extra low range excersises

[TUBAMUSICIAN87]

I am having the same problem right now, and working on Ride of the Valkuries and Das Reingold (spelling?) is quite frustrating. I wouldnt focus so much on the equipment to help solve the problem. What it sounds like is to just focus on a clear TOH articulation with a large oral cavity and lots and lots of warm air. A great excersice that I have been neglecting is the Arban interval excersices slow with an eighth note pulse and as loud and crisp as you can make every note. If you dont have the Arban you might want to invest in one or get a photocopy from a freind who has one or here is a brief explination, start on Sol (lets say low F), next note, up a fourth to Do(Bb) back down to Sol(F) Re(C) Sol(F) Mi(D) and so on up and down the major scale. You know your doing it right if you feel you are going to pass out.

[Roger Lewis]

range is a trick - a gimmick - it's not hard. Look at the physics. As Alan Baer would say, you need to get INTO the mouthpiece. Push that lower lip into the mouthpiece and pucker the upper lip out so that you are on SOFT tissue on both lips. You will find that low range playing is quite easy this way. Your air stream should be going forward and only move to slightly up as you get below the Pedal C.

I presume that the upper lip is doing the vibrating? If not, then that is your problem and it will produce a nasty sound no matter how much you work at it. You can check this by buzzing air at you hand. If you have to raise your hand above the embouchure when buzzing a mid range note, then the lower lip is vibrating against the upper and needs to be reversed.

Also - get rid of any facial hair that you might have around the embouchure - no mustaches or other funky stuff - it takes up room inside the mouthpiece. It will inhibit the upper lip from being able to vibrate on a wider arc which it will need to do for slow vibration - i.e. low range.

Realize that the lower lip controls the speed of the upper lip's movement. If the lower lip is set soft then the upper lip HAS to vibrate slowly. If the lower lip is firm then the upper lip has to vibrate fast. The upper lip is the worker, but the lower lip is the BOSS. The upper lip can only do what the lower lip ALLOWS it to do.

Okay, I'm done now.

Oh, and get a bigger damn mouthpiece and work to get your sound on it. The 7B while do-able, is not really conducive to ease of play in the low register.

Roger

[pwhitaker]

Play the Bach Cello suites (1 - 5 ::: 6 uses tenor clef) down an octave. That's an excellent low and mid-low exerciser.

[eupher61]

Gene Pokorny makes a good point, to add onto the other great ideas.

You need an overlap range. The embouchure for pedal tones and "regular" low range has to be different, but if you have a several note overlap (at least a 3rd, but I think Gene's is about an octave!) where you can play the same pitch with either embouchure you will have that much easier a time shifting between the two.

As if it ain't complicated enough...

[MileMarkerZero]

Open a hymnal, any page will do. Play the bass line you see down an octave, 2 octaves whenever possible. Do a hymn a day until you burn through the book.

Advantages: the hymns aren't very long so you can get through one without passing out. Even the most challenging of the hymns aren't terribly difficult. There are a bazillion of them, so you don't see the same thing day after day.

Not having to think much about rhythm or tempo and simply focus on the sound is a great way of getting your low register really cooking. Once you get it sounding like you want it, move on to things where rhythm and tempo are important.

Also...agree that 7B is too small for most people to really get that big meaty low end. You asked if your upper range would suffer from a bigger mouthpiece. Don't worry about it. You will do a far higher % of playing in the low register than in the high register. If you need to use your pea-shooter for a high piece, use it. Moses didn't come down from the mountain sayin' "Thou Shalt Use One Mouthpiece Exclusively For All Applications."

[keronarts]

What Roger and Sean said above --- along with the Bach Cello Suites, and some other goodies like that. If you can get down there on the Bach, and REALLY be convincing to yourself and perhaps a good critical audience, you're also REALLY cutting into problems and pitfalls in that register. Pick something as delicate as the Bach and really squeeze the music out of it in that low register -- probably an octave below written -- and the development down there might be astounding.