How can I play louder?

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Ken Crawford
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Re: How can I play louder?

Post by Ken Crawford »

The answer to how to play louder is simple. Play in tune with the rest of the ensemble. That's it. Besides, playing loud isn't hard. Anybody trying to become a better player should be concerning themselves with how to play softer, a rare ability, which incidentally makes your louds seem louder.
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Re: How can I play louder?

Post by Voisi1ev »

goodgigs wrote: The last thing I'll say here is that four guys who blend well, who are
"on time and in tune" will out power five "blastissmos" who sound like
five individuals every time.
2 or 3 rather than 4?

Doesn't take much. I teach a fairly small band, over the years it has ranged from 25-50. We have at times for sure carried more than some larger groups....
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Re: How can I play louder?

Post by Tubaru »

I play in a community band that at times has as many as 80 people on stage and I am the only tuba. In my younger days I would just try to crank out the sound. Now I just concentrate on three things. Play with a good sound, play in tune and play in time. In the loudest sections of music I play at the loudest dynamic that I can still accomplish those three things. If I try to play any louder all three of those suffer.
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Re: How can I play louder?

Post by swillafew »

Play in tune with the rest of the ensemble.
I learned this working at an amusement park. We had 5 horns and the sound will carry all the way through the park if it's in tune. Out of tune, each person's playing actually works against the other's.
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Re: How can I play louder?

Post by Lee Stofer »

Have them consider, instead of trying to play louder, to try to play better. I would suggest that, instead of thinking loud, to work towards playing strong. This mostly has to do with resonating, which a relaxed embouchure and good airflow will help to accomplish. When you can do this, and in-tune, you will tend to sound great.

To build a large sound, it does help to practice in large spaces, or outdoors, if possible. But, I find that the most important aspects are to just resonate and play in-tune.
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Re: How can I play louder?

Post by Three Valves »

It helps if you are fit and under 25 years old!!
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Re: How can I play louder?

Post by TacoTacoTaco »

One of my former tuba teachers had me work on this Arban exercise (I can't remember what number as it's been years) where I would play a scale (C-D, C-E, C-F, etc.) in eighth notes with a quarter rest in between each eighth note. The eighth notes were quite short and the bpm was something like quarter equals sixty.

Anyway, the goal was to play them as obscenely loud as I could. I mean, BLAT! It was just the ugliest sound at first. If I missed a note during the scale, however, I would have to start over. Also, I was never to do more than about fifteen minutes of this per day. When I could consistently play this way, and get more efficient with how many scales I could fit in this time frame, I would slowly pull back on the volume to something that was loud AND in tune. It was great practice for that dynamic range.

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Re: How can I play louder?

Post by Mark »

Lee Stofer wrote:Have them consider, instead of trying to play louder, to try to play better. I would suggest that, instead of thinking loud, to work towards playing strong. This mostly has to do with resonating, which a relaxed embouchure and good airflow will help to accomplish. When you can do this, and in-tune, you will tend to sound great.

To build a large sound, it does help to practice in large spaces, or outdoors, if possible. But, I find that the most important aspects are to just resonate and play in-tune.
+1

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Re: How can I play louder?

Post by TubaKen »

Lee Stofer said
This mostly has to do with...a relaxed embouchure and good airflow
This is key. Most young players think of forcing air into the horn when going for extreme loudness. What you want is a very relaxed embouchure, and an open throat. One other tidbit is to pull the mouthpiece slightly away from the face, to maximize vibration and minimize the possibility of forcing things.
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Re: How can I play louder?

Post by PaulMaybery »

Perhaps try this on top of what I read from Lee's post - that is the relaxed factor.
But before I begin the diatribe, I understand that all this might fly in the face of some other's ideas on tonguing.
If what you are doing differently works, then all the better. This is offered as a suggestion that may greatly benefit some.

Part of playing loudly, or let's say with just a huge sound, requires the delivery of a large healthy amount of air.
Not just a hurricane, but the right amount. I think we can understand that.

I have found that blockage of the airstream is not just from the much discussed closed throat, but also a tongue, that in its upward position, is crushing the oral cavity.
Keeping that oral cavity open can be a bit of a mystery. After all, we can't talk to the tongue and say, "Hey, lay down and get out of the way." So we need a way to accomplish that, such as producing a certain consonant/vowel sound such as when we think of a certain word.

In my own personal case, I learned that tonguing behind the lower teeth was a key factor. (In some cases, allowing the tongue to actually protrude sightly through the teeth, as if pronouncing the word "Thow"} But it is not a sloppy use of the tongue, but needs to become a discipline action.
But that is just the beginning of a slightly more complex process.
I also found that such a placement of the tongue down low helps greatly in the case of upward slurs particulartly of large intervals) So when the tongue is set to the lower vowels such as u or o, there is a place from which to spring upward to the e vowel.

Yes, it does involve having a reasonably lowered jaw, but it is again not just a random drop to a larger opening between the teeth. It also involves the oral cavity behind the teeth and whether or not it is open suffciently to allow a large and somewhat relaxed column of air to pass through.

When i play loudly, I find that I am not really working all that much harder. One of the results with all of the above is that we can maintain a well controlled sound even when at a fortissimo or louder, as nothing really becomes distorted or ugly in the process.

I realize that when we talk about tonguing with higher brass players, there is some puzzlement as most of them tongue behind the upper teeth. But then consider the difference in the function of the air column between a trumpet and a contrabass tuba. It is not the same.

There is a raft of things that seem to work much better and with less effort when the tongue is low in the oral cavity.
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Re: How can I play louder?

Post by hup_d_dup »

kmorgancraw wrote:The answer to how to play louder is simple. Play in tune with the rest of the ensemble. That's it.
Is it not possible to play loudly and out of tune?

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Re: How can I play louder?

Post by aludovico »

As Lee observed, it's about a relaxed, supported, column of air.

My instructor had me try an exercise where you place a toothpick between the mouthpiece and receiver.
You try to play a simple passage on what is now, a very leaky horn, forcing you to move more air.
You take the pick out (grab it with the mouthpiece so it doesn't end up going down your receiver!), put the mp back and play the same passage the same way and you will be LOUD.

The intent of the exercise was to illustrate the concept of moving air through a relaxed embouchure. The side-effect is a better understanding of those loud dynamics and how to get there without tightening up and 'forcing' it.

But yeah, also play in tune. =)
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Re: How can I play louder?

Post by bort »

Loud = blow hard
Louder = blow REALLY hard

:roll:

I think HS kids also need a reality check of their expectations:
* How loud are you already playing?
* How much louder is it even possible to play?
* No, you're not going to sound like Warren Deck.
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Re: How can I play louder?

Post by Donn »

Not to contradict any of the above, there's some great stuff there, but ...

Let's just consider for a moment that the tuba is not a solo instrument. When we drown out the mid-range instruments, we're defeating the purpose of the band, just as would be the case if the percussion section felt it was their duty to play as loud as possible. In a band where that's the purpose and the devil take the hindmost, that's fine, but it should be obvious that these are not going to be very good bands.

The object really should be, if you ask me, to play in a style that conveys the tuba's part as required, but also leaves room for the other voices. A lot of that is articulation - getting the front of the note through the mix, on pitch and on time and ideally with a good characteristic tuba tonal character. The rest is more mysterious to me, but I know players who do it - big bass sound, but kind of dry or something, in a way that leaves plenty of room in it for a trombone solo etc. In a way, it's how to do the job better by not playing so loud, but that's an over-simplification.
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Re: How can I play louder?

Post by Donn »

bloke wrote:Symphony orchestras, mostly, are "soprano and bass".
I had no idea anyone was talking about symphony orchestras. Do they have tubas?
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Re: How can I play louder?

Post by Leland »

Practice, practice, practice;

And RELAX.

My loud end is best when I'm in a Zen-like state of mind. What's coming out the other end of my horn may be fire and brimstone, but I'm back there going, "ommmmmmmm", refilling my tank when needed, and making sure my sound remains stable.

Maybe I should upload some rehearsal videos sometime.

[adding on]

It's not physically difficult to play loud. It really isn't. Any fifth grader can do it. Anybody jogging in the park is breathing harder than any tuba player.

The challenge is not letting the violence of the sound alter the calm, focused approach to playing the instrument.
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Re: How can I play louder?

Post by pjv »

In an interview, Sarah Willis asks Zoltan Kiss how Mnozil manages to play so loud. His answer was balance, saying that your volume increases immensely with balance. Thus in achieving a perfect balance (and perfectly in tune I imagine) the harmonics line up and support the entire sound. They can play very loud without killing themselves doing it because they play well. The minute one instrument plays too loud or soft the wall of sound crumbles.

Something like that. (It's been a while since I heard the interview).

In short;
play in tune
balance your volume
play well
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