Lower range development?

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BopEuph
pro musician
pro musician
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Joined: Mon Aug 08, 2005 10:51 am
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Re: Here's the secret...

Post by BopEuph »

Roger Lewis wrote:to low register playing. The physics dictate that you need to have soft tissue vibrating against other soft tissue. The easiest way to for the correct embrouchure (in my playing) is to do this exercise:

Sit in a chair and focus your vision on a fixed point across the room so that your vision line is parrellel to the floor (assuming that the floor is close to flat). Now, hold your hand out at arm's length with your palm facing towards you and place it approximately 6 inches below your "sight" line. Now, WITHOUT MOVING YOUR HEAD - blow air at your hand. Move your embrochure around until the air is hitting the palm of your hand. Getting the air to the hand by moving your head defeats the value of this exercise so make sure you use the lips to get the air going in the proper direction. Once you have the air hitting the palm of your hand directly, feel how you have your lips set. The way they are at that moment should be the perfect setting for low register playing. Now if you buzz the air to the same point on your hand you will find that it is a slow vibration buzz = low register.

For mid register move the hand 6 more inches down and repeat the process of getting the air to your palm without moving your head. Buzz again and you will find that you have a solid mid register vibration.

For high register playing place the palm of your hand on your chest facing upward and again, without moving your head, blow air at your hand. Once the air is hitting the hand then buzz so that the air from the buzz is hitting the hand as well and you will find that you have a high vibration buzz, perfect for high register playing.

All points in between will garner faster or slower vibration based on the location of the hand and hence the direction of the air stream.

Remember this exercize is to show how the lips need to be formed and the importance that air direction has in helping to set this up.

One of my adult students worked on this and found that another concrete visual aid made it a little easier for him to grasp. Hold a mouthpiece up so that, if you are facing West, the mouthpiece is facing North to South. Point to the area on the outside of the mouthpiece just below the throat of the mouthpiece, at the bottom of the cup, and this is where you will blow air for low register (when the mouthpiece is on your embrouchhure, of course). Point at the side of the bowl of the mouthpiece and this is where you blow air for mid register. Point at the section at the top of the bowl, just under the rim and this is where you blow air for high register.

It's that simple. Remember - babies and monkeys can buzz their lips - what we're doing is NOT rocket science and it isn't hard!

Just my observations.
I'd like to commend Roger's post. This helped me tremendously.

I play a Conn 12J, and there was a sousaphone audition at Disney today. I borrowed a fiberglass Yamaha so I wasn't going in and sharing one of three horns with over twenty other tuba players auditioning and getting way too little time to familiarize. I got the horn on Monday, and couldn't play anything below a Bb below the staff, and even that note felt like my first day on the tuba. I knew there was nothing wrong with the horn, so I went searching for an answer for a fix that I needed as fast as possible.

This did the trick. After an insane amount of time in the shed this week (upwards of about 40+ hours), I was extremely comfortable on this strange horn and could play the range. Low F's were still iffy for grooves and walking, but I was able to get through enough to surprise a lot of locals who didn't know I even played tuba; and, at the very least, advance to the final round.

I'll probably find out next week how I did. I'm really just hoping for a sub spot.

Thanks, Roger!
Nick
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