TubeNet

Last week I started teaching lessons to a new student who will be finishing 4th grade later this month, he has played tuba for most of one school year. In doing my initial evaluation of his playing, the major issue he has is playing the correct partial. For example, we were working on long tones and when going from F to G he would go down to D or when going down from F to C or Bb he would stay on F.

I tried many of the tricks of learned through the years, but he wasn't making much (any progress) and I want to keep his lessons fun, without pushing him too hard. I tried to have him mimic my playing; buzzing / singing; fast air vs. slow air; etc., I even had him sit on a stack of books to raise him up to the mouthpiece a little more to see if that would help.

So, TNFJ, any suggestions I can work on with him while still keeping his lessons fun? We can't really proceed to playing any tunes until he gets a little better with this fundamental.

Thanks!

TMB

Is he aware he is wrong and can't figure out what to do about it, or can he not tell he is wrong? If he can't tell, I'd aim him towards keyboard instruments if he wants to do music. Tone deafness doth not a musician make, no matter the level of effort. I used to do some light testing when I got a new violin student....they would have to be able to tell me whether two notes I played on the piano where the same, or the 2nd one higher or lower than the first. Starting pretty far apart and ending up on a half step. If they could not do that easily, they were not violin material and I would suggest piano instead.

I sort of had that happen to me, once, in my youth. I was in a music shop looking at an electric bass, and the owner brought out a tuning fork or something, I forget, and I couldn't match the notes. I am not tone deaf and was not new to music, but at that moment could pick out or understand the partial series from that low A string or whatever it was, so the tuning fork pitch just seemed irrelevant. I was probably a little tense. I wonder if junior is tense when he's playing for you, and really he is farther along than it might seem.

Thanks for the replies so far.

He can recognize the change in pitch, whether ascending or descending, and was able to sing along with me. He was also able to play the correct pitch a couple of times, but was not able to consecutively repeat the results - he was might have been right 1 out of 8 or 10 times, so I know he **can** do it.

TMB

If it has been like this for a year? whole lot of patience already been cultivated. Is it common to start a kid on the tuba at that age, I guess he's 10 years old? I would have imagined there'd be a more kid friendly instrument, I don't know, maybe baritone horn or something, to get started.

It sounds like he's been approaching it as a fingering chart exercise, like the plastic flute they taught when I was in 3rd grade. Whistling might be good exercise, especially if he isn't super proficient at it.

I don't think he is terribly motivated to practice or improve...

Kids here can start band in 4th grade culminating with a single end of year concert, that took place in the beginning of May and he hasn't touched his horn since! The concert music was taken from the first 4 or 5 pages of "Traditions of Excellence," which seems to be all they worked up during the entire school year. His parents have no musical background and are unable to really assist him at home between lessons.

The school is allowing him to keep the horn over the summer as long as he is taking lessons - that's where I come in, last week was his first lesson with me. Tonight is lesson #2.

TMB

He may just have have no idea what to do (or how to do it) to actually play the tuba - the result being that he's struggling to just make noise on the thing and try to keep up.

What I'm getting at is that he may have been rushed into "playing" the tuba before he was really ready to be doing any playing or had any basic music knowledge at all. Your only hope may be to back W-A-Y up to some basic general music fundamentals (elementary level stuff) and teach him how to start playing as though it is day # 1, lesson #1 with the tuba. It is possible that he had poor instruction or bad guidance early on and developed bad habits before you were in the picture. You are now stuck with the aftermath. But...it's still early enough that you could basically start him over - like I said, that may be your only hope.

I think working with him at a piano and demonstrating (with your own playing) is probably good for someone in this case. Ear training, if you will. My guess is that when he does hit the right pitch (1 out of 10 times or so), he's just been lucky since it has not really been repeatable. You've demonstrated that he can physically do it, but he needs to understand what "it" is and then work backwards to figure out how he did it.

And can he produce a free buzz on any pitch at all? No you don't play with a free buzz but you have to understand that a buzz has a pitch. Seeing the instructor free buzz can enlighten the most confused of students. I still remember the first free buzz I saw, in brass class in college, by the trumpet professor. It was an Aha moment for me; I had no idea such a thing was possible.

Find a fun tune to play. Something super familiar like happy birthday which might have some useful intervals in it. Play it for them first, then get them to play along with you next, then let them play it for you.

Otherwise, you might just have them buzz on the mouthpiece with a tube or berp attached. Think of some way to make this fun for a kid. somehow connecting buzzing with with shooting spitballs out a tube attached to the mouthpiece seems like a fun idea.

cjk wrote:Find a fun tune to play. Something super familiar like happy birthday

This is what I was thinking, but not being a teacher I didn't want to talk like I know something about it. Surely, though, a couple of simple and familiar tunes he can hear in his own head without you having to explain anything about mechanics would give the kid a chance. (It's that whole "become a singer in your brain" thing...)

This is a perfect example of where playing on the mouthpiece alone is beneficial. Since he can demonstrate pitch recall by singing notes that you sing to him, there should not be a problem. Have him play simple tunes, in the middle register, on the mouthpiece and challenge him as an elementary performer. Examples of what to play have already been suggested, like Happy Birthday. Arnold Jacobs always used Pop Goes the Weasel as an example. Others could include When the Saints Go Marching In or Carnival of Venice (the theme, which he probably won't know anyway). Even Christmas Carols will work. Anything that is music with a simple melody that he knows well so he can differentiate between the correct pitch and the incorrect pitch.

Perhaps the student has not developed any "chops muscle memory" in the short time he's been playing. When i work with beginners we practice remembering how a note "feels and tastes". We work to play a note (any note) and once they have that note speaking with a decent amount of characteristic sound I have them: 1) "think about how that feels", 2) take the horn away from the chops, 3) relax the chops, 4) reset the chops for that same sound, 4) bring the horn back to their face, 5) attempt to reproduce the sound.

Because of their inexperience, we rarely wind up working on the note we are supposed to be playing, but I don't think it really matter at that early stage. We just work with whatever they do happen to play. The key is for them to learn to make it repeatable.

Perhaps this approach might be useful?

(Full disclosure - I play trombone / bass trombone - but I'm learning tuba and having a ball! )

-Andy in OKC

afugate wrote:Perhaps the student has not developed any "chops muscle memory" in the short time he's been playing. When i work with beginners we practice remembering how a note "feels and tastes". We work to play a note (any note) and once they have that note speaking with a decent amount of characteristic sound I have them: 1) "think about how that feels", 2) take the horn away from the chops, 3) relax the chops, 4) reset the chops for that same sound, 4) bring the horn back to their face, 5) attempt to reproduce the sound.

Because of their inexperience, we rarely wind up working on the note we are supposed to be playing, but I don't think it really matter at that early stage. We just work with whatever they do happen to play. The key is for them to learn to make it repeatable.

Perhaps this approach might be useful?

(Full disclosure - I play trombone / bass trombone - but I'm learning tuba and having a ball! )

-Andy in OKC

I am going to respectfully disagree with the approach of remembering how a note feels. Focusing on feel is using sensory nerves, which send information to the brain from the body. In playing a brass instrument, we want to use the motor nerves, which send messages from the brain to the muscles. These are best controlled and their use learned through trying to imitate a sound that we have heard. play something for him on the mouthpiece and the instrument and then have him imitate it without worrying about how it feels or what he is doing. Have him focus only on trying to imitate the sound he hears (and make sure you are giving him an excellent sound to imitate). This is Arnold Jacobs teaching philosophy, BTW. He taught that the lips will learn what they need to do on their own if we send them the correct message and simply focus on making it sound great.

Have patience. I started music late at 14 and wound up being a professional for most of my years. In the early stages I could 'recognize' pitch direction, but could not 'match' pitches readily with my own voice or my tuba. That does not mean I could not discriminate them. Reproducing them is a whole other issue. In those early years I definitely did not get good training as most of the local kids were left to their own devices to figure out music and what made it work. Later after managing to get into a decent college with my music learning deficiencies I began the study of solfeggio, and sang in the concert choir. ('applying' what I was "learning')
I would say solfege study was the biggest help in my case. Moveable "do" gave me a reverence point to a given tonality, and began to reinforce the sound of intervals. At the same time I was playing in a symphonic band that was conducted by Lucien Cailliet a grand Frenchman in the old style. Lucien became my mentor, He mentioned to me that in France back in the early 20th century, when and where he grew up, solfege was a prerequisite to the study of any instrument. It was to them unthinkable to hand a student an instrument who did not have any previous musical training. I realize that in this country we have more of a populist approach to school instrumental music and gather up a ton of kids and try to teach them all the elements of music at once. To a degree it works for the talented who manage to get good private teachers to steer them toward good habits. But then there are the kids who need special help who may never find enjoyment in music simply because of a transient developmental issue. Maybe there is NOT the necessary aptitude. Maybe its late coming. But in my case I had this intense motivation and I knew back then what I wanted to do. I never made it all the way to the top, but I lasted and carved out a niche for myself.
Just a little story of a kid that made it.

Just wanted to chime in on the solfege; my college violin teacher (Daniel Guilet) was French, and fairly early on he asked me to sing the music in front of me with solfege....I had only a clue what it was, but sang the pitches using do re mi names and never heard a word about it again. I think it is a great way to approach the music and should be taught more.

MaryAnn wrote:Just wanted to chime in on the solfege; my college violin teacher (Daniel Guilet) was French, and fairly early on he asked me to sing the music in front of me with solfege....I had only a clue what it was, but sang the pitches using do re mi names and never heard a word about it again. I think it is a great way to approach the music and should be taught more.

Arnold Jacobs began his study of solfege at Curtis and continued it throughout his entire career. He said that he, Bud, Friedman, and Clevenger were all solfege experts. One of his primary teaching points was that a brass player must be able to look at the spots on the page and hear the notes. He often said that there is no other way that someone can have a three octave range (or more) on an instrument with basically only three valves if they expect the instrument to give them the pitches. The player must put perfect pitches into the cup of the mouthpiece. Solfege is an excellent teaching tool for a brass player to learn how to do this because the syllables provide a tremendous assistance in pitch recall.

Having perfect pitch doesn't hurt, either.

I'd disagree re: solfege. Being able to sing pitches accurately using diatonic scale step numbers, or even "la" is adequate. The solfege syllables just add an unnecessary level of complexity.

Well, the solfege thing sounds interesting. I'm almost inspired to take this up myself, because I can see how it would be easier to hear a solfege `song' than a series of printed notes. (If I got the concept right.) Unfortunately, at my ripe old age, I'll never make it to the point where I'm converting printed notes to solfege at speed. Maybe if this 4 year old guy gets started on it, he can learn to play tuba later.

I would think the scariest thing here, is not the challenge of getting this 10 year old student to perform well on the tuba, but rather the challenge of getting him through this stage of his experience without trashing whatever potential he might have had. If he can sleep through it, good for him, probably for the best.