Practical range for a high school tubist

[iiipopes]

Rick "much more interested in sound and technique than in range" Denney

And on that point I agree with Rick completely.

[passion4tuba]

How old are you (the person who made this post)? i mean alot of issues of range fall under a player's own personal physical development...at least that's what i heard. I kno last year (9trh grade) it was hard for me to just play a B flat above the staff ...and i practiced my butt off too..but it would barley come, but over the summer i just kept working at it and i can play an F above the staff with tone quality, an of course almost any one can squeak out some high stuff ...


i have to agree with previous posts and say that range comes 2nd to good tone...my band director keeps telling me that...and i only really started focusing on range after a considerable number of credible tuba and brass players said i had a nice/solid quality of sound. Also just doing scale variations out of my arbans book improved my range...It seems most of the tuba players i have met in Texas have good ranges...especially considering some of them arent even 16 ...but anyways i guess to answer the post....wouldnt a "normal" range be the all/reigon chromatic scale (low E to high B flat)? idunno..[/code]

[TexTuba]

I never wanted to extend my range for the sake of extending it. I did it out of necessity in order to play pieces I wanted to play. Two of those pieces being the Gregson and VW, and then Symphonie Fantastique. I was told this by my teacher and I work hard to live by it. "If you go directly to the music, the technique will come indirectly." I try not to THINK about the Ab in the VW, I think about the MUSIC. Once I accepted this mentality, I stopped straining for the high notes. But that's just me. Good luck!

Ralph

[TubaRay]

I never wanted to extend my range for the sake of extending it. I did it out of necessity in order to play pieces I wanted to play. Two of those pieces being the Gregson and VW, and then Symphonie Fantastique. I was told this by my teacher and I work hard to live by it. "If you go directly to the music, the technique will come indirectly." I try not to THINK about the Ab in the VW, I think about the MUSIC. Once I accepted this mentality, I stopped straining for the high notes. But that's just me. Good luck!
Ralph

Well, I spent a good deal of time and effort working to extend my range. This I did years ago. I now simply work to keep it. That hasn't been too difficult, which I believe is because I learned the proper way to do this. I agree with you concerning the mentality of going "directly to the music, the technique will come indirectly." Once one has the technique and then the mental "picture"(actually the sound), it should be reasonably easy.

[LoyalTubist]

I knew kids when I was in high school who thought they were doing well by getting a middle line D or the F above that. Coming from a typical California High School Parade Band (we memorized one march for the parade season, which is basically parallel to football season), we played a lot of good marches (and memorized four, one for each year of high school.)

I think a practical high school range is low E (two octaves below the staff) to B-flat on the space just above.

[adam0408]

I think I know the idea behind the original post: You want to know how you stack up against players in your age group.

Quite frankly, I don't think it really matters all that much. Just make sure you can play what you are required to play with the best possible tone. If you feel like working on high range, work on high range. Just remember, your sound comes first. If you can play a double g with crappy tone it won't be nearly as memorable as a note an octave below that with great tone.

I would definately reccommend working on the Vaughn Williams. however, I have not yet worked at all on the gregson so I am a little biased.

I definately give the credit for my control of my high range to playing the VW sooner than many people would have probably advised me to. When I started working on it back in HS I was reaching for almost all the notes. By the time I knew the piece, my useable range had extended itself by a fifth to an octave.

[tubeast]

I guess a nice approach to extending your range is not actively trying to.
Make sure you play scales every day covering your whole (comfortable) range. Every once in a while, check out if you can add a scale in a slightly lower or higher key. If it still feels comfortable, go for it and add it to your routine. If it doesn´t, don´t worry about it for another week.
I NEVER encountered notes above G4 (literature that I was expected to play in public, that is), but I WAS asked to go for F0s. I have to admit it takes a GREAT day for me to even fake that note, not to speak of making it a valuable contribution to any piece of music.
So I quit practising high range and just make sure I keep it above C4. To me, anything higher is just a waste of MY time.

(To all those "Peddel BBb", "Middle C" and "High G" people: the C in the staff will be C3 in that terminology. The notes of an octave are counted from a C on upwards. So the "0-octave" will be C0 and higher).

On your original question: That´ll be F1 through F3 for me. If you got those cold and solid, you will rarely get in trouble during HS. The higher stuff is what you got a buddy on baritone for.

[LoyalTubist]

It doesn't look right when you use the technical names for the notes on these postings. So I will continue to use road map names for the notes. We're talking about kids who probably have trouble reading leger lines.