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I would buy a good tuner and and a copy of the Tuning CD I believe it is called. The tuner will allow you to spot check, basically set the slides where they are best in tune, and find the intonation tendencies of your horn. The Tuning CD will train your ears to know what in tune sounds like. This may sound strange to some, but there are a LOT of people who honestly don't know what being truly in tune sounds like. The Tuning CD really helps out.

I found this article extremely useful: http://www.uni.edu/drfun/articles/tuning.html

For that matter I like all of Funderburk's articles. You can get there by going to the top row of links, choosing Library, then Musicians, and then going down the list to his excellent Web site. There's a wealth of information an all of the Musicians links.

Tuners are cheap, and easy to get. Pick one up. You'll have lots of time for your ears to get trained, but the first thing is to find out how your chops and horn are doing now.

First the tuning note. Don't look at the tuner (because you'll subconsiously adjust) and play the note. Then see what the tuner says. Move the tuning slide to adjust. Then start with tuning an octave and go through other notes, but use the valve slides of the valves you have down to make the adjustment instead of the tuning slide.

This will get you in the ballpark. As your chops and ears come back up to snuff, you'll want to review this every once in a while. Plus, you'll want to expand the range you tune. This will tell you if you need to make adjustments to your slides while playing. And use your ears; the more you use them, the more they'll tell you. Sometimes you need to play a little "out-of-tune" according to the tuner to sound in-tune. Listen!

As a starting point:

-buy a Korg TM-40 or any decent chromatic tuner
-warm up the horn

Assuming your horn is BBb:
-set your main slide so that the 4th partial Bb is in tune
-double check the other open partials, they should be close (it is common for the 6th partial F to be sharp)
-reset the main slide so that the majority of the open partials are in tune or close to in tune
-while holding down the 2nd valve, set the 2nd slide so the majority of notes (played with the 2nd valve alone) are about 5 cents flat
-while holding down the 1st valve, set the 1st slide so the majority of notes (played with the 1st valve alone) are about 5 cents flat
-the 12 combination should be in tune or perhaps 5 cents sharp

Setting the 3rd (and other additional valves) depends on your horn.

If 3 valve, set the 3rd slide so that the 13 combination is in tune. 23 will be flat, 123 will be sharp.

Hopefully that covers the basics. When playing with a group listen and adjust so you sound in tune regardless of what the tuner indicates.

Bob’s advise is good, as it approaches my own method of statistically founded basic tuning.

However fine tools tuners may be, I would still advise a few lessons with an experienced teacher. Not all tuning problems are related to the instrument, especially not a fairly good one like yours.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre

WoodSheddin wrote:I would buy a good tuner and and a copy of the Tuning CD I believe it is called. The tuner will allow you to spot check, basically set the slides where they are best in tune, and find the intonation tendencies of your horn. The Tuning CD will train your ears to know what in tune sounds like. This may sound strange to some, but there are a LOT of people who honestly don't know what being truly in tune sounds like. The Tuning CD really helps out.

I think the CD you are thinking of is from TuneUp systems here:

http://www.tuneupsystems.com/index.htm. Isn't this the one that Gene Pokorny recommended?

Lew wrote:

WoodSheddin wrote:I would buy a good tuner and and a copy of the Tuning CD I believe it is called. The tuner will allow you to spot check, basically set the slides where they are best in tune, and find the intonation tendencies of your horn. The Tuning CD will train your ears to know what in tune sounds like. This may sound strange to some, but there are a LOT of people who honestly don't know what being truly in tune sounds like. The Tuning CD really helps out.

I think the CD you are thinking of is from TuneUp systems here:

http://www.tuneupsystems.com/index.htm. Isn't this the one that Gene Pokorny recommended?

http://www.thetuningcd.com/

you wanna play in tune? start singing

The only difference I would make is if you have a tuba that the 1st slide is easy to manipulate, I'm not sure I would pre-pull the 1st slide to get 12 managable, and as a corollary I would pull 3 so that 23 is in tune or just a few cents flat since I could then take care of 13 and 123 with a slide pull, as I have done on my souzy.

This only goes to show that you need to learn all of the quirks to your horn so you know which modifications, lippings, pulls and alternate fingerings you need to be ready with depending on the circumstances.

If your 3301 is anything like my 3302...

Leave the 2nd valve slide pushed all the way in; it's inherently just a tad flat, just like nearly every other 2nd valve I've ever played. It's flat on purpose to try to get the 1-2 combination more in tune.

When you tune the 3rd and 4th valves, make some of the adjustment in the bottom slides. Expect the top 4th slide to need to be pulled an additional inch or so. I also usually have my 3rd upper slide pulled maybe half an inch.

The 1st valve slide, when you get comfortable with it, will be your "money" slide. Make sure that it moves easily & smoothly. C in the staff works best when about half an inch out, Eb (both in the staff and below) needs it pushed in, and the G and Ab need the slide pulled out at least a couple inches.

That being said... absolutely, definitely, learn more about tuning from some of the other resources already mentioned. Consider my post as merely a crash course on getting this horn fairly close to playing in tune.