TubeNet

Due to the Corona pandemic we are a lot of family at home all day every day, and I had to find a new practice room in our house.
My new tuba cave is our utility room.
All rooms of course have different acoustics, but this one is really not pleasant to practice in.
I have to play rather soft to avoid the sound to distort and especially some of the low register tones to become rather unclear/unfocused.
Slowly I'm adapting to the new acoustic surroundings and everything sounds a little better and it is indeed an interesting challenge to sound good.
But it sure will never be my future practice room when the virus has gone and everything is back to normal.
But - how come a certain room can be that terrible to practice in?

Same here in Macedonia, I've been practicing at home. It's a 15 m sq room but somehow it has terrible resonance. So I always need some time to get used to it. My opinion rellies on logic that your ear is your professor and your best critic. So you don't feel comfortable with the sound of your tuba in that particular room and the you start searching for good sound and so on and so on, until you get the sound you want.
Might be wrong, but that's my opinion:))
Cheers and stay safe!

I live in a small house with a 7' ceiling in the basement where I practice. The ceiling is made up of the normal hanging ceiling tile. No matter what I do, my tone always sounds muffled. What a difference when I go to practice in a band room. I sound so much better. Unfortunately, I've gone from 3 community bands and 1 brass band to no band practice or concerts.

Damn coronavirus!

KorKoro

In rooms that are too small, your lips are connected to the air column of the room.
Reflecting waves impact your lips. On tubenet I think many of the players looking
for help on problem notes are sitting in an unfavorable spot in their practice room.
I always feel like saying try the note outdoors in nature. If it's ok outside find another
place to sit in your room.
Imagine your room mirrored and your bell is a flashlight or laser. Consider the angle of
the bell in your normal playing position. Now play three dimensional billiards. Find the most
obtuse angles with the furthest throw away from the bell.
Haha good luck

Joe "Fibonacci is my Friend" Hunter

Edit: two words, duh, acute reflectional

Long ago when I played more clarinet family instruments, there was a spot in the house I lived in at the time, where the bottom C of a contrabass clarinet took on a specially awesome resonance. A Leblanc "paper clip" model, with a "16 foot" C an octave and a half below the bass clef; normally not much of a presence in a wind ensemble, basically the reason why I took up the tuba.

KKORO wrote:I live in a small house with a 7' ceiling in the basement where I practice. The ceiling is made up of the normal hanging ceiling tile. No matter what I do, my tone always sounds muffled. What a difference when I go to practice in a band room. I sound so much better.

I believe that's because if the ceiling is low, the final wave can't form above the bell, and is thus muffled.
Try turning your horn sideways (which should alleviate that problem) and see how it sounds.
Not having enough space above the bell is different than adjusting to a room...

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windshieldbug wrote:

KKORO wrote:I live in a small house with a 7' ceiling in the basement where I practice. The ceiling is made up of the normal hanging ceiling tile. No matter what I do, my tone always sounds muffled. What a difference when I go to practice in a band room. I sound so much better.

I believe that's because if the ceiling is low, the final wave can't form above the bell, and is thus muffled.
Try turning your horn sideways (which should alleviate that problem) and see how it sounds.
Not having enough space above the bell is different than adjusting to a room...

Turning the bell sideways and resting the horn on my thighs - just like Jon Sass actually helped quite a lot!
I don't think that any physiotherapist would recommend this posture for extended rehearsals though
But - any trick that can help me through this period would be more than acceptable!

Interesting knowledge about standing waves, low ceiling etc.

I always look forward to the summer when I can practice in my barn. Way better than practicing in my house - the sound is so bad that often I am startled when I warm up at band practice in a decent sized room - not that I am that good, it just sounds so different. I seem to remember a couple million years ago my tuba teacher telling me that the ceiling should be at least the length of the horn tubing away from the bell. Has anyone else ever heard that?

I'm not so sure about the wavelengths problem. I mean, as I mentioned earlier you can sometimes find a sort of acoustic anomaly where the wavelength of a note does match up in some way and you'll hear the difference, but of course the next pitch up or down won't match the same way. On the other hand, if you don't think the tuba's low end is coming through, get someone over with an electric bass, turn down the treble everywhere, and I think we can guarantee, you'll hear those tones. 4 string bass goes down to about 27 feet. I'm not saying everything is going to sound like it does in a nice room, but the difference isn't as simple as the low end getting clipped off.

The relationship between the ceiling and the bell I think is different, kind of like when a surface gets near enough that it becomes like a (badly designed) part of the instrument. There are tone generating acoustic phenomena that extend somewhat outside the bell, depending I think on the shape of the bell flare, so a ceiling or wall in that space would be effectively similar to inserting something into the bell.

It is just about one year to the day that I got my 1/4 tuba (sometimes spelled euphonium). I have been playing it like a typical top-action tuba, holding it fairly vertical in front of me, resting on a pad on my left knee. My reason for switching to the 1/4 from a 4/4, was because my left shoulder had problems. Months of physical therapy later, I can hold the horn with my left arm, with the bell rather low and angled to the right, the way I have seen euphonium players do it.

The difference in sound quality is startling. At first I attributed it to a better junction between mouth and tuba, but after reading these comments, it is probably the bell position. Unlike some of you more fortunate ones, I always practice in low-ceilinged, tight little rooms. So thanks for the tip?

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Yes, we need that positive feedback while playing. I have always hated when the stage crew sets me up 3 feet from the left wall of the auditorium and the sound bounces right back at me. When looking for a house, the need for higher ceilings (9 ft. and above) are a pre-requisite. Recently, we purchased a house that has 22 ft. cathedral ceilings. The sound difference is amazing and really changes the way I play compared to an 8 ft. ceiling in another room.

This all reminds me of a story that goes back at least a couple of decades. I met Warren Deck at his home in NJ to play for him. His studio was in the basement and the ceilings were not higher than 6'5". I think he had to duck... Well, I asked him how the hell could he play down here. He went to the table and handed me some Sennheiser open air headphone. I put them on, he turned on some kind of sound module with a mic across the room, and I played. I thought was sitting on the stage of a large auditorium. I guess it added some kind of reverb or something. (I'm not techno oriented). He said, "this is how I practice".

Good luck gang. Stay safe and use your down time efficiently!

I played in a different location in my basement this morning - I've moved some furniture for my telework days.

So I was bouncing off a concrete block wall, and surprised I was sounding pretty darned good. I agreed though with playing mostly where you don't sound good and trying to produce tone there, and if you don't well at least there's an excuse.

peterbas wrote:I've wondered myself if this isn't a problem for beginners. If you want a sound with presence in a small room it's gonna be a very small, constricted sound in a larger room.

I noticed this with fellow students in college. I would see them practice almost exclusively in our small practice rooms. Then when they got on stage, their sound only traveled a few feet and didn't have much presence out in the audience.

A professor at a neighboring college -- Dr. Winkle -- advocated earplugs for his students when they used practice rooms. It made sense, too, because a small room pushes the sound right back at you, and mezzo-piano dynamics actually feel pretty loud. Playing at fortissimo like in a stage performance, but in a small room, just plain hurts.

I used to wait until after hours and then practice in the band room or the recital hall. Thinking about it now, it was like most of my formative years on tuba, when I was playing in a church quintet during the school year and marching in drum corps for the summer.

In my normal practice space, the tuba plays and sounds better when I sit closer to (or on) the floor. That's not sustainable, though, so I don't try it very often.

It is always best, imo, to try to find large rooms or spaces to practice. The acoustics IS part of your sound, because tuba and sousa are acoustic in nature - the sound 'blossoms' or 'develops' in whatever acoustic environment you are playing in