What have you been doing with more free tuba time?

[roweenie]

- just finished up a 5th valve on my current project horn

- spending more time on low register exercises

- started reloading cartridges for my Webley Mk VI (.455) and my Springfield 1903 (30.06) (not tuba related, but now I've got some time for it )

[vespa50sp]

I'm old and retired so all my projects take twice as long, because they can. I installed a new washer and dryer, cleaned the garage and will start picking away at cutting brush and BURNING IT.

Fire good.

[bort]

I am:
* Waking up early to do work
* Working and trying to care for my kids during the day... Which is complete chaos (they are 2 and 4)
* Staying up late to finish my 8 hours of work for the day

It's chaos. It's tough. But it sort of works.

One upshot ... The kids keep things light and funny around here, at least when they aren't hitting each other and taking their toys from each other. In their eyes, it's as if nothing is going on, just no school for a while.

[bort]

Oh, and I've barely touched the tuba.

Tuba plus kid chaos... Not a good combo

[GC]

I'm taking a break from the horn and growing my beard back out (I can't play with a moustache). But whenever my set of MeadSprings is finally delivered from England, it'll be time lose the beard, quit making excuses, and practice.

[basslizard]

Last week my youngest begged to drive the 80 miles to town because the full set of replacement heads for his trap set were in. Since it was a Saturday, I took my Eb tuba with me just to see if the brass repair guy might want to help me out by pulling the stuck slides. As much as I love playing it, the stuck slides mean it's impossible to dump out all the extra water from playing, apart from the inability to tune it. After all the pooh-poohing of my other barn-find vintage instruments over the last couple of years, you'd have thought I'd brought him the Ark of the Covenant. His eyes lit up, he started talking about the braces, the slides, rounding out the bell, patching the perforation, finding matching buttons for the valve stems, giving her a proper flush (This is the same guy who said he couldn't do that to my Jupiter Bb.). And then said he'd have it all done in a week.

I'm now under quarantine because I ran a fever and had a cough over the last several days. (I'm better now) Maybe my husband can go pick it up. I might prepay over the phone so he doesn't see the price? No, they'll attach an invoice.. It's only $600, right? Right? Now, that was his worst-case scenario quote, but I've been working on that tuba for months... And the city the tuba's in is under a 'close all non-essential business' order, so I'm probably borrowing trouble.

[toobagrowl]

Sleeping a lot more, which I like to do anyway. Visiting various websites. And I've "practiced" (more
like maintaining chops) on sousaphone about 3 times over the last few weeks. The first 2 times it was on the Selmer Signet; this last time - this evening - was on the Conn 14k. The 14k is a little louder/more projecting in sound, and has a slightly more free-blowing response in comparison to the Signet. But both are similar and more alike in playing qualities than not. I just find it more fun to leisurely practice/fool around on sousa than tuba for some reason It helps that I have a large 'studio' room with 10-foot ceiling downstairs.

I'm a band director, so we are working out this whole distance learning thing. I'm getting a little practice time in between a mass of emails!

How's Pauvog's dog doing?

[SmartFellerAl]

I did this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcnyDnU ... et="_blank

More to come. I'm trying to arrange tuba quartets that are for four contrabass tubas. Definitely some challenges there.

[SmartFellerAl]

I like your username, Al...

...Just mind your p̶'̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶q̶'̶s̶ sm's and f's

One of my bands is called The Smart Fellers. I wanted to call it The Pleasant Valley Pheasant Pluckers, but then figured that might be a bad idea.


New Quarantuba video out: https://youtu.be/ie29H91q9jg

[jperry1466]

Finally getting back in the saddle again. After a fall backstage at a late November concert, I had to have reconstructive rotator cuff surgery on my right shoulder in January. It was so torn up that the doc (one of my former student trombone players) said he had to graft several pieces of bovine tissue into it. After 11 weeks of physical therapy, it has just now turned a corner and is getting better. I was able to carefully pick up and play my CC tonight. Wasn't too pretty, but found that my chops were still mostly intact. It's awfully nice to be right-handed again after 3 months. One of our guys is tech-enabled and wants our amateur tuba ensemble to make a remote recording together. Should be fun, and there is certainly no hurry at the moment.

To all you lefties out there, I have a profound new respect for you. It truly is a right-handed world out there.