Wagnertuben available for rentals, with or without players

Fellow San Francisco Bay Area freelance hornist Alicia Telford and I own a matched set of four historic Wagnertuben that are available for rental, with or without players. 

Our tuben are a matched set of Alexanders picked out by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1952, during the Fritz Reiner era. We have a pair of single B-flat tuben and a pair of single F tuben. They were the CSO's main set of tuben for several decades. In 1988, the CSO sold the set to the Dallas Symphony, who used them through 1999. That's when we bought them. 

Since then, our tuben have appeared with the Marin Symphony, Santa Rosa Symphony, San Jose Symphony, Berkeley Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Symphony Silicon Valley, Santa Cruz Symphony, and many others. Renter either arranges local pickup or pays two-way shipping costs; we provide shipping boxes and include tube stands, valve oil, pencil clips, and so on. 

Wagnertuben are traditionally played by horn players, but even horn players need to spend some time with them to master the instruments and be able to play them at the same high professional level they expect of themselves on horn. Therefore, when we rent out our Wagnertuben, we try to arrange a monthlong rental, so that your players have time to work with them, practice Kopprasch etudes, get used to the transpositions, and otherwise master them. 

We can also supply experienced professional players along with the tube rental as needed. For local rentals with your own players, we offer coaching sessions with your hornists. For a moderate hourly rate, we will introduce the fundamentals, field questions, help players get comfortable holding and tuning the instruments, and generally get your players up to speed fast. There are many tricky aspects to playing Wagnertube well,  and having played just about all the Wagnertube repertoire ourselves, we know what you're up against and can get you going fast.  

We recommend using one of your usual horn mouthpieces, but be sure to try all of your favorite mouthpieces; you might find that your second-favorite mouthpiece for horn is actually the better one for Wagnertube. What I like best is a Lawson F680 with a B23G-730 rim, but that's an unusually large mouthpiece. Many players might prefer a Lawson F660 or F670 with a 695-sized or 705-sized rim in the contour of their choice. 

Just switch to Mac, already

We all have computer problems, and that doesn't stop with Mac, but it sure gets easier. I find myself telling one friend after another to switch to Mac. Sometimes the objection is, "but I absolutely have to have Windows for my job" because of some Windows-only application or another.

If that's the case, then you especially should get a Mac. Because face it, sometimes Windows goes south, and when it does, would you rather revert to the Windows machine you had yesterday that was running fine, or would you rather troubleshoot Windows for a week and still not know what's wrong? Would you rather spend two minutes restoring yesterday's virtual machine or two hours driving to a geek squad?

If you don't need Windows apps, then you'll be much happier on a Mac. If you do need Windows apps, you'll still be much happier on a Mac, with Windows running as a virtual machine.

Meanwhile, just because you have one or two essential applications that are Windows only, that doesn't mean you should have to put up with Windows software for everything else you do, like email, web, calendar, address book, photos, music, documents and spreadsheets, etc. Use your Mac for everything you can, and use Windows only as much as you absolutely have to.

You have at least two good choices: Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion. Both work pretty well and have roughly the same features. For me VMWare has worked a little better and the little problems I've had to figure out haven't been as confusing on VMWare as they used to be on Parallels, but I've heard other people say the opposite.

If you want to try VMWare, I think this link will get you a discount. I'm not being paid for this blog post, but if enough people buy VMWare through this link, I get a $10 gift certificate to Amazon or something like that. But that's not why I'm posting it--I'm posting this because I think people with Macs get more done.

My tech support policy for family and friends? Mac: free, unlimited. Windows: you're on your own; next time get a Mac. So far my family and friends who have listened to me have sooner or later been glad they switched.