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I have been doing many diaphragm strengthening exercises and have noticed an immense change in my breath control and range of my dynamic spectrum which has also caused my new King and my old school king to feel extremely stuffy and with a medium breath I can easily over blow the tuba. I'm curious to see if there is a way that I can combat this. On my Yamaha 411 I can over blow that also with a small effort. In the low register (below the low E that's fingered 2 and 4) I find myself having to lip all of the notes down and I can't produce a good tone because of all the resistance not allowing me to really buzz well.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated! oh and also I usually use my Bach 18 MP if that helps any!

It takes awhile. Find the sweet spots of the horn and where the notes want to center, not where you want them to. Find them and gradually work on making them louder without loss of tone. Concerning the low register, it takes work like anything else, regardless of the horn... Also try a mouthpiece with a larger bore, like a Deck , larger PT, etc.

When I am specifically targeting my lower register I use my PT-50 and read out of the Low Etudes for Tuba book. I can play chromatically in tune without pulling out down to pedal Bb and it's sounding really good as of now and it sounds like an actual note. I have my jaw as far as I can open it while still buzzing the correct pitch and I have learned to imitate an opera singer when I play and I have been practicing in the mirror to make sure of that.

TinyTubist97 wrote:In the low register (below the low E that's fingered 2 and 4) I find myself having to lip all of the notes down ...

If you have to lip all the notes down, then the tuba is sharp on all the notes. Instead of lipping, you would be better off pulling a slide(s).

It's not a large-bore tuba, so you will need to be a bit more attentive with your airstream. A King 2341 is a fine tuba, and capable of all the volume you will ever need. Very nice, classic sound too... just don't overblow it. Feed the air more slowly, and instead of trying to play loudly first and diagnose your problems, try playing softly first... then give it more and more air to see how you have to play to get your desired result.

To me, 99% of playing the tuba is the connection of "I have to do ___[This]____ to make my tuba do ___[This]___", remembering that, and then practicing the heck out of it to make it easy to do on cue and without thinking too much about it.

That said, if it becomes too much effort to play that tuba the way it suits you to play it, there is no shame at all in it. Try something else and see if that fits you better. Nothing is less productive than spending serious time with something that just isn't right for you. Why else would there be dozens of types of tubas to choose from?

WARNING: Helping someone's tuba playing online is a tricky business.

TinyTubist97 wrote:I have been doing many diaphragm strengthening exercises and have noticed an immense change in my breath control and range of my dynamic spectrum which has also caused my new King and my old school king to feel extremely stuffy and with a medium breath I can easily over blow the tuba.

To me it sounds like you are using too harsh of an air stream. Doing "diaphragm strengthening exercises" should not effect outward flow of air as the diaphragm is only used on the inhale. Remember that the tuba is a low pressure, high volume instrument when it comes to air. You don't need to blow the snot out of it, but you do need to feed it a large volume of air (i believe around 140 liters per minute) If you use a high pressure approach the horn can back up on you. Yes the King is a small bore horn but this should be a huge problem. I can make my Nirschl back up on me by using a high pressure approach. Check out the breathing videos here http://www.windsongpress.com/almost%20l ... 20live.htm" target="_blank and try taking this approach. This should help out a lot. Your gear is fine, try something different with your air and how you use it.

Dale is, of course, correct that the key to improving your situation is to study with a good teacher.

Even so, your characterization of your diaphragm exercises suggests faulty concepts to me. I'm not sure a strong diaphragm is the goal, even though strength is what we achieve when we have the correct goals. There are two things we think we need the diaphragm to do: 1.) inflate the lungs as quickly as possible, and 2.) regulate their deflation.

Some strength may be required for the first of these, but I'm not sure one needs much strength to do the second. In fact, I'm not sure the second can even be done using the diaphragm, to any great effect. It seems to me that control is far more important than strength. A full set of lungs want to deflate. They want to deflate so fast that they need no help in doing so, even when playing a tuba at its loudest. Try this: Open your mouth. Inhale as much as you can, and hold the air in WITHOUT closing your throat or mouth--just do it with your chest cavity. With your mouth still wide open, release your chest cavity. The air will escape through your mouth in about ONE second. You don't even have time to command that diaphragm muscle to help expel the air.

When you push air, you create pressure. You regulate that pressure by the opening in your embouchure. A larger opening with less push will move the same amount of air, perhaps, as a smaller opening with more push. But in the latter case, the pressure will be higher and the air-speed will be higher. That will cause the buzz to resonate in the instrument differently, and often it will kill the buzz and resonance altogether. The trick, therefore, is to find the aperture that allows the natural relaxation of full lungs to move the required amount of air for the given note and loudness. That will feed the instrument with resonance. If I can use a water-flow example, it will feed the instrument with power (the product of flow and pressure) rather than pressure alone.

So, if we do all our regulation with our aperture, then all we need a strong diaphragm to do is 1.) inhale quickly, and 2.) not create pressure. Inhaling quickly is a skill we often don't pay much attention to--it's certainly one of my main weaknesses. It means I'm often not allowing full lungs to relax, because the lungs are too often not full. Then, I have to push. Tone, pitch, and loudness all suffer when that happens. If I keep working at this for another forty years, maybe I'll finally learn that we must use the full half of our tank more than the empty half.

Rick "who can trace ugly overblowing to too much pressure and not enough flow" Denney

bloke wrote:I'm not criticizing any of this... All of this is probably 100% correct, but I never think about most of this, and have never thought about most any of it. I suspect that thinking about (analyzing, etc.) this stuff would greatly confuse me.

People learn in different ways. Many just know and feel and hear what needs to be done to make the right sound. Others get blocked up by a misconception, and jumping that conceptual hurdle allows them to progress. My objective in saying such is not to encourage people to think about such things when making music, but rather to think about such things during practice so that when they make music, they don't have to think about it.

I first learned this when I was racing cars. Track time was extremely limited, so there had to be a way to gain experience without actually driving on the track. I would mentally rehearse my reactions in a variety of situations, and when I walked a track before a race, I would mentally rehearse ways to move the car to go fastest around that course. When driving, though, there is no time for thinking like that. That's what rehearsal and mental practice is for--ingraining concepts into muscle memory and natural reactions.

Rick "competency includes knowledge, skills, and abilities" Denney

DP wrote:Blowing your *** off is still blowing your *** off, when you do it for a teacher, they may offer useful, informed advice that is based on your sound, style, facility, and physical capabilities, and is far more likely to prompt your correction of any real or percieved problem...all this online chatter is just theoretical babbling a la non-refereed journals (anything else come to mind?)

It does make one wonder what keeps you coming back to the forum, Dale, if any discussion of actually playing the instruments is just useless blowhard.

Rick "or should we just limit the discussion to lacquer vs. silver?" Denney

Rick Denney wrote:

DP wrote:Blowing your *** off is still blowing your *** off, when you do it for a teacher, they may offer useful, informed advice that is based on your sound, style, facility, and physical capabilities, and is far more likely to prompt your correction of any real or percieved problem...all this online chatter is just theoretical babbling a la non-refereed journals (anything else come to mind?)

It does make one wonder what keeps you coming back to the forum, Dale, if any discussion of actually playing the instruments is just useless blowhard.

Rick "or should we just limit the discussion to lacquer vs. silver?" Denney

There are times I find this forum far more entertaining than any of the inane reality shows on TV.

bloke wrote:

Rick Denney wrote:Dale is, of course, correct that the key to improving your situation is to study with a good teacher.

Even so, your characterization of your diaphragm exercises suggests faulty concepts to me. I'm not sure a strong diaphragm is the goal, even though strength is what we achieve when we have the correct goals. There are two things we think we need the diaphragm to do: 1.) inflate the lungs as quickly as possible, and 2.) regulate their deflation.

Some strength may be required for the first of these, but I'm not sure one needs much strength to do the second. In fact, I'm not sure the second can even be done using the diaphragm, to any great effect. It seems to me that control is far more important than strength. A full set of lungs want to deflate. They want to deflate so fast that they need no help in doing so, even when playing a tuba at its loudest. Try this: Open your mouth. Inhale as much as you can, and hold the air in WITHOUT closing your throat or mouth--just do it with your chest cavity. With your mouth still wide open, release your chest cavity. The air will escape through your mouth in about ONE second. You don't even have time to command that diaphragm muscle to help expel the air.

When you push air, you create pressure. You regulate that pressure by the opening in your embouchure. A larger opening with less push will move the same amount of air, perhaps, as a smaller opening with more push. But in the latter case, the pressure will be higher and the air-speed will be higher. That will cause the buzz to resonate in the instrument differently, and often it will kill the buzz and resonance altogether. The trick, therefore, is to find the aperture that allows the natural relaxation of full lungs to move the required amount of air for the given note and loudness. That will feed the instrument with resonance. If I can use a water-flow example, it will feed the instrument with power (the product of flow and pressure) rather than pressure alone.

So, if we do all our regulation with our aperture, then all we need a strong diaphragm to do is 1.) inhale quickly, and 2.) not create pressure. Inhaling quickly is a skill we often don't pay much attention to--it's certainly one of my main weaknesses. It means I'm often not allowing full lungs to relax, because the lungs are too often not full. Then, I have to push. Tone, pitch, and loudness all suffer when that happens. If I keep working at this for another forty years, maybe I'll finally learn that we must use the full half of our tank more than the empty half.

Rick "who can trace ugly overblowing to too much pressure and not enough flow" Denney

I'm not criticizing any of this... All of this is probably 100% correct, but I never think about most of this, and have never thought about most any of it. I suspect that thinking about (analyzing, etc.) this stuff would greatly confuse me.

Mr. Jacobs would call this paralysis by analysis. You really shouldn't need to think about all of this. You should just do it. You can't do all this inward thinking while trying to give information (play your horn). Roger Bobo shows this very well here... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NRQ3wRZETA" target="_blank When just asked to do a simple task, the young girl has no problems doing so. However, when asked to think about what she is doing step by step, well that's when she has problems. I think what Rick is trying to get at is that understanding how things work is helpful when in the practice room, or as Mr. Jacobs would say, when you put on your mechanic's hat. But When you have your performing hat on you shouldn't think of all that stuff and just perform.

bloke wrote: I just discussed this with a colleague, Greg Luscombe (trombonist). He and I completely agreed that

- We play our BEST when thinking about NOTHING.
- We play "OK" when thinking about stuff-other-than-playing (car repairs, spouse, lunch, etc.)
- We play WORST when thinking about... ...playing.

Best advice I ever got from my baseball coach/band director, "Bat dumb and play dumb"

I have recently received a PT-88 and the difference is amazing in all registers and the clarity in the large slurs! and I have stopped thinking about the techniques so much and just listening to what comes out of the bell and it has helped alot. and also on my new mpc I can play down to the low F below pedal Bb in tune! In all dynamic levels it still sounds mellow until about FF when it starts to get an edgy, but good, sound.

TheHatTuba wrote:

bloke wrote: I just discussed this with a colleague, Greg Luscombe (trombonist). He and I completely agreed that

- We play our BEST when thinking about NOTHING.
- We play "OK" when thinking about stuff-other-than-playing (car repairs, spouse, lunch, etc.)
- We play WORST when thinking about... ...playing.

Best advice I ever got from my baseball coach/band director, "Bat dumb and play dumb"

Best advice I ever got from a coach: Work your *** off, on purpose.

You have to earn the right to bat dumb and play dumb, by training your reflexes to do the right thing without being slowed down by thought. That does not happen automatically. When I learned to swim long distances, I had to learn swimming technique, not just fitness. That required understanding some things that are not intuitive and that we don't get better at just by doing more of it.

Sheridan once described how he handled technical problems. He devised a drill that would work that problem outside the context of music. His goal was to 1.) solve the problem and 2.) not screw up the music in the process.

Jacobs understood the mechanics of playing as well as anyone and better than most. He didn't think about it when playing, but he sure as hell thought about it. And he could (and did) describe those processes in technical detail. Those thinking he advocated the THINK method should listen again to that 1973 lecture, where "song and wind" were backed up with considerable discussion of hard empirical science. I learned from that lecture, and I expect most do, otherwise people wouldn't be so happy that it was recorded.

Rick "bad thinking will undermine good performance even more than too much good thinking will interfere with it" Denney

bloke wrote:...but I don't call that "playing". I call that "working". When I'm playing - and thinking about "playing" while playing, I'm not going to "play" my best.

So, was the problem posed at the start of this thread one that requires work, or just "playing"?

Rick "just wondering" Denney

bloke wrote:"blatting", apparently.

Well, there was no shortage of that.

Rick " " Denney