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OK, I am going to stick my neck out here by offering a personal opinion which may not be shared by other tubists.
First, buzzing is better than not practicing at all. But buzzing the mouthpiece is very different (in terms of resistance and feedback) from playing a tuba. I used to do a lot of buzzing, but I don't anymore because I suspect that improving my buzzing technique will not necessarily make me a better tuba player. I know guys who can buzz a melody with lips alone, no mouthpiece at all! I can't do that, but I can get a better sound on my tuba than they can. Perhaps they are developing the wrong muscles?
Buzzing is definitely helpful for weak players who are having trouble hitting a certain note. I get them to buzz it and then they can play it. But I don't think it should be a major part of a practice routine.

Yay

Art Hovey wrote:Buzzing is definitely helpful for weak players who are having trouble hitting a certain note. I get them to buzz it and then they can play it. But I don't think it should be a major part of a practice routine.

I have found that I can help just about any student sound better in a very short amount of time. After playing a phrase on the horn one or more times, we buzz it. Sometimes once through is enough, but more often we repeat the phrase on the mouthpiece. Keeping the airflow going with no dips between notes is one of the things we strive for.

One of the best exercises is just to "SMEAR the heck out of a phrase" making it really sloppy. This really helps legato phrasing. When the student puts the mouthpiece back in the horn, the phrase comes to life! The sound is more resonant, and the flow is just better.

I have a spiel where I tell the student to "buzz the melody like they are trying to get the attention of a hot chick standing near the door." After a couple of attempts they go through a couple of stages: "she looks in your direction and wonders what you are doing" or "man, she is coming over!" When you ask for her number, her reply is "I don't date brass players."

For me, too much buzzing tears up my chops. In small doses, it really helps in refining a musical passage.

An even better exercise than buzzing is what I call "whisper tonguing." In this exercise, you blow air through your chops while articulating rhythms with your tongue. No horn, no mouthpiece, only air. This really gets your air going and helps your sound. Again, just about any student will sound better after 30 seconds of whisper tonguing. Students who are learning to multiple tongue should walk around whisper tonguing all day. In the shower, on the bus, in the back of a history class. In one week a student can go from single tongue to a good double or triple tongue.

Final shot: Use whisper tonguing and buzzing for a quick-fix, wow-effect trick on the teaching portion of a job interview.

Arnold Jacobs buzzes a bit on the Portrait of an Artist[\i] memorial CD. It's not a lot but enough for you to hear his sound.
As for practising, I have used buzzing for learning phrases, increasing range (it has improved my low range a lot) and so forth, but I don't buzz every day when I've got my horn close by. I do, however, try and buzz along with the radio or some CDs for 5-15 minutes a day when I'm travelling or don't have time to practise properly.

If you buzz for too long it can hurt you. If you practice with your horn for too long it can hurt you. I once heard a story of the trombone player that was driving for 2 hours to a gig, and because of his schedule that day wasn't going to have time to practice or warm-up, he buzzed his mouthpiece the whole way there. When he got to the gig he found he was a totally different player in a bad way. This was a prominent jazz trombone player, and I honestly can't remember his name. That being said I buzz the mouthpiece before I ever play my horn everyday. Using the car concept its letting the car idle for a second before taking off. I only do it for a minute maybe two. If I have trouble with a specific passage in music I will buzz that passage until clean, then play it. As far as a good mouthpiece buzz sound. Here's a thought, why not make the mouthpiece sound as good without the horn as with the horn. In other words have as little extra noise going on other than sound. Buzzing has always been reccomended to me in terms of making my buzz more efficient, meaning getting a higher percentage of my air stream to produce a good clean buzz. That is what I think buzzing is good for, trying to increase your efficiency of air, you don't want an airy buzz, that means you're wasting that air and its not being used to generate a good buzz. That's my ideas and concepts about buzzing...for the most part.

I want to wholeheartedly endorse buzzing as an integral part of one's routine. I would go as far as to say it can improve your playing more for time invested than anything else.

Arnold Jacobs told me to buzz 30 minutes a day, take breaks as you need, do it in increments, but work for a fine sound. He had me play only songs -- tunes one knows by heart where there is a strong mental concept of pitch. Among the favorites in my buzzing routine (and his): Pop Goes the Weasel, America (My Country tis of Thee), and an all-season fave, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. He recommended buzzing fairly loud, so the air really moves.

The point is -- buzz melodies that you know like the back of your hand. When you get really comfortable, you can buzz along with the radio (I used to tune in to an easy listening station for that purpose since almost all the tunes were familiar). I am sure there have been times I buzzed much longer than 30 minutes in one day, but never in one stretch.

It is possible to get quite a good sound on the mouthpiece. Some people have been amazed by how much it sounds liike the tuba. Buzzing increases air flow, increases efficiency of the embouchure, builds endurance and volume.

Buzz songs, go for a great sound, it will benefit your playing a lot.

Frank

Yay--absolutely!

Mudman wrote:An even better exercise than buzzing is what I call "whisper tonguing." In this exercise, you blow air through your chops while articulating rhythms with your tongue. No horn, no mouthpiece, only air.

Yay -- I'm not alone in that thought (or at least around here)!

Once I learned the fingerings & articulations of some particular piece, I would find myself blowing, tonguing, and fingering the part while walking all over campus. I found myself gaining a couple hours' worth of practice every day.

Good marching music ensembles will do the same thing during visual rehearsals (often calling it "air & valves"). The players will do everything except actually buzz. It helps greatly in coordinating air, tongue, fingers, and feet. Adding the buzz later becomes very simple, because the hard part is taken care of.

I've also used buzzing to improve accuracy. The story I always tell people is that, while on euph in college concert band, I made myself become able to buzz & articulate Barnum & Bailey's Favorite March. It took a few days (only a few minutes at a time), but once I could do it on the mouthpiece, it sounded great on the horn.

I also would not advocate long periods of buzzing. It's just not the same. Buzz just enough to fix pitch accuracy and/or wind stability.

Lastly, for this post --

While it can't serve as a substitute for a good practice session, buzzing can keep the chops "in gear" during days off. Buzz for a little while, maybe half an hour, until you feel warm & flexible -- and stop there. Getting back on the horn will be a piece of cake.

Of course, I'm one of those people that sounds best after playing for a couple hundred days in a row. Maybe I'm weird...

IMHO, mouthpiece practice, if done properly, is one of the best things a brass player can do.

I studied with Arnold Jacobs, who introduced me to the benefits of mouthpiece practice. A few things he recommended to me are as follows:

1) 30 minutes a day is plenty

2) Play music on the mouthpiece, not drills or exercises. Even stupid little songs like pop goes the weasel or happy birthday, etc.

3) Start in the "norms" i.e., in the middle register at a middle dynamic and develop excellence there, then transfer that excellence to the more extreme registers and dynamics

4) Use plenty of air (this should not be a problem since playing on the mouthpiece alone uses up your breath very quickly)

5) Work on getting a lot of "buzz" in the sound. That is, make sure there is plenty of lip vibration, rather than an "airy" sound when you prctice on the mouthpiece

The main benefit of mouthpiece practice is that it develops the connection from the brain to the lips. In order to produce a particular pitch on the mouthpiece alone, you must put it into the mouthpiece. If you are a little off, you can hear it immediately and adjust until you are playing the correct pitch. On the instrument, if you are close, the harmonic series will help you by forcing you into the closest "slot." By doing it on the MP alone, you don't have any "crutches" helping you find the pitch.

One important caveat, however. Mr. Jacobs did NOT recommend buzzing the lips without a mouthpiece or rim (visualizer). His study of anatomy determined that there are small muscles in the lip which ar roughly perpindicular to the large muscle fibers of the obicularis orbis (the muscles that run horizontally across the lips). These small muscles form a sort of "basket weave" connecion with the larger muscle fibers, and are responsible for retraction and protraction of the lips (which allows us to change pitch). Mr. Jacobs believed that the small muscles need to be isolated by the pressure of the mouthpiece rim in order for the buzzing to have the desired benefit. Without the rim isolating the muscles, you are not really forming and developing an embouchure.

I'm not sure if he felt that buzzing without a mouthpiece was detrimental, but, IMHO, if one is not getting the full benefit, why bother?

Farkas' art of horn playing has a series of embouchure pictures and discussion of flaws. One of these is letting the lip sag, i.e. lack of support in the muscles below and above the lips, due to too much dependency on the mouthpiece for support. Getting back to topic, if you buzz without mouthpiece, and your embouchure suffers from that flaw,
your range will be very limited, and your buzz will be inefficient and of
low quality. Buzzing without mouthpiece is an excellent way to build
lip support muscle, and reinforce strong corners in a way that carries
over to playing. It also exposes *all* of your playing flaws; if you can't double tongue a chromatic scale without mouthpiece, you can't do it
properly with a mouthpiece...

Dave