Help! I just bought a big, big tuba!

[The Big Ben]

Have fun! Nice to have another Trumpet Doofus on board.

From my experience, I'd suggest having a few lessons from a tuba teacher or at least a person who is familiar with the tuba. I was in much better shape as a tuba player after the first lesson than I was before.

Ask at the local HS and maybe the band director can point you towards a teacher or, perhaps, get you going him/herself. You 'know music' you just need to learn tuba.

Good luck!

[MikeMason]

you call that big?newbie.......

[The Big Ben]

Oh, yeah...

When you say you cannot get below f-sharp at the bottom of the staff, make sure you are not trying to get the f-sharp one octave lower than that. I made that mistake when I was working alone with a tuner. You might, in fact, be getting the f-sharp at the bottom of the staff if you check against a piano as my teacher did on my first lesson.

[iiipopes]

To clarify one point said earlier: The piano and tuba parts will usually read at written pitch. The bass guitar/double bass viol/upright bass parts usually read down an octave.

Regarding ergonomics, you may need to spend some time with a good tech repositioning everything. When I got my 186 I had to reposition the leadpipe not only for height, but receiver angle as well for a slight overbite. I also had to have the thumb ring moved and the paddles repositioned and resoldered for a short pinky and the way my hand is curved.

I sit next to a guy with a tuba same model as yours. He complains about the low register. Because of the long leadpipe to only a .689 bore, the low register can take some time to get used to. When you get to where you think you can transition, I would suggest transitioning to a deeper mouthpiece with a more "conventional" rim than the really wide 24AW also. I think you'll find articulation, flexibility, range and tone all improve.

I switched down from trumpet. Right now, I'm helping a friend switch down to euph from trumpet. Think more of a steady volume of air rather than just velocity as for trumpet high notes. Work at keeping the mouth cavity and throat as open and relaxed as possible, while keeping the embouchure firm. By firm, I mean you will use the side muscles of the embouchure probably more than you did on trumpet to actually work the embouchure rather than just keeping them tight and using more of the middle of the lip on trumpet. When you get done with a practice session, the sides of your mouth should be as tired rather than just the middle of your lip.

Welcome to the trenches.

[Leland]

It's in C because I'm just going to fool around playing jazz and tango, and I've inherited a very messy folder containing string bass parts, guitar chords, piano parts etc from our electric bass player who is leaving. I didn't look forward to transposing all that stuff.

Congratulations on the purchase. Bass clef does not transpose. So you would have to read the same music in that folder regardless of which of the four main keys of horns you chose to use. You DO have to read it down one octave, as bass parts are written up one octave from where they sound to avoid all of those horrid ledger lines that would clutter up the page if you wrote the part at pitch.

Right ^^^

In most ensembles (brass bands normally excluded), tubas don't transpose like trumpets do anyway. Read a C, play a "C", no matter what key of tuba you've got. That means we end up with a different set of note-to-finger fingerings for each key of tuba, but that's okay; we just learn them.

Of course I can't play the thing properly yet. But I'm surprised at the small effort required. You just breath naturally into it and out comes this wonderful, golden music of the spheres. None of that trumpeter's straining.

Thank goodness you're already taking the right approach to breathing. Most of the time, as players develop, they're told to move lots and lots and lots and lots of air, and they sometimes end up straining and working against their own bodies to make it happen.

[LoyalTubist]

Bass clef does not transpose.

Yeah...but my guess is that he reads bass clef just fine, and that he is used to thinking of playing a note called "C" with "no valves down"...

Right. He's going to have to get used to the fact that C is 1 and 3 (or 4) and what he used to think of as a C is really a B flat! (Should I try to confuse him some more?)

Anyway, with a tuba in bass clef you have fewer flats to worry about!

Oh, and in every brass band I ever played in you didn't have to transpose the tuba parts because I transposed them myself! For a former trumpet player, those B flat bass parts in brass band might help him out.

[GC]

I've found over the years that a lot of problems with valve-and-wrist discomfort can be eased by changing the angle at which you hold the horn. Holding the instrument more vertically and shifting the horn a little to the left in your seat may make it less of a problem. However, the most uncomfortable horn I ever played was a Meinl-Weston rotary Eb; NOTHING worked with it.

As for the weight, the Bell model is not at all a big tuba and it's not that heavy compared to a lot of other horns on the market. It's just heavy compared to all other non-tuba brass instruments. Try carrying a 31-pounder around for a while in a bag or case.

[iiipopes]

Right. He's going to have to get used to the fact that C is 1 and 3 (or 4) and what he used to think of as a C is really a B flat! (Should I try to confuse him some more?)

Hey LoyalTubist -- read again. He bought a Bill Bell CC tuba. Bloke's comment is right on the money. What he'll have to get used to instead is everything one line or space down from where he's used to it.

[corbasse]

In most ensembles (brass bands normally excluded), tubas don't transpose like trumpets do anyway. Read a C, play a "C", no matter what key of tuba you've got.

Yeah, but for us transposing types, we associate a note not as much with a certain pitch but much more with a certain fingering. For us, if reading C = playing C then playing C = fingering 0

So, if we see a C but have to press a valve, we call it transposing, even if what we do is actually playing concert pitch on a instrument in another key...

[iiipopes]

In most ensembles (brass bands normally excluded), tubas don't transpose like trumpets do anyway. Read a C, play a "C", no matter what key of tuba you've got.

Yeah, but for us transposing types, we associate a note not as much with a certain pitch but much more with a certain fingering. For us, if reading C = playing C then playing C = fingering 0

So, if we see a C but have to press a valve, we call it transposing, even if what we do is actually playing concert pitch on a instrument in another key...

Ah, therein lies the confusion: nomenclature. It is not transposing. Transposing is what you do to the music notation itself. Learning the fingerings for the same concert note on differently pitched instruments that all read at concert pitch is just and simply that: learning different fingerings.

[tubeast]

Rubberlips,

from what you write I strongly suggest you get some lessons from a good tubist (live one-on-one lessons, not online-advice).
Just an example:
you called valves 4+5 useless, stating you play the horn down to the F# well below the staff. On my way down, I´ll use valve 4 and 5 twice (on D below the staff and G below THAT), and valve 5 (most probably a valve slightly longer than valve 1) on Db and Gb.
NEVER do I use 123 or 13 combinations. My tuner just keeps telling me not to.
On trumpet, you use your triggers on those combinations, right ?
Well, just consider "4" to be "13+trigger" and "235" or "24" to be (123 + lots of trigger".
There may be other things considered just fine on trumpet that are No-Nos on tuba.

[iiipopes]

1. Is the sharpness of mouthpiece rims an issue for tubists too? It certainly is for trumpeters. I imagined that because of the wide circle of the mouthpiece on your lips it couldn't bruise them, but I may be wrong. If I'm right, what use is the wide rim on the 24 AW that came with the horn? I've always thought that W rims were for trumpeters that haven't learned to play properly and used too much pressure.

There are very, very few mouthpieces that actually have the really flat, sharp, "true" Helleberg rim anymore, and those that do make a big deal out of advertising the fact. Bruising is not an issue either. If you are using so much pressure you bruise, you're probably losing teeth as well. Just like some guys really like a real Rudy Muck trumpet mouthpiece rim to disperse the feeling of the mouthpiece as wide as possible, same with the 24AW. Just personal preference. But just as on trumpet, the conventional wisdom is that just as the wider rim is more comfortable, and may help endurance, the narrower rim, even if slightly rounded, helps flexibility and crisp intonation.

2. If I got a bigger rim diameter mouthpiece with a shallower cup than my 24AW, would it help reaching the lower register but also make the sound brassier, harder?

Frankly, it would just sound like $#!+ and be even more difficult to control. For your first couple of years, stay with a conventional "American" mouthpiece. They fall into two basic camps, and everything is a derivative of one or the other: a Bach 18 or its copies and facsimiles with a rounded cup, or a Conn Helleberg (current version called 120S with a slightly rounded rim) with a deeper "V" cup for a darker tone. This may be a little bit oversimplified and generalized, but not much. I live this one. As you can see from my signature, the Wick is more similar to a Helleberg, and I get a big, warm, broad tone that supports a community concert band well. The Kelly is the Bach derivative, that with its rounded cup, gives more overtones, core and projection more suitable for outdoor and some other types of stage gigs where the tone could get lost.

3. There is a lot of confusion about the transposing. My fault for not explaining it clearly. My inherited music consists of some songs with guitar chords, some copies of piano parts, some parts for electric bass - all in C. There are no written-out band arrangements. I'm supposed to improvise my own bass lines out of this - that's what makes it so interesting! So when I see a C in the music I want to play an open note. With a C tuba all the fingerings in this music will be the same as they were on my Bb trumpet when I played trumpet parts written for Bb.

If that's what you're used to, go for it! If you don't know it already, learn all your scales and basic chord progressions in all keys, major and minor, and you'll be well on your way. By the way, the correct nomenclature is "concert pitch," not "in C," as opposed to "transposed notation," as you're used to on Bb trumpet.

4. I complained about only being able to play down to F sharp (fingered 1-2-3), by which I meant F sharp 1 according to the American Standard system, or the note on the fifth leger line below the bass stave. Thanks to your good advice I'll soon be descending way below that!

OK. On trumpet, you have rings, saddles or triggers to kick out your 1st and 3rd valve slides to get 1-3 and 123 in tune. They're not on your tuba. Please learn to use 4 instead of 1-3, and 2-4 instead of 123. It's really simple. Just as in arithmetic 1+3=4, so it is on a tuba. When I finally got my 186, even after playing my Besson 3-valve comp with the extra tubing so I didn't need 4, I made sure to have the paddles repositioned so I could use 4 in the generally acceptable conventional manner. 1+3=4.

5. Yes, I'm a newbie! You're right, my horn is quite small for a tuba, but it still FEELS like an elephant to me!
Keep posting everybody, I'm learning fast!

Hey, you have a very fine instrument. Some guys, like the guy I sit next to in Shrine band, have played one for years, and will play it the rest of their playing days. Again, welcome to the trenches.

[thedeep42]

i am one of those with hand problems. ergonomics is a big issue. i've moved the thumb configuration (ring and trigger) on my rudy to allow my wrist to come in straight. it's a huge help. it's a rotary instrument and i think it is easier to get a comfortable hand position, pistons can be spread uncomfortably far for me. as with trumpet and pinky rings, my philosophy is don't use them if you can help it. with horns like miraphones, i just rest my thumb on the 2nd valve slide loop. some tuba makers make(or made) slant valve tubas standard or by request. i think more effort needs to be put into it. problem is if it doesn't look like a tuba or feel like that tuba i played through my golden days, i'm probably not going to buy it when lined up by more familiar models. i could be wrong. problem is everyone's built differently and one size certainly doesn't fit all in this case. I also use a tuba stand to allow me to angle the tuba however i like, it's a massive help not to have to physically hold the thing up.

as for the 24AW, my experience in britain was that a Besson Eb sovereign and a bach 24AW make up a key part of nearly every major tubists kit in the isles. it's like the helleberg to americans. Perantucci and others have even been pressured to make their own versions. i play the kelly 24aw from time to time and yes, i found it a little hard to get the articulation where i want it on some notes, but generally it produces a great sound and its very playable. if you want something a little more jumpy later, there are about a million guys willing to sell you the best mouthpiece ever.

[LoyalTubist]

Right. He's going to have to get used to the fact that C is 1 and 3 (or 4) and what he used to think of as a C is really a B flat! (Should I try to confuse him some more?)

Hey LoyalTubist -- read again. He bought a Bill Bell CC tuba. Bloke's comment is right on the money. What he'll have to get used to instead is everything one line or space down from where he's used to it.

Sorry, I read that after I graded papers last night. Actually, since this is a C tuba, he's going to have to get used to the idea that the notes sound one step higher than he's accustomed to, even though it's two octaves lower than a trumpet.

There. I got it right this time.

[Leland]

Unless, of course, he's accustomed to playing a C trumpet...