Hi!

[Trumgottist]

Hi, I'm new here. I haven't seen any introductions, so I hope I'm not breaking an unwritten rule with this post. I wanted to introduce myself before participating in any discussions. I've been lurking a while, but this is my first post in this forum.

My name is Rikard ("Trumgottist" has become the handle I use everywhere on the internet - I made it up at the time when I was only playing two instruments, so it's a combination of "trumpetare" and "fagottist" - it's weird, but the good thing about it is that it's unique), and I live in Stockholm, Sweden, where I teach wind instruments for a living. My main instrument is the bassoon, but the school where I work is small, so we only have two wind instrument teachers. One is a flutist (who also teach recorders), and the other is me, so I do what I can to keep improving my playing on all the instruments I teach (everything from oboe to tuba).

The first instrument I learned to play was the trumpet, but I had problems with the bottom range until I started playing trombone. I had trouble with the t-bone's bottom range until I started playing Eb-bass, and since I started playing BBb-bass I have no problems with the Eb. I'm still working on the low range of the BBb.

In my spare time, I play BBb in a british-style brass band. Unfortunately, I'm the only tuba player in that band at the moment, which makes it difficult to match all the cornets and t-bones. I've yet to buy my own tubas, so I'm playing on a Boosey and Hawkes Imperial owned by the band, and have also been trying the band's Yamaha YBB-321 a bit. I still find the Yamaha a bit unwieldy, but I'm thinking that trying to tame it is good practice.

That's enough for now - I don't want to start off here by posting an essay.

[elihellsten]

Tjena! Kul med lite fler svenskar här!

Vilket brassband spelar du i? Solna? Immanuel?

[Trumgottist]

As to your low register playing, I would guess then you will have some trouble on all brass instruments unless you change your mouthpiece position slightly.

Just to be clear, the BBb is the only brass where I still have some problems with the low register. My point was that each lower instrument that I've learned has helped with the playing of the smaller ones. I can play a low E on a tenor trombone as loud as the next person, and I'm comfortable at the bottom of an Eb-tuba. So I doubt it has to do with mouthpiece position (I'm always sceptical to things like that), and think it's simply a matter of practice getting the lips to vibrate that slowly.

Elihellsten: I play in Immanuel Brass. (It was our conductor who arranged the Eurovision winner for band btw. Last year he made an arrangement of the first part Shostakovitch's first cello concerto for cello and brass band that we played. That was unusual, and really fun to play.)

[elihellsten]

Allright. Joel is a great arranger and conductor, you should be happy to have him in Immanuel! Say hello to Jonathan (baritone) from Eli på tuba if you get the chance.

Ses på SM i höst!

[Trumgottist]

Say hello to Jonathan (baritone) from Eli på tuba if you get the chance.

Will do.

Ses på SM i höst!

We probably won't be going to the brass band championships this year.