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When did you start seriously practicing the tuba? Seriously meaning everyday for 1 hour or more. Also, when did you seriously start doing breathing exercises?

jbaylies wrote:When did you start seriously practicing the tuba? Seriously meaning everyday for 1 hour or more. Also, when did you seriously start doing breathing exercises?

I started seriously practicing about half way into my first year. I rode the school bus (my mother drove it at the time since we lived in the middle of nowhere--it saved us gas money), and people would heckle and make fun of me for lugging it around. At least I got to sit by myself on the bus .


I started doing breathing exercises seriously after spending the summer of 2003 with Pat and Sam. Before that I dinked around with it. I never really had a "flow" problem, so my first private lessons teacher and myself devoted the majority of time to other things.

I still think the biggest thing I "get" from the breathing exercises isn't improved breathing, but concentration. I use it now for performance anxiety and focus more than anything else.

I don't practice. I just play gigs.

Since about September 1963 when I was honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy.

Start now lol!

I started from the day I picked up the horn, the longer you wait the longer it will take

Exactly, thats what I did and it worked beautifully!

Tonight, it was about 8:15 PM.

Gigging used to be enough to keep my playing consistent but without time alone with my instrument there can be no real improvement.
I'm an old guy and my practice time has to count. I need to play enough to loosen up, relax and get a cook going and lay off enough to prevent zits due to practice. I'm an ear player in a trop-rock bar band. At my age I have to work harder to have chops enough to pound it out for four hours and remember that blatting too much makes more lip zits.
I am learning to keep my tuba volume around mezzo-forte (except when I just gotta blat) and let the 1,800 watt p.a. supply the volume to fill up the venue.

The late Maynard Ferguson used to say that his gigs and rehearsals were his practice. But the truth is that he practiced about an hour a day when he wasn't on the road or in some rehearsal. I think the amount of time I practice has a lot to do with what I have going on. Right now, since I have very little to do, I practice 1-2 hours a day (after work). Living in a high rise apartment in Ho Chi Minh City, you would think I'd get complaints but when I miss a day THEN the neighbors complain!

When I had my *** handed to me my freshman year of college at the ensemble placement audition. Good thing too... othewise I probably wouldn't have gotten my *** in gear.
Jim Langenberg

Once I started corps in 2003 (sophomore year of HS)
although for me an hour a day in't very serious, this past semester (sophomore year of college) i finally upped my time to three a day