB-621 F tuba!!!! I will use this G&W Bayamo on this horn for as long as I own this particular tuba or any other example of the model! Giddings & Webster On the Alexander, mine has the old jumbo receiver that needs a custom mouthpiece or a shank adapter. The adapter might be causing the problem. Also, it might just be that I need to get to a dealer and try the whole line with this tuba because the Bayamo is probably the wrong choice for this horn combined with this player. Whatever, I need to use it in an MSO rehearsal to really get an idea of how it works on the big Alex. I have only used it in my living room, and only for a few hours. I will one day find the exact model that I need for this tuba in stainless and will attempt to get the maker to match my Elliott shank so that it fits properly. I am pretty sure that the stainless material is causing the very noticeable differences in my own playing. So I want to try it on all of my tubas . . . just because. Right now I am trying a friend's Sidey SSH on my contra. The K-90 almost always plays best with a Conn Helleberg. It seems to have been designed with the Conn Helleberg in mind. The Sidey version of the Helleberg is better than what UMI is currently cranking out. It is a much older version that Paul copied, with tweaks to the rim and cup. Is is also in the flavor of the day: surgical stainless steel. Try one! I have been pretty impressed with this borrowed one and like it enough that I will get one of my own very soon. It likes my 23 year old K-90 quite a bit. Sidey SSH The G&W that you are interested in might work out very well for you. Ivan has a fairly liberal return policy. But you must purchase each one first, try it, and then return it unscathed. Trying them can get costly because of this. So if you like to play on a lot of different pieces before making a purchase, try to locate a dealer near you. His list of dealers is fairly short still. But you might find one near you. then you can play off of them. The LOUD LM-6 and LM-7 both seem to be more popular on contras right now. I have not played one yet, but will soon. So we shall see. I develop "brand loyalty" pretty quickly and really like my Bayamo, so I might end up biased when I try a LOUD. But as a full time player and educator I feel that I need to keep abreast of new things. Since stainless mouthpieces are so different, you will really need to try them first. However, the interior designs of each (except for the SSH) are pretty new in approach. So no one is really sure just yet whether the WOW factor in the sound change is the material, the new shapes, of a bit of both. Some are certain that the steel does nothing. Some are certain that the dramatic changes in the focus, sound and clarity are ONLY because of the materials. I am certain that they are truly different, and that is all right now. One thing about my experience with my G&W Bayamo: Do not push it in the low end. The results are very un-pretty, to say the least if you try to play down there like one normally would. These things are so clear and focused in the low register that you really need to play down there as if you were a fifth or even an octave higher. Things speak that clearly for me, personally, on mine. It is very easy to overplay at first. Just relax and let the tuba/contra and mouthpiece do the work for you while you dump in lots of air. I told Ivan this over the phone and he agreed that this was a very good description of the approach needed to adjust to these things. Stainless mouthpieces, thus far, seem to be very cool.

I hope stuff goes well for your corps in the Philippines. Are you guys located on Luzon or another island? (I guess that is sort of a silly question, isn't it?) One thing that might be different about your mouthpiece is the inner edge of the rim. Now, I know something about stainless mouthpieces, but only have very limited experience with chromed ones. My only experience with them has been a chromed Herco, which are usually considered to be pretty ordinary mouthpieces, some even being just plain bad. But the one that I owned came with a particular tuba and was perfect with the horn. I only got rid out the Herco because the plating was peeling off and cut my finger. Chrome can be razor sharp when it peels off. The inner rim edge was VERY sharp for a tuba mouthpiece and would wear me out very quickly at first. But MAN that thing was wonderful for technique and flexibility. The cup was not overly wide, but was VERY deep. So the sound was wonderful, but in control. Funny, but it pretty much sucked on every other tuba I owned at that time. What does the thing say on it besides the size? Anything? Maybe we can figure out what you have without photos. How is it shaped? Like a Bach? Like a Schilke? Can you tell? Let us know!!!! Wade Rackley

At this time, I am only aware of three companies that make low brass mouthpieces in stainless steel. One guy only makes reproductions of a very old Conn Helleberg (with a rim that they have not used for over 40 years) and no other models at all. That is the Sidley SSH, which is pretty #### good, BTW. That leaves only two that make bone/euph pieces; again, that I know of. Those are Giddings & Webster (Ivan Giddings) and LOUD (Joe Murphy). These two brands are so distinctive looking that you could not mistake them for anything else. Neither make a "12C" model. All of Joe's mouthpieces are marked with "LM" and a number. All of Ivan's are laser etched (not engraved/stamped) with a script font, and the models are all named for some exotic names for winds/storms (such as Bayamo). You most likely have a chromed Herco or something along those lines. Post a pic and I might be able to identify it for you. LOUD Mouthpieces look like this: G&W Mouthpieces look like this:

Tubas come in four different keys (or pitch levels). Except for the upright and electric bass, instruments that read bass clef all read concert pitch music. (upright and electric basses read music that is transposed one octave higher than the sounding pitch) Tubas players, because of this, must choose which horn will be used by performance tradition, overall range of the part to be played, or the orchestration. Not only do tubists have to follow historical precedent when one exists, but how "big" the part needs to sound will also dictate which horn to use. As a composer or arranger, you must not think about that at all. Just write what you want played. It is the tubist's job to bring the right horn and be able to play it. That means that the tubist has to learn a complete set of fingerings for each key of horn that he or she plays. It is a little like horn and trumper players and orchestral transposition, but in reverse. Examples: Low C BBb = 4 or 13 CC = 0 Eb = 3 or 12 F = 4 or 13 Low Bb BBb = 0 CC = 1 Eb = 4 or 13 F = 45 or 14 or 124 High G BBb = 3 or 12 CC = 0 Eb = 0 F = 1 Middle Ab BBb = 1 CC = 23 Eb = 1 F = 23 Middle D BBb = 0 CC = 1 Eb = 1 F = 3 or 12 So a BBb tuba plays the Bb overtone series as open notes. Bb, D and F in the staff are all fingered as open notes. CC plays C, E, and G in the staff as open notes. And so on and so forth . . . It really is much easier than it sounds.

I agree with Dave. When your slides are properly set, your fourth should simulate 1+3+slide (like a trumpet) that corrects the sharpness without actually having to pull anything. The VERY sharp 1+2+3 would then be playable as 24. Even with a fourth valve, a BBb tuba continues to creep sharp as you descend. When you get to Eb you need to start playing the fingerings down one half step. If you do that, you will end up with a pretty well in tune low register all the way down to pedal C. That note SHOULD be 1+3+4, but needs to be played 1+2+3+4. If you do that you are good to go. BUT – then you have no fingering available for the next semitone down! On a four valve instrument, it is nearly impossible to play the last half step above its fundamental pitch without a great deal of practice. You have just used all of your valves to play a CC; next available fingering combination is "0" which is for BBb. This is why most professional tubas have five valves on them. That allows you to get that one note as well as giving you a whole slew of extra, alternate fingerings to fix pitch and response problems. So 4 should be set to be a tiny bit flat so that 4 C and 2+4 B are do-able without slide pulls. That allows 1 and 3 to be set for other things, like 2+3 combinations. On a well in tune instrument, properly set slides allow the player to avoid too much lipping, slide pulling, and alternate fingerings. CLEAR AS MUD, RIGHT???? ^0^

Okay, I hope that this translates well; it is a little esoteric. The fundamental pitch of a brass instrument is the lowest pitch that can be produced without valves. Now, octave nomenclature on a piano gives specific names to each individual F or C or Gb. The high stuff involves lower case letters, with each higher octave getting a little superscript slash next to it (such as a, d', eb'' or g'''') and lower stuff gets capital letters with each lower octave adding a letter (such as C, FF, AAA, etc.). We non-pianists tend to not pay as much attention since we do not have 88 notes to keep straight in our heads! Tubas, properly, are in four keys, listed as BBb, CC, Eb and F. Because of the fundamentals being in the next higher octave, the Eb and F tubas only get one letter in the name. However, most players will incorrectly call them EEb and FF tubas, which would actually be one octave lower! Therefore, the old G bugles used GG contrabasses. As far as I know, only tuba players use this system, most fail to fully understand it, and no one outside of our little world cares about it for the most part. The fellow that listed all of the bugles as GG is a tubist and was making a joke. As a fellow tubist, I cracked up when I read what he posted. I doubt that anyone else got it. :P This confusion stems from the use of tenor tubas in some orchestral literature. The BBb and CC tubas are referred to (albeit inconsistently) as contrabass tubas, while the Eb and F tubas are called bass tubas. Therefore, the euphonium, in an orchestral setting, is called a tenor tuba. So the BBb and the Bb tubas would be one octave apart in pitch. There have been a few custom built bass tubas in G (for use on certain very difficult works where playing on an F would be extremely awkward). These are in the exact octave as a baritone bugle in G. So in that case, the contrabass bugle would need to be referred to as an instrument pitched in GG to let it be known that it is in the Contra Octave of the piano. There is one tuba that has been built in EEE . . . now that is really getting looooow! Does this ridiculous nomenclature now make a little more sense? I hope so. It is hard to explain it clearly and simply with out having a piano keyboard to show you. Please excuse my asking, but are you in Japan?

I agree for the most part. I am a traditionalist about most things corps. I grew up on two piston, G, treble-clef-reading Kings. I think that that would be a bit absurd to take up rehearsal time with the "all treble clef" tradition when the "not-fully-chromatic-BUGLE" tradition was killed off by DCI. If you can now play a "real" instrument that is scored in a certain manner then arrangers ought to write out parts that are normal for that instrument. I do not imagine that when (not "if") Hopkins shoves shoulder-mounted marching bassoons down everyone's craw that there will be much of an argument over which clef to use for the parts. With that in mind, we have a few in our corps that are young and have never had to play TC. In order to not waste rehearsal time we go ahead and print out (transposed) BC (ick!) low brass parts. But we just shame them in to learning the traditional ways to go along with our traditional, two valved G horns. I shudder each time I have to go into Finale and transpose a part into BC that will be played on a G bugle. Cheers! Wade Rackley

A pretty decent 50 person brass section with only the main instruments would, in my opinion, break down like this: 7 1st trumpets 5 2nd trumpets 4 third trumpets 6 1st mellophones 4 2nd mellophones 7 1st baritones 5 2nd baritones 4 euphoniums 8 tubas If I had room for two more I would add a pair of tubas. If I had room for a few more, I might add 2 or 4 french horns. They can be used in several nice ways in a corps. You can add them to the top of the baritone section to get a more brassy sound that can approximate a big band trombone section. You can also have them play the 1st mellophone part down an octave. If you have the players for this very hard-to-control instrument, you can do lots of very nice sounding things with them. But they require a lot of work compared to the mellophone. I would not add flugels to this mix. If they were already there then no problem. But I would not go out and purchase them just to say that our group ownd a few. They do not have all that distinctive a sound outdoors in the opinion of many in the corps arena. They can take the edge off of the sound of weaker 3rd soprano/trumpet players, but you should not try to hide problems like that when good, insistent instruction would do a better job. Please remember that what you asked us for is very much our opinions, and we all have one, each being different. There are no right answers for this. That is why each corps has its own distinctive brass timbre. (Well, that and the manner of scoring the horns, too . . . ) Good luck! Wade Rackley

Not sure right now, but probably not. We usually just go on mod-week days off when we have already rehearsed our stuff, which is pretty hard and not too cool for making money unless recently rehearsed. (Telemann duo flute sonatas and such) The final decision is always strongly weather-affected since we are about three hours away from NOLA. Also, we have done this for years. The bugles are merely a new twist to the equation. Since adopting them (which occurred in a post-Katrina world) things have been reeeeeeeal quiet down there. The "locals" sort of tune out most street players and typically do not listen or tip. It is very touristy, what we do; and there are not just a whole lot of tourists down there right now . . . or locals, for that matter, heh, heh, heh . . . We were down there three times during the Christmas break and made very little money at all, despite the fact that we had some really prime busking real estate under our feet. We were sitting directly across from Cafe Du Monde where the carriages pick up riders, and we were pretty much alone each time for the whole day. We had one – ONE – desperate-looking street vendor run over set up his paintings right next to us as soon as we started playing. No one else was playing or selling in this usually bustling area. There were no "customers" for us to entertain. The Quarter was just plain dead, tourist-wise. The Quarter will be back this summer; on that I am willing to bet good money. And so will we. But we will not be down there anytime in the next month or so to play. Though we might go for fun. Sorry that we will not be there while you are in town, Dave. It would be cool to have a fellow DCP-er walk up and say hello to us. Anyway, the frenchie is very cool. We also have a King K-60 frenchie that works a bit better with my K-90. We will probably keep it and donate the DEG to our corps, since it is in excellent condition and worth having in the line. Still uncertain about this. But we currently own only mellophones for mid-range horns. I would like us to own a pair of frenchies and a pair of flugels. Oh well . . . Cheers!! Wade Rackley

Not in the corps, but as a street duo. We both play for a living. The wife is a french hornist and I am the tubist full time with the local orchestra. I play contra in my local Sr. Corps but she has one of those "marching wrecks your chops" attitudes. ( I chip away at that a little bit each day.) We play in the streets of the French Quarter whenever we can get down there. We have two books of duets for two valved frenchie and contra that I arranged shortly after I made my purchase from you. They do not play like our symphony instruments (of course) but if they are stolen or damaged we are out very little money. If either happened to her Rauch horn or my Alexander tuba we sould be out of jobs pretty much. I keep trying to get her to join the Generals. Maybe one day . . . :(

Hey, Dave, I bought a DEG French Horn from you last year. (Thanks!) Maybe you can help me. I need at least one complete K-90 valve section, meaning the piston assy and both slides, complete. Got one? TIA, regardless of your answer. (I know that my request is an odd one . . . ) Wade Rackley

Yeah . . . I have been looking for the exact same thing for nearly a year now. I have posted here in three places repeatedly. The parts are out there, but the owners do not seem to want to part with them or do not read this board. Both are likely, and unfortunate. I have been in contact with three people that have assured me that they have the parts, and then they disappear on me. ???? Oh well. Wade

Thanks to Ken Huff of the CorpsVets for all of the help in getting these things to us. We really needed some higher quality horns in our line. Good luck to CV this season! See you around, Ken . . . B)

So far, everyone has given you very good advice. Excellent ensemble training and individual preparation are always required of the members of a fine hornline, big or small. But in a small one there is zero wiggle room. Individual responsibility increases as the line shrinks. In a brass quintet, each player is making 20% of the overall musical product. You might want to do the math and figure out the exact percentage each of your members is covering and tell them this information to stress the importance of their individual responsibility to the group. Rehearse in an arc as normal, but make sure to do so out doors in an area where there is zero feedback from walls or fences. My corps has started to play in a certain field where there is a long, open expanse with nice, sound absorbing trees at the other end. We play in a normally spaced arc and also play in one that is spaced quite widely to force us to produce lots of sound. At first we sounded really anaemic – the lack of confidence-building feedback from reflected sounds or even the sounds of our neighbors made it hard to play very well. As we each took turns stepping out front to listen, we learned that we were actually making a good deal of sound despite it feeling that we were playing into a big void. Our confidence rose with this information and our volume and fullness increased accordingly. Small hornlines can be freaky-feeling at first if you grew up in DCI with 68 brass to provide aural feedback! My only real advice regarding your music is to remember that you're small and that you must learn to capitalize on this. Get "smaller" than other small hornlines. That means that you are basically performing in a marching chamber ensemble. Write into your show a couple of sections where only a few players (albeit strong, confident ones) are playing at a time. Do not try to play "big" all of the time so that your few big hits in the show will stick out as such, dynamically. Practice the big hits of your show (as well as chordal tuning progressions or even just octave C's) right at the edge of your group's ability to control its sound quality. Do this constantly; obsessively. The more you do this the stronger your line will become so that the edge of control improves over time. In Sky Ryders we really obsessed over dynamic control on the field. We could play very loudly with a beautiful sound (one of the reasons I picked the corps) and we made our louds sound even louder by making the softs softer. We worked on quality crescendos and diminuendos while sustaining chords in our warm up arc so that our crescs and dims would be more intense on the field. Constantly and obsessively check intonation without a tuner. Use a tuner at the beginning of rehearsal. Have members play one at a time with a drone pitch (another player) and train them to match it by ear; they must learn to hear and adjust on their own. Use a tuner for problems that cannot otherwise be fixed. But do not let you members get into the "set it and forget it" mode. In Sky Ryders we only tuned once or twice each tour because we were trained to listen and adjust constantly. The better your intonation the bigger you will sound. Do lots of ensemble long tones at differing dynamic levels. Long tones are often neglected or under-utilized. Long tones are like weight lifting for your embouchure. They increase the ability to control the sound at dynamic extremes and improve the tone quality quite a bit over an extended period of time. Long tones are money in the bank. Good luck to your now-smaller hornline. It is a bit harder to work with fewer people. But if you can produce a really excellent, small line, when your numbers rise it will be much better because of all of the fine detail work done by the smaller group. Then it will become easier for you to produce a truly fine large hornline. Best of luck to you! Wade Rackley Contrabass Jackson Generals, 2004 to Present Sky Ryders, 1984

Hank74 has a 1983 (only the second year of production) K-90 in need of some dent work but that plays pretty well. I have played it and almost purchased it before he ended up with it. It is a pretty good horn that with a little bit of work would be a great addition to a G line. I think that he is asking about $800 for it, but I could be wrong. I know that he intends to sell it with a gig bag. (Factory cases were never offered for the K-90, AFAIK.) Any K-90 with all parts and a functioning Ab slide is worth about $500 to $750 and at least $1,000 if the plating is in good shape. They can be converted (for some $$$) into three valved horns with a kit made by Kanstul, which with a complete torch disassembly overhaul, reassembly, buffing, and re-plating, will net you a horn that will be GREAT for less than a new DEG. Send Hank74 a PM if you are interested. Tell Hank that Wade said hey.

Sky Ryders from the Tuthill/Simpson era. CMCC Warriors Blue Rock

Never mind . . . I will post about this some time in the future.

E-mail sent!!!! Wade

Wow! I am the guy that made the original post. I have had several login names here on DCP, but Fat, Sweaty Contra Guy was my first one. I am planning on interviewing the creators of the K-90 if I can get in touch with them. I want to hear their stories about the design and creation of our prototypes, what was learned from them and applied to the production versions, and what cost-cutting compromises were made to the production horns (if any). If I can get a true "history" from them, I will look up John Simpson and George Tuthill and get the Sky Ryders official version of the concept and whether the story about the eight tubas was true. Until then, here are a few K-90 pics and a response to one very early poster to this thread (like a year ago). The site where I exchanged information and stories that ended up in the first post of this thread is Sean Chisham's TubeNet BBS Here are two photos of our nice, shiny K-90 prototypes in 1983. They were already veterans of two seasons and you can see how well maintained the horns were. We were fanatical about them, even in 1984 when I marched. I do not know who this girl is, but I think that she is holding Dean Barrow's contra. This is Phil Clements. He ended up teaching the hornline somewhere around 1990. He was also my drum major for two years in the marching band at North Texas. This is an excellent shot of how clothing styles have changed for the better over the last 23 years. This is my very beat up 1982 K-90, which was the first year of production. It is not a Blue Devils horn. It might have belonged to the San Jose Raiders. I am planning on restoring it and having the plating redone. Since I work on horns only the plating will cost a lot for me, and I still get the wholesale price from the plater! And the 1984 Sky Ryders. I am the first contra on the left in the pic. Wade Rackley Principal Tuba, Mississippi Symphony Orchestra Instructor of Music, Millsaps College Contra Section Leader, Jackson Generals

There was no telecast of the 1981 DCI finals due to some nonsense between the Canadians and PBS (IIRC) and the only DCI video that you can find for that year was the Midwestern Championships from Whitewater. It was a very good show, but the Knights were not present; the Sky Ryders made finals that night. (MY corps, YEA! Oh, sorry about that . . . heh, heh, heh . . . ) Now, if you already knew that and were asking around for home movies and such, then please disregard my post, as it does not really apply. I hope that you have success in locating some footage. I have a 1982 audio recording of the Knights (end of first tour in San Antonio) that I made from the sidelines. Also have the rest of that show, all fairly dirty-sounding, but very interesting when compared to the choices/edits used on second tour. The show was the Houston Nighthawks, San Jose Raiders, Dubuque Colts (with Greg Blum, if you remember him), Geneseo Knights (Eleanor Rigby and Casals Suite were highlights for me), Madison Scouts, and Phantom Regiment (Spartacus, year 2). This is all on cassette and not available online. But if you want it, I could probably get it imported and made into mp3's at some point. But it would not be real soon . . . Let me know either here or via PM. Wade

2006 BUMPAROO! PM me!

I would have chosen to list on eBay or to sell it privately; not both. I have had friends do things the way you did, and they caught some grief for it. So I would have made a decision and stuck with it. If you had chosen to go with eBay, you could have set a reserve price and a starting bid. This would have severely limited the traffic on the listing, however, due to the extreme damage on the instrument. (I have fixed horns for 13 years now and would not have even bid on your horn without either seeing it first or having you send me many very specific photos of the valve section and pistons, which are what you REALLY need to be looking at on an older, not-too-gently-used instrument.) I think that trying to sell privately what is listed publicly is the problem. Again, I would have had the patience to either sell it privately, or to take a hit and sell it on eBay. Also, bids on eBay typically do not start in earnest until the last half hour or so on many instruments. I bought one from ravedodger a while back and did not even make my first bid until the last 10 minutes or so. This is pretty typical. Once I have listed something I will not accept private bids. I will, however, list a "Buy it Now" price. Anyway, did you finally sell this horn? Good luck to you!

Jackson Generals? Never heard of them. (Heh, heh, heh . . . ) Wade Rackley Contrabass Jackson Generals :)

Good luck, guys. Our Cat 5 was a very mean SOB. We are farther inland than San Antonio and we got POUNDED. We had a Cat 1 minus the ground swell. This was nearly 200 miles inland!!! Start looking for hotels on IH 10 west of San Antonio starting in Kerville. They might not be so badly booked up and are nice and safe and clean. Personally, I would go to Round Rock or Georgetown, north of Austin. You could get there without ever going to San Antonio. (US 75?) I heard that IH 45 north is a total parking lot for many, many miles right now. If you are leaving right now and happen to read this, GO TO THE AUSTIN AREA! I have lived in Jackson, MS for 13 years now, but my home will always be "the Westside" of San Antonio. Viva el Barrio! (Yeah, I'm white, but I still grew up near the projects, ese!) Best of luck to you all. The Jackson Generals are thinking of each of you! Wade Rackley Jackson Generals Contrabass Section Leader

Yeah. That's right. Bump. I said bump, dang it.