expanding the really, really, low range

[LoyalTubist]

Just go down chromatically. Since I lost all of my molars and my lower bicuspids, I can get lower by removing my dentures (sick, but true). Remember to open your mouth wider as you go down.

Strangely, when I took voice lessons in grad school, I learned that to sing higher you open your mouth wider, too. I experimented with this approach with my tuba playing and it will add a perfect fifth to your range. Bydlo should be no problem.

Pedal tones, however, are of more interest to tuba players than anyone else. If you can't play them and the music you play doesn't call for them, you don't need them. Don't worry.

[Thomas Maurice Booth]

In addition to what has already been mentioned, try playing the Rochut etudes down 2 octaves. That will give you quite the workout.

TMB

[CC]

I'd like to say that the C below pedal C is indeed possible, and I have heard it done....many times. Pushing the envelope is a positive thing.

that said....

The Wes Jacobs Low Register studies, as well as the Snedecor on F will put hair on anyones chest when it comes to really getting the low register to sing.

[keronarts]

Hi Cowtown Tuba --

Good ideas above by just about everyone on facility down below. Scales and chromatics are great builders down there, being sure to qualitatively make each sound as close as possible to your mid-range/ high range sounds. THEN, figure ways to vary them. It's a bit like the major league baseball pitcher who has 5-7 effective pitches -- he starts out making the same delivery, making them all look alike. The batter thinks he has nothing but entirely equal cells of the communist party coming at him. Then the pitches vary -- sometimes considerably -- near the plate to confuse the batter. You can spice up a basic paradigm almost endlessly, once you can nail the basic objective in your sleep.

Thomas Maurice Booth has a good idea with the Rochut material. Also Roger Bobo's Bach for the Tuba was designed specifically to build that pitch register. Really you could pick ANY tune or tune-type and work it up so that you were REALLY MAKING MUSIC down there. By making that thing sound as delicious to the ear as possible, you're also making yourself a low-range samurai of the first order, as well.

[eupher61]

That CCCC is barely in the range of human hearing, if it's actually in it at all. I certainly believe RC when he says he can tune pipes at that pitch, but if he can TRULY hear the pitch of itself (as in the Kraft) he's a remarkable cauldron of auditory capability.

[quinterbourne]

(who honestly believes any music below middle C is lost on most ears)

Which is why our standard solo literature is so darn high.

[iiipopes]

Bottom CCCCC of a 64' stop is ~8.3hz!! Now, while I can not tell any sort of pitch at that range, you can certainly still HEAR the sound.
Robert Coulter
(who honestly believes any music below middle C is lost on most ears)

Is it actual sound, or simply the physical perception of the pressure waves at that low pitch? Or some combination? Or being a reed, the overtone structure?

[tubatooter1940]

(who honestly believes any music below middle C is lost on most ears)

Which is why our standard solo literature is so darn high.

Damned right.... Well, that and the fact in the high range we begin to sound more like a horn or euphonium rather than a big, rich tuba....

RC

I also wish the range where I can get an edgy sound could be expanded.
I can seldom use the high, mellow french horn/euphonium sound in my solo work and am forced to brash it out down low.

[gregsundt]

I remember (vaguely) reading an article written by Fritz Kaenzig in a T.U.B.A. journal at least a half-century ago. In the first paragraph, he recounts a lesson he took with Arnold Jacobs as an aspiring young monster player. When Mr. Jacobs asked what he wanted to work on, he said that his low register needed work, and something about breathing. When asked how much time he spent working on low register alone, Fritz replied (as I recall) that it was somewhere betweeen 30-45 minutes per day. Mr. Jacobs' reply was that that should be sufficient for basic maintenance. Catch that, basic maintenance. It follows, then, that if you are still building (not just maintaining) the extreme low register, you will need to commit time, lots of time, to the endeavor. Almost any good melodic or scale studies, taken down the appropriate number of octaves, will do. You probably already own material that you could use, but if buying something new will help your commitment to the project, I would second the recommendation of the Wes Jacobs studies.