Developing High Range

[mog976]

I'm having some serious trouble with my high range. My middle and low ranges have acceptable tone qualities, but whenever I try to play above D4 (D4 and everything below it sounds acceptable), my tone just starts to suck. It sounds fuzzy, unfocused, and really unresonant. I've been working at this for months with seemingly no improvement. I've tried mouthpiece changes, I've tried buzzing, I've tried singing, I've tried breathing excercises, all with very few good results. Anybody have any ideas how I might be able to get rid of this problem?

[tubaman5150]

You could be pinching your corners as you play higher. This would appear to be "smiling" while buzzing. This causes your lips to stretch and flatten, which deadens vibrations and greatly reduces your flexibilty. This is also found in conjunction with too much pressure on the mouthpiece.
Try relaxing your lips to where they normally rest when idle, then simply turn your corners down. They should be firm, but not overly tight.
Also, make sure your airstream is both steady and fast as you ascend. Think of it as blowing through a soda straw to create a pressurized stream of air.
Use your corners and bottom lip to control the size of the aperture.
Try practicing with a mirror to keep a close eye on your corners.

[Leland]

of course im learning to play high myself right now.

I've been playing sober for the past few years...

Okay, I'll add a couple things -

If you aren't already, try some mouthpiece buzzing. **edit** I see that you do. That'll teach me to skim over a post.

Also, one exercise that's helped me (especially when I change to another key of horn) is to start with all the valves pressed down, then play an ever-expanding range of notes from the very bottom, slurring up and back down. In between, you have to play every note, and make them all centered and separate.

When I do it, I make the top note part of the major chord, mostly just to keep track, and also to learn how those notes differ from their neighbors. I also only go for three full octaves -- any further and the notes pretty much become a glissando.

Once you've stepped all the way to the top note and back, THEN go to the next-higher fingering (say, the first time was 1-2-3-4, so switch to 1-3-4). Do it all over again, eventually over three octaves if you can (if not, don't worry, it'll come with time), then go to the next higher fingering from that.

It takes a while for me to go through the process, but even once or twice a week can help pretty well.

[Roger Lewis]

Take a look at the physics. Range is simple - it's a trick, a gimmick - it isn't HARD! If you think it is you've already set yourself up for weeks of hard, probably fruitless practice. And someday you will stumble on it by accident and think that your practicing has paid off.

As an example, look at the differences between a bass drum head and a snare drum head. Which one will make the stick respond faster (high speed vibration = high range)? Right, the snare drum. What makes this work? You have a wooden stick (hard object) vibrating against a firm surface (the snare drum head). What are the properties that make this work? Look at the situation objectively and analytically. In the most common embouchure the upper lip vibrates against the lower lip in the production of the sound. The speed of the vibration of the upper lip is controlled by two factors - the firmness of the upper lip and the firmness of the lower lip - WITH THE LOWER LIP BEING THE MORE IMPORTANT.

Going back to the Snare drum/bass drum example, if you try to do a double stick roll with snare drum sticks on a bass drum, what is your result? It most likely won't work or will be ineffective at best. If you were to use bass drum mallets on a snare drum to do a double stick roll, what is he result again failure. Why? In the bass drum example the head of the drum does not have sufficient tension to ALLOW the stick to respond properly for what you are asking it to do.

In the snare drum example, the snare head has enough tension but the mallets are not firm enough to allow for a fast vibration. This demonstrates (to me anyhow) that in every register the upper and lower lip tensions must match to allow for a successful embouchure vibration.

An ineffective vibration surface tension mis-match can be observed in our old nemisis, the double buzz. In this situation the upper lip is wanting to vibrate at a specific rate but the lower lip is not supplying a firm enough foundation to allow the upper lip to do the work. Hence the lower lip begins a secondary vibration (usually 1/2 the speed of the upper lip) and this creates the double buzz. All that is required to correct this is to get the lower lip firm enough to allow the upper lip to vibrate at the speed it needs to.

Now, the embouchure contains 3 kinds of tissue: the soft inner tissue for low register; what I call "the transitional tissue" which is not the soft inner tissue or the outer "weathered" tissue but right between these two - this is mid-register tissue; the firm, weathered outer tissue (the stuff that gets chapped all Winter long). This last is the high register tissue. By blowing the air stream down toward the rim of the mouthpiece when playing, the lips are positioned to have this weathered tissue to become the vibrating embouchure. This is fast vibration tissue and will allow for a solid sound. Then all you need to do is learn to CONTROL the tissue so that all the notes speak clearly. Use lots of air at high speed for the best results. Remember, they call it playing the tuba - there's no PLAY involved - it's WORK.

Think about this for a couple of days then try it- you should see a remarkable difference.

[The Impaler]

Speaking of physics, I think it's very important to remember that it takes LESS air to play high than it does to play low. Low playing is a wide column of a huge amount of air, but moving very slowly. High playing is a tiny pinhead-sized column, a very low volume of air, but moving at the speed of light. This realization more than anything helped open up not only my high register, but also my lower registers on both euphonium and tuba.

That being said, my range breakthrough came during a summer of consistent 5-hour practice days. I sincerely do not believe that that breakthrough would have been possible without that diligent practice time. I think it's important to remember (as with everything) that this is not an overnight sensation. It is the by-product of a smart, educated approach coupled with consistent, disciplined practice.

[Roger Lewis]

When you evaluate the observation of the above poster, he has a valid point except for one aspect. Low range=large volume of air at low speed; High range = little air at high speed? If you pick up the horn and play it you will find that you are using the same amount of air in BOTH registers. Little air at high speed doesn't add up.

Low register is slow air in large quantities through a large aperture; high register is FAST air through a small aperture at high pressure. If you decrease the size of the aperture you have to increase the speed of the air to get it to work - you wind up using a lot of air and air pressure to get the embouchure to respond. I find that I use just as much or more air in the extreme high register because the speed is so much faster.

Check it out.

[mog976]

Thank you all. Especially Mr. Lewis. I've been working at thinking about this lip tension and mouth aperture and air speed thing for the last half hour and I just got out my tuba to try it all out. Lo and behold, I had a secure high F! Thank you all so much for helping me overcome this huge roadblock.

[Kevin Hendrick]

Thank you all. Especially Mr. Lewis. I've been working at thinking about this lip tension and mouth aperture and air speed thing for the last half hour and I just got out my tuba to try it all out. Lo and behold, I had a secure high F! Thank you all so much for helping me overcome this huge roadblock.

Just be sure to avoid "paralysis from analysis". Keep moving the air. Let the rest take care of itself!

In my case, it's more a matter of "analysis overcoming paralysis"!

I had Bell's palsy in June 1993. Six months later, the doctor told me I had regained as much control over my facial muscles as I was going to (in the short term -- he did mention that any further healing of the damaged nerves would take years). At that point, I'd lost over an octave off the high end of my range, and almost an octave off the low end. I put away a lot of music that I'd performed before "it" happened (the VW, the Kellaway Morning Song, etc.), and worked on making the best use I could of what I still had.

About six months ago, the nerves started to heal, and I've regained about half of the range that I lost, but (due to long disuse) I'd lost the "trick" of controlling the pitch and tone in the high range ... it was there, but sounded pretty bad. When I read Roger's posts, and particularly the part where he says,

"The speed of the vibration of the upper lip is controlled by two factors - the firmness of the upper lip and the firmness of the lower lip - WITH THE LOWER LIP BEING THE MORE IMPORTANT",

I was tremendously encouraged -- the damaged nerves associated with my embouchure control the upper right side! I got my horn out and had a go at implementing what he'd explained. I've had pitch and tone-clarity trouble with anything above the Bb above the staff ever since this whole thing began. Within a half-hour, I was up to the Ab above that with a nice clear tone! Above that was a little shaky, but will doubtless improve with practice. Almost got the C to sound! Amazing ...

This is what I've been trying to find for the last 11 years. Thanks, Roger! Much appreciated.

PS: I wonder how many other tubists and euphers are out there coping with the after-effects of Bell's? This could be very helpful to them also.

[Roger Lewis]

I have had, over the years, many students who have required a great deal of time to make strides in the high register. Usually they have tried on their own and struggled and failed and through this effort they determined that "high register is hard" and therefore it must tke a great deal of time to build up.

I have had many students who wanted "High range" lessons. One that comes to mind, a college euphonium student made a statement to me that she would never be a professional player because she had no high register. I simply stated that high register is a gimmick and I could have her playing in the high register in 2 minutes. At that point she looked at her watch and said "I dare you to try".

I grabbed my handy visualizer and had her buzz a low note on it and then buzz a high note on it and, low and behold - she was using soft tissue for both ranges (won't work). I then showed her what I wanted to have her change in the embouchure and got her buzzing a high note on the visualizer. I had her keep the buzz going and handed her the horn and there was the most solid G over high C that you ever heard. It took about a minute and a half.

Another eposide that was easier was a 7th grade trumpet student. I made sure that he did not try to play ANYTHING until he had his trumpet. So, he comes to his first lesson and the horn and mouthpiece are still wrapped in the plastic. We work on fundamentals and buzzing for about 20 minutes, then with me giving him the fingerings, he went from a solid low F# to high C 2 ledger lines above he staff (remember this is trumpet) within 1/2 hour of starting to play.

Why this worked was that no one was able to polute the young man's mind with preconceptions that what he was going to attempt was "hard" and thus he did not have the mental handicap that most of us are handed by our teachers or friends.

What it boils down to is, if you think it's going to be hard to accomplish something, you will rarely be disappointed. If you approach everything (in life, not just tuba playing) for a mental image of success or "I won't know until I try" attitude - things become much easer. Look at life from the perceptions of success, not through the glasses of failure. Everyone should have a mentor, to help keep them on track and thinking in a way that facilitates things.

Okay, I'm done now.

[Mr. Vinderack]

Oh my God. This post is nearly 12 years belated, but thank you so much Roger!