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Hi all, I am currently trying to work on my bass tuba playing. I have found that my tone quality gets very thin from G on the bottom line of the staff and lower. I will mention it is a Jinbao tuba so I do expect the sound to not be comparable to a melton, miraphone, etc. Is there any particular way to overcome the thin sound and make it sound easier and fuller. For reference I use a pt72 mouthpiece and it is a rotary valve tuba. Thanks in advance!

I of course haven't heard you play, so I'm not certain exactly what "thin" means. You can't play at high volume, airy, pinched? Which Jinbao F are you playing on?

Hi, it is the 3/4 Schiller with five valves. The sound is very uncentered and not as full as it is from the Ab just above the G and higher. I normally do not have the issue on bass tubas but recently I switched to an all rotary setup and it has been an issue.

When I first played on a rotary F Tuba, the tone was very fluffy below the G. For me, I just found that the more I played on the problematic instrument, the better I sounded. Try doing a bunch of Bordogni, Kopprasch, Blazhevich, Grigoriev and Arban exercises that make use of the problem register. Try the slower ones first and then work your way up to the tougher ones.

This one: ?

http://www.schillerinstruments.com/tuba ... -f-tuba-34" target="_blank" target="_blank

I haven't played one of those. I have to say though that it is absolutely not "normal" to have problems with all notes lower than G at the bottom of the staff, not at all. If this range doesn't present an issue on contrabass tuba and this issue has always existed on this tuba, you should have the horn itself checked out. Has it ever been serviced? Make sure the valves are aligned (visually, not just with the marks on the back of the valves as these are off sometimes) and there are no large debris inside the tuba. Is this a new tuba? It is often a good idea to have a new Chinese tuba completely gone through before you start using it, no matter what company you buy it from.

It is that exact horn! I am planning on having an alignment done on the horn. the fourth valve is a little off but the others look fine. However I trust that a shop could help improve the alignment and fix any issue that may not be present at this time. It is fairly new (bought it in November) and it was the same back then. I figured it was just a quirk at the time.

kmorgancraw wrote: I have to say though that it is absolutely not "normal" to have problems with all notes lower than G at the bottom of the staff, not at all.

I guess I was wrong then

I've just been told that it's normal for notes lower than the G to get a little "fluffy" on rotary valve F Tubas.

When I approached F tuba like I did my CC, my mid low range was very fluffy and uncentered. Bass tubas are different, expecially rotary F tubas, they need to be approached as such. Something the really helps me is lip slurs and octave slurs, making sure my sound is even between the registers.

Looks suspiciously like a berg

Casca Grossa wrote:

MikeMason wrote:Looks suspiciously like a berg

I posted about this horn when it first appeared on the Laabs sight. I thought the same. They actually have a few horns that look like copies of Wessex horns.

The Berg pretty obviously was influenced by this horn. The fifth valve and circuit are in a different place, but that outwardly appears to be it.

Try some 2 octaves scales starting on the C below the staff, ascending. This is a good starting point to get some air moving. Play those low Cs until they sound and feel as big as you can make them. You can learn to go down another octave from there if you are patient.

I took the horn in yesterday and found that not only was the fourth valve out of line but the fifth was slightly off in the open position. I am having that alignment taken care of now and hopefully this will fix the issue. Thank you all for the input it is greatly appreciated!

Thanks for the detailed post, Elephant. I've started on bass tuba (Eb) this summer after 20 years of CC only and your advice is much appreciated.
Regards,
Bob

bloke wrote:I don't know what a PT-72 is, and I have never played an F tuba like yours.

general F tuba playing tips...??

1/ "less"

Mostly general playing advice is much appreciated! It is an older number of Perantucci mouthpieces. Thanks Bloke!!

something that helped me immensely is doing a scale exercise my teacher called "do-re-do" referring to the solfege syllables. Assuming you don't know solfege, I'll use note names first, then scale degree numbers to explain.

Starting on C in the Staff, play an ascending C scale and add a C in between each note

C D C E C F C G C A C B C (high)C C
in scale degrees that's 1 2 1 3 1 4 1 5 1 6 1 7 1 8 1

I did this exercise in every key descending down into and beyond that range both slurred and with different articulations and dynamics.

Also, reverse it and try it backwards and try every key ascending to help with higher pitches.

Reversed it would be
8 1 8 2 8 3 8 4 8 5 8 6 8 7 8
and another fun variation if the regular reversal is too weird at first
1 8 2 8 3 8 4 8 5 8 6 8 7 8

Let me know if you don't understand any part of this and I'll try to make it clearer. Writing this exercise out has crossed my mind, but there are versions of it in arbans and kopprasch.