TubeNet

I think the point is that while it is certainly a helpful tool and practice aid, you play the tuba, not the mouthpiece.

Although the fatigue is also a legitimate reason.

Another reason to limit time on the mouthpiece is the concept of "strangeness" being an aid to making positive changes in your playing.

On the horn we tend to get locked into the familiar ways of doing things, and resist change. Doing things on the mouthpiece, or on a visualizer, or using some of the other devices that AJ would use in his teaching introduces strangeness into what we are doing, and can free us up to discover new and better ways to play.

But, if you spend too much time on the mouthpiece or the other tools, they lose their strangeness, and you start to get locked into familiar patterns on them, just like on the horn, and change becomes more difficult.

It is all a matter of balance. All the tools are useful, but only when used properly and judiciously.

Eric Carlson

except when one disagrees with that type of advice.

It depends on how you're using the buzz work. I use it for warm ups, hearing changes (buzz solos/lead), working on pitch (usually with a piano to really place the pitch), articulations, phrasing.

I rarely had problems with dizziness from buzzing, and I'd have to say never did once I got used to doing it. I don't buzz for really long periods at a time, mainly due to boredom or other distractions (like, traffic, f'rinstance. )

But to say no more than 10 minutes as a flat rule, to me, is wrong. At one point I spent most of a summer on the first few Arban exercises (after the long tone things), singing, buzzing, adding piano to both, playing on horn, buzzing, playing, and probably had as much buzzing time as playing. I need to get back to that kind of intensive detail work, I know, but time just doesn't allow it anymore.

It's all been said.


Buzzing is not playing. It is a tool to improve playing, certainly, but the mechanics of your face and air are different when you are on the horn.


If you want to make yourself a test subject, go for it!

Mr. Jacobs recommended different things to different students because they needed different things, but I have never talked to anyone who had him recommend that you close off the back of the stem to increase resistance.

Quite the opposite; the freedom of airflow that you get while buzzing is supposed to train you to recognize and strive for that freedom while playing your instrument. He was very specific in his instruction to me on this because I covered the stem in my first lesson.

As for limiting the time for buzzing.... no one I have talked to was told to limit the amount of time. He may have recommended "5 or 10 minutes" but I don't think that the vast majority of student were told to limit it to 5 or 10 minutes. I think that would be contrary to the rest of his teaching method and philosophy.

My experience was that, in the early weeks of my study, I was told to play tuba in ONLY ensembles for two weeks; all other practice practice was on the mouthpiece. That would include (at that time) 3-4 hours a day on the mouthpiece with normal practice materials: scales, "lip slurs", etudes, solos, excerpts, etc.

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You will become more efficient in buzzing as you learn how to do it and you will not continue to hyperventilate. Most tuba players I hear buzzing are playing too loud and that will make you dizzy.

If you could move as much air through the tuba as you do while buzzing, even the trombones would complain about the volume. Instead, after you gain some initial control of buzzing, simply play softer (fast air = louder sounds / slow air = softer sounds).

I should also mention that many people I hear buzzing sound as if they are playing mechanically and too carefully. The mouthpiece should be a freeing experince and allow you to play music (and play it musically) without the restrictions of old habits and mechanical influence of the instrument.

Never, in my study with him, did he want to hear careful lip slurs like I hear so many truimpet players do, he wanted me to make music on the mouthpiece. The object was to carry those expiences back to the tuba. Mouthpiece buzzing should be the lip responding to what the brain is telling it what to do not responding to external stimuli.