New Tuba

First thing's first: I bought a tuba over break.

I have been playing tuba since the seventh grade, which at time of posting amounts to a very little bit over 11 years. This is the first real tuba that I have bought (The first 'fake' one was essentially an antique - 1907 Conn Eb - although it does play, and seems to be fairly close to modern pitch when put to the tuner somehow). It's pretty awesome to own my own instrument finally. Here's the bizarre part - I bought it without playing it first (this made me incredibly nervous at first) or even seeing so much as a photo of it in poor lighting. We shipped it UPS, against which I was strongly advised, and almost none of the packing advice was followed. The tuba was shipped in a gig bag, which was wrapped in paper, surrounded by packing peanuts, wrapped in a plastic bag, surrounded by more peanuts, in a tall cardboard box with one of those metal beams across the top. It somehow arrived unharmed (and unflattened), much to my surprise upon seeing the packing.

This tuba is awesome. I love the sound it has when I play it. I feel that it similar to the sound I had with the Perantucci horns i fell in love with three years ago at HRTEC when I was first trying out horns, but only cost a third of the price. It has awesome response, and can actually pop out the low notes with relative ease. I initially bought it with the mindset of "if i don't like it, I can easily sell it for as much as I bought it, and it will get me through the recital just fine." Now it's just flat out going to be MY horn (until circumstances require otherwise). I am now waiting for my refund check from student loans so that I can buy a bunch of mouthpieces to try out, as none of my mouthpieces fit the euro shank receiver.

I will be uploading pictures soon, but it is my guess that most of you reading this have seen it in person...

I definitely love my Cerveny Piggy 603.
(for those of you who didn't understand the blog's address, yes, it's a play on words - when have you ever known me not to make ridiculous puns?)

Lastly, who knows what I can do with 15 cubic feet of styrofoam packing peanuts?