Practicing multiple instruments

[Chadtuba]

When you're playing more than just tuba how do you practice so that the different instruments and embochoure(SP?) don't mess with your tuba playing?

For example, I'm playing euphonium with the local college wind ensemble, bass bone with a big band, and my tuba in a quintet while preparing for grad school auditions on tuba.

[gregsundt]

I have always found that starting every day on my main horn keeps me on track. Especially since you have a major audition coming up, spend your first and best practice time on tuba. Practice the others just enough to keep up. You may have to live with some tone and pitch issues on euph and bass bone, but at least you aren't playing horn or trumpet.

[MaryAnn]

When I have practiced with multiple mouthpiece sizes, I found that what worked best for me was to start with the smallest mouthpiece work my way up in size (which is down in pitch.) Example, start with horn and then practice tuba after that. It was easier to "loosen up" my chops because somehow playing a lot of tuba caused my lips to puff up a little, which made horn embouchure not work very well (as they are more "squished" with the horn mouthpiece/embouchure.)

With air supply though....if I had played tuba for a few days and then went to horn, I noticed that I was doing a better job of putting air through the horn than usual.

YMMV, as usual.

MA

[tuba kitchen]

With air supply though....if I had played tuba for a few days and then went to horn, I noticed that I was doing a better job of putting air through the horn than usual.

In the past I used to double frequently on trombone and euphomium. I always went from big to small to get the air moving. This helped my sound and air flow on the smaller instruments. Also, I find this method useful when practicing big and small tubas. After playing a lot of trombone I found that my tuba sound suffered.

[Jeff Miller]

I double frequently (professionally) on tuba and bass trombone. People who know me as a bass trombone player think it's my primary instrument, and people that know me as a tuba player think it's the other way round (which it is).

The only way to do this successfully is to approach each instrument like it's your primary instrument, and have an extremely strong concept of that instrument's sound and personality in your head.

If you're playing a bass trombone, be a bass trombonist. Use a bass trombone mouthpiece. If you're playing a tuba, use a tuba mouthpiece. You'll probably screw up your embouchure a lot more by trying to get a trombone sound out of a tuba-sized mp - the rim might stay the same, but you'll have to change everything else just to manage a partially successful sound. In fact, I use a relatively small mp (Bach 1/2G) on my bass bone to ensure that I'm not getting a woofy, tuba-like sound).

In general, if your concept of each instrument is strong enough, it doesn't matter which one you play on a given day, or in what order. After all, on a gig you may have about 10 seconds to swap from one to the other - you may as well learn how to do that in the practice room!

[windshieldbug]

If you're doubling, ya gotta play what you play when it's needed, but for practice, I agree with MA, I usually go from small to large.

And if you don't already have the sound firmly in your head, you shouldn't bother at all.