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After taking a few lessons with some top notch tuba players, one of the most common things they told me, is I need to is to make my own routine that is personal to me and fits my needs. However, I'm lacking the knowledge of exercises and books and what not to give me the foundation for my routine. So, I ask the question, what do you guys do in your daily routine (aside from etudes), and how do those certain routines help guide your playing?

Thanks in advance for the help,
-Griffin

A big part of mine comes from Mastering the Tuba by Roger Bobo.

I do 20-30 minutes of warming up (scales, fundamentals, et.cetra). to some people, It's too much, but without warming up, i'll just sound bad

Then it's 30 minutes of music (etudes, and solos). I go through solos with buzzing and playing, and doing deep analysis. If my tone changes at all(cracks and whiny in the high range) I'll take a 5-10 minute break.

IMPORTANT: no matter what your practice routine is, take breaks. You usually sound better after the break than if you didn't take it.

After that, I "warm down" with some cool stuff I found and other stuff I want to work on. I usually do minor scales and long tones.

That's my practice routine

-Raghul

griffinwilson wrote:After taking a few lessons with some top notch tuba players, one of the most common things they told me, is I need to is to make my own routine that is personal to me and fits my needs.

That's like going to the shrink and them telling you to fix yourself!!

The Brass Gym, A Comprehensive Daily Workout for Brass Players by Sam Pilafian and Patrick Sheridan, is the best book of this type that I am aware of. In addition to the exercises themselves, it has accompanying descriptions of how to play the exercises and what they are meant to accomplish.

You can use this book as an excellent starting point for making your own routine. Use your own judgement to concentrate on the exercises that address aspects of your playing that need the most improvement.

One thing about routines, is that they should not be routine, which is to say, they shouldn't be static. You should always be adjusting your daily routine to keep it fresh. A daily routine requires concentration, something that is difficult to maintain after you have played something a hundred times.

Hup

There is somewhat of a debate even between professionals of the merits of "daily routines" vs. "warm-ups" vs. "fundamental routines" vs. "just playing music". I've studied with the authors of two of the books listed above in this thread and also with a prominent teacher who never once warmed up his entire life. I've come to the conclusion that no matter what routine you use (or don't use) that every pro I ever wanted to play with does three things at the highest of levels in many, many permutations:

1) Lips Slurs*
2) Long tones*
3) Scales*

*with a metronome and tuner

That's where I would start.

Tom

I had two teachers that used the Bill Bell method. An expanding interval long tone exercise is the first thing, with a crescendo-diminuendo on each pitch followed by a slur to the next, and wider interval. The control of dynamic from softest to loudest is applied to all the pitches from highest to lowest.

After doing those for a long time, you will be surprised at anybody saying they find anything hard about playing either soft or loud, or low, or high. You will be even more surprised when the person complaining attributes the difficulty to their own horn.

I was playing these once under a theory professor's office, and he came down to speak to me. It had to be a miserable thing to hear, but he commended me for having a system and sticking to it.

This may be of help

http://www.tubaphonium.com/uploads/1/7/ ... r_tuba.pdf" target="_blank