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In another thread, tooba says this:

and I have to use some strange fingerings for them if sustained/longer than a typical 8th note

I don't want to hijack that thread, but this little side item speaks to something that's been bugging me. I find that playing a string of short, separately articulated notes gives me totally different intonation (flat, on the whole) than I have with longer notes, which I'm in the habit of using to evaluate tuning.

So is the eighth note really telling the true tale of my intonation on this horn?

Or is there some pattern of goofed up attacks people with this experience have typically fallen into that I could work on, perhaps with a teacher?

Cool. Thanks Bloke. I'm glad to know it's something attention and practice will help.

A friend came up with this on Facebook. I gather the writer is a current student of my former teacher from back in the day. Perhaps it might be useful to someone else, so I'll put it here:

Are they doing breath staccato? If so, each breath accent might be causing the embouchure muscles to relax which would cause the pitch to go flat.

Each new note they come in on needs to buzz the same speed. As an exercise, practice playing staccato on the mouthpiece alone and see if the pitch sags. Your goal should be to maintain a steady pitch on the mouthpiece while playing staccato. Once you have mastered this it will easily transfer to the tuba.

talleyrand wrote:In another thread, tooba says this:

and I have to use some strange fingerings for them if sustained/longer than a typical 8th note

I don't want to hijack that thread, but this little side item speaks to something that's been bugging me. I find that playing a string of short, separately articulated notes gives me totally different intonation (flat, on the whole) than I have with longer notes, which I'm in the habit of using to evaluate tuning.

So is the eighth note really telling the true tale of my intonation on this horn?

Or is there some pattern of goofed up attacks people with this experience have typically fallen into that I could work on, perhaps with a teacher?

What the original quote very well might refer to is the fact that some players accept short notes being out of tune, whereas they know that everybody can hear longer notes being out of tune.

That short note attitude more or less is accepted in the woodwind world where trill fingerings are a standard term.

Pythagorean string theory is nice, but modern tuners reveal, that the attacks of certain plucked string instruments is sharper than the sustained notes. Simply because certain plucking styles stretch the strings as part of the attack.

In brasses there of course are aspects of playing techniques associated with good intonation. But still the main factor is about the player’s ears. In my experience there only is one way to learn playing in tune: making oneself able to play scales in all keys. The secret with good scale playing is about the treatment of the semitones.

One easy test (here exemplified for Bb instruments) is about playing an Eb concert scale in the mid range and then paying attention to the interval and to the tonal evenness between the leading note D and the Eb at the upper end of the scale.

Klaus

bloke wrote:Those of us who have less-mastered our instruments play short sounds out-of-tune for the same reason we will more frequently completely "miss" high pitches.

Said by a guy, who maybe not in outspoken form, but definitely for his own playing adheres to the know-all-scales-as-foundation-for-playing dogma.

Klaus

This is one of the reasons I prefer using alternate fingerings over slide pulls longer than about 3/4" - it is relatively easy to "retrain" oneself to play with different fingerings but much harder to be pumping three different slides all over the place in the course of rapid playing.

imperialbari wrote:
What the original quote very well might refer to is the fact that some players accept short notes being out of tune, whereas they know that everybody can hear longer notes being out of tune.

Klaus

Well, not really. It is just sometimes easier to "bop" or "hit" a note in tune than to force it up in pitch as a sustained note that tends flat or vise-versa. Tubas - as well as ALL musical instruments - do have pitch tendencies, after all. And I have heard some top pros "hit" notes and they were not quite "on" pitch-wise. Like Bloke said: it's hard to do well.

MartyNeilan wrote:This is one of the reasons I prefer using alternate fingerings over slide pulls longer than about 3/4" - it is relatively easy to "retrain" oneself to play with different fingerings but much harder to be pumping three different slides all over the place in the course of rapid playing.

Same here. I prefer alternate fingerings on my CC/BBb (yes, I use it as a "double tuba" ) tuba. But I do pull/push the first valve slide and use a couple alternate fingerings on my Eb tubas.

When the note is 'centered' you should be able to get a good read on it.

tooba wrote:

imperialbari wrote:
What the original quote very well might refer to is the fact that some players accept short notes being out of tune, whereas they know that everybody can hear longer notes being out of tune.

Klaus

Well, not really. It is just sometimes easier to "bop" or "hit" a note in tune than to force it up in pitch as a sustained note that tends flat or vise-versa. Tubas - as well as ALL musical instruments - do have pitch tendencies, after all. And I have heard some top pros "hit" notes and they were not quite "on" pitch-wise. Like Bloke said: it's hard to do well.

My problem with attacking out of tune resonances with an in-tune buzz is that if the discrepancy is too big, no note will speak.

Klaus