Saxophone-tuba hybrid

[Groovekiller]

Our repair shop got a visit from Tom "Bones" Malone today. He's the trombone/saxophone player on the David Letterman show, and he was the bone player in the Blues brothers band. I brought in my contrabass sax for everyone to try and we had a lot of fun.

The most amazing event was Mark Adams, the brass technician, playing the Eppelsheim contrabass with a tuba mouthpiece. It sounded great! Mark was playing diatonic and chromatic scales with one hand. The tuba mouthpiece makes the horn play 1/2 step higher (in E instead of Eb). It sounds pretty much like a tuba.

 

[SOTSDO]

There's no reason why it shouldn't. Remember, there were more than a few brass mouthpiece serpent-like horns back in the day. They may be gone and mostly forgotten these days, but they still "were". Serpents were a very real part of music for about a century and a half, and they are nothing more than a clapper key version of what you came up with when fooling around.

Speaking of retro-music experiences, a real kick can be had if you play a performance of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" with the "contra-bassoon" part being played on the correct instrument for the part, the relatively rare contra-bass oclidophede (sic). That is one rattlin', shakin' musical trip, maaaan - plus it scares the living hell out of you once the thing starts warming up.

 

[tictactux]

I'll try the other way round next week. It will involve a soprano sax mouthpiece and a bit of duct tape.

 

[pete]

... and the saxophone is essentially supposed to be an ophicliede with a reed mouthpiece.

I think it's Scott Johnson that made recordings of tenor sax with a trombone mouthpiece.

The 1/2 step difference is ... interesting. I'd like to explore that one further!

 

[SOTSDO]

Speaking of retro-music experiences, a real kick can be had if you play a performance of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" with the "contra-bassoon" part being played on the correct instrument for the part, the relatively rare contra-bass oclidophede (sic). That is one rattlin', shakin' musical trip, maaaan - plus it scares the living hell out of you once the thing starts warming up.

...And speaking of which, on tonight's news there was a report of the meeting of the annual tuba confab up in Detroit. Prominent in the foreground of several of the shots was one of the unspellable instruments, happily blasting away on one carol or another. Life imitating art!!!

 

[Groovekiller]

I talked to Benedkt Eppelsheim about it. Making the neck about 25 (?) cm longer would put it in the right key and probably improve the intonation. The Contrabass + tuba mouthpiece is basically an ophicleide anyway, but I was surprised that regular sax fingerings worked so well.