Playing Tuba / Euphonium (or any instrument!) and Emotions

[MartyNeilan]

While I definitely find it possible to get "excess energy" out while playing a brass instrument, I believe it is nearly phyically impossible to play properly if one is very angry and tense - unless you would consider blatting (and blatting out of tune) playing the instrument.

I personally find I achieve my best sound by far in a worship setting; where every note is played for the glory of the Lord. My mind and body are relaxed and I am focused on One objective. Even while attending a Christian school, I believe I played better when touring churches in a Symphonic band than playing secular music in a wind ensemble or jazz ensemble. Even within the last few weeks (when my schedule has rarely allowed) I have found that my playing was a step above in a church orchestra than a local (and excellent) community band.

[corbasse]

.... My mind and body are relaxed and I am focused on One objective....

That's the holy grail of excelent playing in one very nice sentence...
The art is to always recreate that mindset whenever you're playing. Being too emotional can actually hamper more than help.

[MikeMason]

imagine the best "out of body",sound just like your tuba hero ,playing you've ever done.i guess we have all had short spurts where we really sounded better than we are. well, the reason every note you play is not ALWAYS that good,i submit, is all psychological.if you can do it once, there is no logical reason why you couldn't be that good all the time.so,if the reasons aren't logical ,they must be psychological or emotional. i submit: 10% physical,90% psycho/emotional,assuming a decent level of technical proficiency.

[windshieldbug]

Music is communication;

Getting the chops is just step 1.
If you've got the chops, what you need to decide what it is you're trying to communicate.

For many things, that can be very basic.
But at the highest levels, it can be sublime.

[Donn]

Not to get too far into my crank persona, but ... strictly speaking, emotions are an affliction. I mean, we all experience emotions incidental to the circumstances of life, but, like, it's natural to be short of breath after you run up several flights of stairs, but short of breath on its own is a symptom of respiratory disease, and likewise persistent emotions are unhealthy.

On the other hand, if I may draw a distinction between emotion and feeling, feelings are a regular essential ingredient, without which life would be pointless. People with an artistic bent must be moved by feelings of a particularly complex and exquisite character, can't imagine it would be otherwise, but the witless melodramatic fantasy of emotions is something to deal with, not cultivate or use as a source of inspiration. That's my opinion.

[ArnoldGottlieb]

Wow, a post I can dig without absolutely agreeing or disagreeing. Nice questions TLL, and nice points everybody else. We are often our own worst critics, and "beating ourselves up" is an easier solution than one might think, although longterm the consequences are ugly. It's a simple answer though, 'Love Yourself' everybody got it, okay great! Next question! ......How does one get there? I've used a bunch of ways but the one I use most is visualization, and the best book for me on how to do it is by Shakti Gawain, called ironically "Creative Visualization". I have no doubt for myself that what we create in our mind becomes reality, so therefore saying "I suck, I suck I suck" many times over again out loud or in our minds will only prove our point. Changing the programing is not easy but keeping the old programing is harder.
Now, feelings or emotions are different but I think we are mostly speaking of the same things here. I, like everybody else in the world have things happening althrough the day, I might step in dog crap or find 20 bucks on the street, maybe I'm tired or maybe I'm happy, who knows? There are 2 situations for me playing wise and this is how I deal with them. First, if I'm playing a gig that is commercial in nature (say, a broadway show), I will rely on everything my teachers taught me, breath a lot, try to remember which side of the beat a conductor likes and do my job overall. What's the word here; JOB, and I'm not talking bible stuff here, satisfying a client has nothing to do with how I feel. My other situation is this; Playing jazz with my friends or practicing, and in those I can do a whole lot of things. I'm not especially into playing written music to practice and not especially into learning tuba literature, so that means I have other things I like. One thing I really like are the bach 'Cello suites. I can play the first 12 measures happy, sad, funny, or any number of ways and I do this often. I can sit down and play a really sad slow blues and by the time I'm done, I feel great. I'm not suggesting that any of my playing would sound good or bad or anything specifis to anybody but myself. I hope to create feelings in the listener, so I must nurture them in myself. Anyway, I hope I'm not being longwinded (which is always a hopeless hope for me), and I hope that we can all feel the joy, and until then I'm hoping we can all feel something. Peace. ASG