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I've been solely concentrating on my Besson Sov EEb for three years now, totally neglecting the King 2280 euphonium in the cupboard. Now I have an urge to regularly play the euph as a secondary and regular doubling horn to the tuba. For those whose main instrument is the tuba, but double on trombone or euphonium etc, what practice methods do you use to keep your chops fit for both horns. Practice each instrument daily? or concentrate on one exclusively on alternative days? or concentrate on what horn is required for upcoming gigs. My other issue is that I learned to play the EEb tuba in bass clef, but always played the Bb euph in treble clef (ex trumpet & brass band). Any tips on easing the pain with re-learning the euph in BC? I've tried, but have found the process very frustrating what with completely different fingering and pitch issues. I'm not a young man any more.

I also double on euph and EEb tuba, and find that working out with either instrument keeps my chops in reasonably good shape for both horns. So, I just practice the material for the job at hand on the horn I'm going to play, sometimes followed by a leisurely warm-up and tone study on the other instrument. No problem.

"From Treble Clef to Bass Clef Baritone" by Reginald H. Fink, published by Accura Music, is a nifty 30-page book of graduated studies with instructions on how to make the transition. There's lots of nice, carefully edited melodic material in the book, too--once you've learned the bass clef the book is still quite useful for tone and phrasing studies.

I'm not getting any younger, either, and maintain my skills on both treble and bass clef: due to macular degeneration, I have problems dealing with ledger lines. Given the choice, I prefer to use the clef where I'll encounter the fewest of them.

The key for learning a new set of fingerings is sight reading. You have to just keep doing it, starting with, of course, the simpler music (sometimes very simple) and making gradual changes in difficulty. I'm not young any more either, but in about three months I can learn a new set of fingerings well enough to sight read moderately difficult music. The reason to sight read is that once you start to recognize a piece, you won't be training your brain any more to read the new fingerings; instead you'll sort of have that piece in memory, which isn't what you're looking for "yet."

MA

Thanks for the tip on "From TC to BC for Baritone" WC8KCY. This just what I need, however, Accura Music do not appear to have a functioning website, and the only contact point I can find is a phone message number. I'm down in Australia, but left a message with my email details. I can't get a response from Accura, which is frustrating to say the least. I would really like to get a copy mailed down here. Any suggestions please?

euphomate wrote:Thanks for the tip on "From TC to BC for Baritone" WC8KCY. This just what I need, however, Accura Music do not appear to have a functioning website, and the only contact point I can find is a phone message number. I'm down in Australia, but left a message with my email details. I can't get a response from Accura, which is frustrating to say the least. I would really like to get a copy mailed down here. Any suggestions please?

http://www.thompsonedition.com/index.php

has a very good reputation for finding any brass related music.

If you send me your mail address via the mail button to the right of here, I will invite you to the download site for my free scale and arpeggio training system, which is specific for each of the low brasses. Trombones and euphs come in treble clef (also useable for treble clef reading brass band tubists) and bass clef. There are bass clef versions for tubas in F, Eb, CC, and BBb. The idea is to work along the circle of fifths in the core range of any instrument. The outer ranges are covered in upwards and downwards chromatic increments respectively. The full program covers 4 octaves for each instrument.

The modes covered are:
major
natural minor
melodic minor
harmonic minor
dorian
mixolydian

Klaus