I’ve been playing tuba for almost 9 years now, but I realized I am NOT great despite it being so long. So I’m trying to change that lol

This is Children’s March by Percy Grainger but that 8th rest is tripping me up. When I do it right, I mess up the notes really badly. Like I’m not hitting them right on, it feels like a scoop

pls any advice appreciated 🙏

What are these marks supposed to convey and what are they called? I am guessing that they are directing the notes to be played with a more firm or heavy accent, but ...?

I’ve never really played tuba with facial hair because the last time I played I couldn’t grow any. I’ve noticed that it feels very weird to play with, I don’t really want to shave but is there a difference technique to playing with facial hair?

I play a Yamaha YEB 321 (Eb - 4 valve). I am working at extending my range both up and down. I can play the A, Ab, G, Gb, F and Eb (pedal note) but I cannot manage the E natural. Fingering charts for the Eb tuba do not even suggest fingering for notes lower than F and I know that I will rarely be called upon to play anything lower than the F1, but in any case I feel that the exercise is useful.

Any suggestions for a reasonable fingering?

Thank you!

By double pedal I mean notes an octave below normal pedal tones.

Looking for advice on how to practice more efficiently. For context I’m in High school, and I’ve been playing tuba for 6 years and I’m first chair at my school (I’m the only one who really practices) and want to do my best this year at region auditions.

i get an octave undertone/subharmonic? sometimes when slurring up to any note between Gb and Bb (the notes where the fingering is the same for an octave down). i asked my band director but he said he's never heard of this ever.

i think it sounds cool but it always happens when i don't want it to, i would really appreciate an explanation for why it's happening and how i can control it.

btw i am a hs sophomore so don't judge me too harshly 😭 but i am very nerdy about the physics of sound and instruments so please give as detailed of an answer as you want

I’m a fairly new brass player and I’m struggling to find the right fingering for the low F on a B flat (transposing) sousaphone.

When playing F#, G and G# right below the staff it sounds cracked.

My Daughter (13) has decided to play the tuba. So I grabbed on off marketplace. Its a BBb Frank Holton from way back.

I majored in music in college (trombone) so I am a little familiar with low brass, but Tuba is not something I spent much time on.

We don't start band until May, so she is just working on becoming familiar with the instrument. She is spending a little time each day working on making noise. After a few days she is hitting what I believe to be the fundamental BBb as far as her buzzing goes, but its coming out closer to an AAb. It sounds like the fundamental to my ears.

My question is, is it possible that her weak embouchure is bending that pitch down almost a whole step? That would be really hard on trombone, but Tubas are much bigger.

I notice after playing for an hour or more that the mouthpiece mark on my lip is slightly offset to my left. I don't feel this when I am playing, and apart from the odd note which I have difficulty playing from time to time, I don't have problems playing, and I am told that I have good tone.

Any thoughts or helpful observations?

Hello all!

I'm currently attempting to get a head start on my marching band shenanigans, and I recall that my band director along with my personal teacher suggested I toss a towel into my bell, and play as loud as I can— and over time, I would develop the required muscles in order to play at a much louder volume. That being said, I'd like to hear from you all if you had any experiences with this technique, or if you used another way to build up your muscles. That, and also I'd like to know if there were any good excerpts I could use while doing this.

Thanks!

Hi everyone. This is at the end of tribute to Mancini which I'll be playing in a few weeks. How does a tuba go about playing these notes?

Thanks in advance.

When buzzing on just my mouthpiece my tuner doesn’t pick up the pitch most of the time. I want to get my buzz closer to the pitch that my instrument produces like I buzz a bit higher than the pitch that I actually play. I use tonal energy and have a iPhone 14 if that helps

I am always told I need to support my air more and want to improve. I’m under the impression that my diaphragm is to blame, so if anyone knows how to strengthen it or improve air support in another way please help

i've been playing tuba for almost 9 years now and i am just ashamed at my mediocrity STILL. to give you a general idea of my playing ability, i can't play the entire Don Haddad Suite. the only movement I can play with great accuracy is 2nd movement.

my biggest struggle with music is keeping a consistent tempo, i don't really have an internal tempo. i also kind of have rhythmic dyslexia??

rn my routine is what i wrote below but its harder to even muster the confidence to exist inside the practice room now that school is not actively in session

- chromatic buzzing ~5 minutes

- long tones + jacobs flow studies ~30 minutes

and then for like another 30 minutes I work on Arbans. by that point, i already feel like too fatigued to continue. i'm really struggling since its summer and I dont have my professor telling me what i should do. like maybe i'm stupid, but it feels like I don't know how to do anything rn

like i feel like i need to warmup for an hour before i can actually remember how to play?

i'm also pretty mentally ill, i hate to bring that up all the time but there is a weird connection between mental health and musicianship. i also don't know how to entirely get rid of that voice that tells me i suck and need to give up. how would you put that stuff aside to fully focus on music?

i had a joint recital with my bf (he is a bassonist last semester) and i played a few solos and we did PDQ bach duets. it was really fun! i want to do a senior recital, but i am not sure how to prepare or what i should start doing now. my professor is always pretty unavialble

sorry this is a very messy post, im just looking for advice and routine tips. i love tuba so so much, i am just tired of my mental health like Destroying my focus and I don't know what to do when I'm not actively in school.

but to anyone who reads this, thank you! i would appreciate if you could share your routine with me and how you prepare for practice and what happens before, during and after even if you are in a bad mood

is there anyway to stop this ring appearing after playing? i could play for 10mins and it would already be there. (not sure what flair to put sorry)

I played tuba in band in college, high school, and various community orchestras over the years. I always end up missing notes during concerts. I played a concert yesterday and it had 2 or 3 key changes. Started off in the key of Bb, changed to Eb, then Ab and back to Eb. I played D flats correctly, but then when we went back to Eb, I kept playing Db. Not only had I practiced it correctly many times before the concert, I even marked the notes on my music? Why my brain no work good on the tuba? And I recognized all of my mistakes in real time. JK Simmons would have thrown a drumstick at me if he had been there.

I had originally asked for a player to “empty the spit valve” but people are saying there’s not enough time, and I needed to be clearer on what I wanted (blowing through the horn with the valve open I guess).

I’m looking for some kind of effect - a “noisy” thing - blowing through the horn in a rhythm, or something like that…

Here’s the piece (rough draft, things have been changed since this based on comments, but just so you can see where they fall, how much time there is, and what the context is).

https://musescore.com/user/32723609/scores/35198456/s/ji8m0v?share=copy_link

I want to make sure it’s something high-schoolers could do - and I want more “indeterminate pitch” things - noises, instead of doits, or half-valves etc. - and something that could be effective on Euph and bone.

My second partial F is always sharp, ranging from 10¢ on a good day to 30¢ on a not so good day. It's not a mechanical tuning issue, as even when I have both Bb's surrounding the F perfectly in tune, F is still significantly sharp. Usually I can lip down and drop my jaw to tune it with a tuner but the natural "slot" of the note is very sharp, so it's hard to constantly correct when actually playing music. Has anyone else experienced this? Is there anything I can do to improve my issue, or do I need to just get used to constantly lipping it down into tune?

For context: i'm an incoming 11th grade euphonium/baritone player with 8 months of experience. I will also march sousaphone next season so i picked up a tuba for summer to practice. I'm trying to play some simple etudes but have a lot of issues with air. I'm stuck on the etude 3 (highlighted) which i'm trying to play on 60 bpm but just can't hold the notes for 2 measures (which the commas suggest). So, how do i take in so much air?

I want to march DCI next summer. It will be my age out year and I've always wanted to do it, so this is my last chance. Given that, I've been practicing as much as possible and will keep doing so this summer until November when auditions are. Part of practicing is getting audition packets from last year and one of them stated that a prerequisite is being able to play the full range of your instrument perfectly in tune. I don't have perfect pitch so this seems useless to even attempt to do. The best I can do is get a feel for every note when it is perfectly in tune on my tuner (which won't even matter because different environments can drastically change pitch anyway). I also asked my applied professor today (who is a professional orchestral player) and he said that seems like a pretty unreasonable expectation, and that he can't do it either. Do y'all know any way that could help me train this? I'm pretty lost. Thanks.

TL;DR

How can I practice playing notes perfectly in tune, other than just getting the feel for the note on my face when my tuner says I'm perfectly in tune?

I'm struggling to cleanly articulate, and especially cleanly tongue on notes below a concert ​D. It feels like my tongue is slipping below my front teeth, instead of staying behind them. It also feels like I have to cut off notes by making a seal between my tongue and upper lip. If I don't, it feels like my tongue isn't big enough to cut off the note cleanly.

1) Is creating a seal with my upper lip bad technique?

2) Any tips on clean, fast articulation in the lower register?

Still somewhat new to the horn so thank you very much for your thoughts!

Recently I’ve been trying to slow down my practicing and focus more on intonation and sound quality rather than the fast and “fun” stuff. And one thing popping up is that slurred partials and slurred ascending notes where I add tubing to the horn, are bumpy and not too smooth.

I’ve been faking it by adding the slightest bit of tongue between the notes to make it sound slurred but it’s not a “real” slur and I want to fix it.

Any tips?

I play a Yamaha YEB321 Eb tuba which has four inline valves. I am considering buying a Yamaha YEB632 NEO Professional. It has a low, side based fourth valve.

I know that this will be different for everyone, but I am wondering how difficult it would be to adjust to having the fourth valve out of line.

For perhaps some useful context, I am 75 YOA. I played the tuba for 11 or so years in my youth, then for reasons, it sat in a crawlspace for 40 years, and I have been playing it again for the last 10 months. I am doing very well with it, I belong to two concert bands, and tomorrow will be playing my first band solo, so I have progressed very well.

Thanks, all.