Flyaway fingers

[Carroll]

While your problem is not unique, it is a difficult one to fix. You must train (actually retratin) your fingers to stay put. The ONLY way to do this is slow, consistent practice. When you play long tones... concentrate on finger position. when you play slow legato scales... concentrate on finger position, when you play simple exercises... concentrate on finger position, when you are in band and playing easy parts... concentrate on finger position. Then when you have faster, technical things to play - muscle memory will take over and your fingers will be where they need to be. It will take more time to fix than it did to learn to play with sloppy finger position, but it will payoff.
Make it your quest. You will succeed.

[dtemp]

Game:

Put quarters between your fingers and the valve caps, then play something. If the quarters drop, you lose.

Two weeks of that should help.

I don't have the balls to do it, but I've heard it works.

[iiipopes]

Yes, this one is difficult. You will have to start from scratch, reviewing the fundamental way you hold your tuba, to make sure everything is truly at rest and not strained when you are "at rest," meaning relaxed forearm and wrist that is not pronated or flexed, fingers slightly curved and relaxed, and the "buttons" of your fingers, not the tips nor the flats, are lightly touching the pearls.

If there is anything even slightly out of alignment or tense, now is the time to correct it. For me, my elbow was out too far, causing a slight pronation sideways of my wrist. The solution for me on my BBb 3-valve was to bring the receiver in at a little closer angle to the bell, then tip it up slightly to match my slight overbite. Everything then perfectly relaxed.

Getting excited as you play is normal. Unfortunately, this can translate into tension in the fingers and wrists. This may be what is happening to you. With the tension, as you release the valve button, the muscles in the tops of your fingers have been tense and they want to straighten out your fingers as the muscles which controlled your fingers pressing the valves relax. Please advise if after a session, rehearsal or concert if your right hand feels really tired or even tense. If you're not sure, concentrate on it. Then as you become aware, try to imaging the muscles in your hand as the exact opposite of the springs: exerting energy and transferring it to the spring when pressing, and relaxing as the spring expends its energy returning the valve up. I don't want to sound like the "Zen Budda of Valves," but there is a mechanical linkage between your wrist, fingers, the valves and springs that does have to work together to be efficient.

I respectfully disagree with the "quarters" treatment, as that will only add stress and tension on the upstroke, which is what you are trying to get rid of in the first place.

Personally, I have to be aware of somewhat the opposite: I tend to press the valves too slowly, (laziness from too many marches on "1" and "3") creating a bit of a blur that manifested itself as a big burble when water got into my comp loops, and only bloke was able to figure it out for me.

Good luck!

[Arkietuba]

I don't think that this "problem" is as serious as you think. Many professionals do the same thing. Oystein Baadsvik takes his entire hand away from the tuba on occasions. But, if it is as serious as you think, my instructor put pennies between the fingers and caps of another player here.

[dwerden]

When I was in college we had trumpet player Robert Nagle as guest artist (founding member of N.Y. Brass Quintet). One of the things that blew me away was that his fingertips never left the valve caps. His hand looked like a machine (a very relaxed machine). So I started working on that myself.

You could employ my very favorite practice technique. During "boring" or really simple parts in your band/orchestra rehearsals, work on the finger placement. You will gradually be able to focus on that during harder passages, such as moderate-tempo scales. I would not start by practicing hard passages and trying to keep you fingers in place. I think that will cause you to do unnatural things to make your fingers do what you want and bad habits will result. As said above, slow and steady is the way.

[Carroll]

During "boring" or really simple parts in your band/orchestra rehearsals, work on the finger placement....As said above, slow and steady is the way.

I knew I liked you, Dave Werden, for some reason!

[Casey Tucker]

this is something that i've had trouble with and have two different solutions.
1.) try making up your own fingering pattern that causes you to think about what you're doing. i always use one that goes 4,2,3,1 and i repeat until im calm enough to keep my fingers touching the pearls at the desired speed. then work in your 5th (if ya got it [4,2,3,1,3,5 and repeat]).
2.) i recently had a lesson w/ David Kirk and he said it was because i lacked the fundamentals keeping calm. he said that my hand was a direct representation of how calm i was while playing. he had me play the calmest, most open C that i could make while keeping my entire body calm. he said by letting my fingers do that i was allowing tension and stress to creep into my body.
basically, just keep calm and think about what your hand is doing and the problem (with time) will dissapate.
also a previous post suggested using quarters and that is a FANTASTIC idea. kinda like the penny routine.
cheers!

-casey

[iiipopes]

With all due respect to O. B., he could probably use a little help on the valves as well. I am reminded of people who would describe a Maurice Andre concert as him looking so effortless, which actually meant he had such complete control over every aspect of his playing, so as not to waste a single movement. This is not to be confused with lack of showmanship, which is a totally different aspect altogether.