playing softly

[djwesp]

I LOVE IT when tubenet topics coincide with what is going on in my playing regime.

Honestly, I have been a WEAK soft player. It has never quite been my forte (no pun intended), but I have spent the last two weeks focusing greatly upon it. I have sat down and really hit the Roger Bobo breath control exercises (you know, the clarkish/arbanish ones), that are done on one breath, as slow as possible, as softly as possible with no bubble in the slurs.

The things that just two weeks of working on these have done to my playing, are GREAT. It has helped my confidence at the lower dynamics, made my embouchure more efficient, helped me with breathing, helped with relaxation... it really has made me realize how much of a meathead player I can be.

I'm no virtuoso, but I know that a two week focus on soft playing has helped me leaps and bounds!

As Americans, we focus on bigger, faster, louder, higher... these things that have made us a great country, have led to instilling a lack of tact in immature musicians like myself. Our stereotypical mindset on life has matriculated into the playing of the tuba.

[mclaugh]

In school, Don Little had some of us working on very soft attacks and very soft control by starting out a tone with air only and practicing starting the tone niente and with no attack at all. Start with air and try to start the tone from zero, from nothing. Most players will have a sound that suddenly, unexpectedly pops out from the air into being and that is very noticeable. Starting the tone from air is very tricky and requires a lot of what bloke is describing - absolute relaxation. You must have a very secure buzz and tonal concept and you must absolutely hear the correct pitch in your head and be set to reproduce that pitch exactly. Bring it up to about mf and then fade back out to niente. It must not wobble or waver in any way or you must start over. It is very frustrating. It will always be a bit frustrating. But with work you will master (sort of) the trick of very soft entrances and fade outs.

Hmm ... something like this?

[Bob Sadler]

Dr Sloan,
I have found the exercises in Roger Bobo's Mastering the Tuba to provide all the secrets to soft playing and to dynamic range expansion in general. The "basic warm up" section of long and tongued tones includes several dynamic flexibility exercises that have really changed the way I think/play and made me realize the integration between wind (in and out) and embouchure. Move on to the breath control exercises and even more "secrets" are revealed. The text in the book is excellent both from a technical and inspirational point of view and in every single exercise he is explicit on where to breathe which I find has really opened my eyes to playing the tuba musically (as opposed to the page after page of noodling exercises that most books contain). This may be heresy but, in my opinion, diligent application of Arnold Jacobs' philosophies to playing the exercises in Roger Bobo's book is the true path to tuba enlightenment.

Edit to answer the actual questions: I practice dynamics every day, my experience has been that I have more control over the sound of a group by being able to play softly with good sound and pitch than I could ever have by playing loudly. There are probably too many "community" tuba players who think/do the complete opposit of this.

Regards,

Bob Sadler

[Rick Denney]

Edit to answer the actual questions: I practice dynamics every day, my experience has been that I have more control over the sound of a group by being able to play softly with good sound and pitch than I could ever have by playing loudly. There are probably too many "community" tuba players who think/do the complete opposite of this.

Truer words ne'er spake.

The problem is that it only takes one low-brass player to completely undermine the musical things attempted by other players, if that player does not embrace the "do no harm" policy. Playing mf when the dynamic is p or pp is doing harm, and the guy who can actually play piano might as well pack up his tuba and go home at that point.

The lesser players often render the better players powerless to explore their additional abilities in support of the musical goals of the group. As one who has usually been the lesser player, this has been an important principle for me.

Even when we do play loudly, I'd rather do my best to keep the tone focused and clear. I don't mind a little edge, but I can't stand it when my sound spreads. My experience is that the tubas are often asked to balance a band that is already playing two dynamic levels beyond its abilities. One reason they do is because their quiet bits aren't quiet enough. Some of that could be helped by reducing the numbers for the quiet bits (especially where the music requests it), but I don't know many community band tuba players who can attach any useful meaning to "one player". Again, the better players are the ones who are usually put in the position of laying out to try to minimize the damage to the overall sound of the group.

The problem in community bands is not methods for playing softly. It's commitment to and understanding of the musical product of the ensemble.

Rick "whose conductor asks for less volume 1000 times for every time he asks for more" Denney

[Todd S. Malicoate]

The problem getting a community band to play soft rests, in my experiences, with the guy on the podium. How many of you have heard this one before...

"If you can't hear the oboe soloist, you're playing too loud."

What a banal attempt at a solution that doesn't cut to the problem at all...the one or two people that can't be "bothered" to cut their volume or lay out altogether. What if you're not playing at all and can't "hear" the oboe soloist? Sheesh...

[TubaRay]

The problem is that it only takes one low-brass player to completely undermine the musical things attempted by other players, if that player does not embrace the "do no harm" policy. Playing mf when the dynamic is p or pp is doing harm, and the guy who can actually play piano might as well pack up his tuba and go home at that point.

AMEN!!! I've been there many times.

The lesser players often render the better players powerless to explore their additional abilities in support of the musical goals of the group.

Yep!

Some of that could be helped by reducing the numbers for the quiet bits (especially where the music requests it), but I don't know many community band tuba players who can attach any useful meaning to "one player". Again, the better players are the ones who are usually put in the position of laying out to try to minimize the damage to the overall sound of the group.

Unfortunately, this is also true.

The problem in community bands is not methods for playing softly. It's commitment to and understanding of the musical product of the ensemble.

Right, again!

Rick, I see you are making certain we all know why you are the "Resident Genius."

[The Jackson]

As principal tubist in my high school's top band, I spend no time practicing playing softly. When I do play softly, my section gets yelled at for not playing. Although I sometimes enjoy playing the same pitch as the air conditioner really softly when no one's supposed to be playing--no one ever notices.

The point is to be to be able to effectively play softly when you have to. If all I did was play in the youth orchestra, I would be the same way, but I like playing in the quintet and practicing solo literature because that makes me have to sound great playing softly. Like Jacobs said, we have to create the challenge for ourselves because what we do on stage probably won't bring it up.

[mclaugh]

There is far too much in that thread for me to read all of it and figure out exactly where you are drawing a comparison. If you mean just Caruso in general, then NO. I have done his book. It is a method. I am speaking of a single exercise that is helpful for this and not an entire mindset as in the Caruso method.

Or are you speaking about my quintet workout that I shared? That was more of a contest, an anti Higher, Faster, Louder thing…

Be specific, please. This is not Caruso. Try it. It is much less developed and basic. And it works quite well. I do this a lot prior to performing Tchaik 6.

This:

Low pppppp breath attacks…actually, he used breath attacks on fairly quiet notes all throughout the middle and low registers, but if you were able to do this particular exercise, it was the most effective version of them...went like this.

On a low E (or any note in the 2nd partial if the E didn't work), start blowing just a very small amount of air into the horn and then try to sneak into sounding the note at the absolute quietest dynamic you can manage. A whisper, a HINT of a note, maybe one only you can hear or feel. Play it until you run out of air and repeat a bunch of times.

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When you got good at this, then [Caruso]'d say "OK, now do the breath attack WITHOUT any air before it. Don't sneak up on it; just play it in good time."

[TubaRay]

I guess that's what I'll be doing for two and a half weeks.

Two and a half weeks?

[pgym]

Elephant,

I don't know why you're hung up on Caruso or why you're so dead certain Mclaugh has some hidden agenda, but leave Caruso out of it and look at the exercise described in Mclaugh's post. Caruso has absolutley NOTHING to do with it, except that he's the person who Sam Burtis says he learned the exercise he describes from.

Here's the exercise you described:

In school, Don Little had some of us working on very soft attacks and very soft control by starting out a tone with air only and practicing starting the tone niente and with no attack at all. Start with air and try to start the tone from zero, from nothing. Most players will have a sound that suddenly, unexpectedly pops out from the air into being and that is very noticeable. Starting the tone from air is very tricky and requires a lot of what bloke is describing - absolute relaxation. You must have a very secure buzz and tonal concept and you must absolutely hear the correct pitch in your head and be set to reproduce that pitch exactly. Bring it up to about mf and then fade back out to niente. It must not wobble or waver in any way or you must start over. It is very frustrating. It will always be a bit frustrating. But with work you will master (sort of) the trick of very soft entrances and fade outs.

Here's the exercise described in Mclaugh's post:

Low pppppp breath attacks…actually, he used breath attacks on fairly quiet notes all throughout the middle and low registers, but if you were able to do this particular exercise, it was the most effective version of them...went like this.

On a low E (or any note in the 2nd partial if the E didn't work), start blowing just a very small amount of air into the horn and then try to sneak into sounding the note at the absolute quietest dynamic you can manage. A whisper, a HINT of a note, maybe one only you can hear or feel. Play it until you run out of air and repeat a bunch of times. ...

When you got good at this, then ... do the breath attack WITHOUT any air before it. Don't sneak up on it; just play it in good time.

Soft attacks and control at soft dynamics ... start with air and ease into the note ... practice diligently until you master the trick ....

Are there differences? Sure: yours emphasizes the release as well as the attack, while Sam's focuses specifically on the attack; but both employ a similar technique to learning soft attacks and control at soft dynamics.