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It's common for trumpet players to do a 'shake' by literally shaking the horn. Anyone have any experience with doing a 'shake' with a tuba... or a sousa?

I find that shaking the jaw(and thus "bending" the bottom half of the embouchure) has pretty much the same effect. Sort of a charicaturistic vibrato, and almost never appropriate

On trumpets you can make the note go higher by pressing harder because the lip is fairly thick compared to the size of the mouthpiece, so shaking the horn makes the pitch change. That doesnt really happen on tuba because the lip is so much thinner in relation to the size of the mouthpiece, but you can do a slower lip trill style shake.

-Eric

Experiment with jaw and tongue motion. (taw-eeh-aww-eeh-aaw-eeh-aaw). Bringing the back of the tongue up on the "eeh" syllable changes the airspeed and helps flip partials.

If you can imagine the sound in your head, it is pretty easy to do, as long as you blow through the shake.

Like trills it becomes more difficult the lower you go, because the partials are wider apart. For most people, shakes are going to be easier in the upper register where the partials are close together.

Shockwave wrote:but you can do a slower lip trill style shake. -Eric

I heard someone else mention a 'lip trill' at a rehearsal last week but didn't have a chance to speak with him. Can you explain?

Lip trills are exactly what the name says, executing a tril without the use of valves. I'm learning how to do them now, and they're kind of a pain. Although they sound really good when perormed properly

I think I was experiencing these after playing the Strauss processional the second service Easter a.m.

A good example of a lip trill would be to listen to any good recording of Alec Wilder's Effie Suite. There is a lip trill in "Effie Joins a Carnival."

It's pretty easy to do a "shake"vibrato if the tuba is on a stand.