Just learn the scales!

[Kayla]

I don't like scales, but I try making them as applicable as possible, like I take a tough rhythm from a piece and apply it to each note of the scale (like Wagner's Ride).

Off topic much, but my boyfriend (a trumpet major) was reading this thread alongside and he said "Wow, there's a lot of drama...on a TUBA forum".

[rocksanddirt]

Off topic much, but my boyfriend (a trumpet major) was reading this thread alongside and he said "Wow, there's a lot of drama...on a TUBA forum".

as a trumpet player for many years....he has no idea what drama lurks behind the drums in a marching band...

[imperialbari]

I don't like scales, but I try making them as applicable as possible, like I take a tough rhythm from a piece and apply it to each note of the scale (like Wagner's Ride).

I use a somewhat similar approach when I train fast tonguing patterns in the low range. I use the descending chromatic scale. But I do not count this approach as scale work, as the moving patterns of scales are not in the foreground here.

This thread has mentioned several books and methods of scale work. The Arban type is more varied than mine, but then these more elaborate methods consume quite a bit of time, if they shall be done all through the circle of fifths on a regular basis. My own method cuts the fat and only has two bars (repeated) and the end note for each scale, which however is presented in 3 different octaves. I have these scales printed out, but don’t really use the prints, as I have the scales memorized by the quality of the scale degrees: pure Minor has minor third, sixth, and seventh, whereas Dorian is very similar, only it has a major sixth.

To keep interest up I note where the melodic tritone intervals are while playing.

No brass instrument is completely in tune with itself if not manipulated by the player by means of slide pulling, refingering, and/or embouchure work. If the inherent intonation problems are not negotiated, each key will become very different from even the same mode in any other key. Scales are a major help in training the ears to act as command center for the various technical approaches needed.

But then there is at least one more method for achieving the same goal: Find a simple tune with no chromatic modulations. Play it it in your favourite key. You may note no problems of uneven intonation. Then play the same tune in a key, which is not a fourth or a fifth apart from the original key. Does the intonation sound right? If not, then trace the problems and work on them. If you can play such tune in all 12 keys through all of your range and sound in tune and even all the way round, then you are in pretty good command of your instrument.

Klaus

[k001k47]

I'm a horrible musician who will never get a playing job (won't stop me from trying) and I can play my scales (I like to think) respectably.

[The Big Ben]

I'm a horrible musician who will never get a playing job (won't stop me from trying) and I can play my scales (I like to think) respectably.

If you show up on time and sober, with your horn in playing condition, having rehearsed your music on your own and wearing the right clothes, they might overlook you throwing in a clam every once and awhile. If you have a good sense of humor and are kinda cute, they probably will keep ya.

Least that's what The Elephant says he does...

[timdicarlo]

If you show up on time and sober, with your horn in playing condition, having rehearsed your music on your own and wearing the right clothes, they might overlook you throwing in a clam every once and awhile. If you have a good sense of humor and are kinda cute, they probably will keep ya.

On time... check.
Sober... for a gig?... check.
Rehearsed... check.
Right clothes... check.
Sense of humor... I like to think so.
Kinda cute... crap.

Whaddaya think? Will a solid 4.5 out of 6 cut it?

[rocksanddirt]

Kinda cute... crap.

Whaddaya think? Will a solid 4.5 out of 6 cut it?

I feel your pain....

[NC_amateur_euph]

Klaus wrote

bloke measures his catches by the Plimsoll marks

Darn it, Klaus. I was trying to go the whole day without thinking. Your post stuck in my head and made me look up Plimsoll line.

Seriously, thanks for the stimulation. Since I am the only one in the office today, I actually needed it.

Best regards and Merry Christmas!

[The Big Ben]

IOff topic much, but my boyfriend (a trumpet major) was reading this thread alongside and he said "Wow, there's a lot of drama...on a TUBA forum".

Does your mother know you are spending time with a trumpet player?

[Tuba Guy]

My first tuba teacher required that I have a mastery of all four keys of tuba by the end of my Junior year in HIGH SCHOOL (I started playing tuba this very same year). He would give me tests during lessons where he would bring in one tuba of every key plus a euphonium and would make me do sight reading test on every tuba. For me, not knowing my scales was not an option and even though this method was very hard (first two weeks playing was on BBb then added Eb than a month later added CC than a month later F) I am very glad my teacher took this approach with me.

Here we are, trying to tell kids that music and musicianship based on good fundamentals is the most important thing, and now we hear that they are not one of the big boys unless they know all four keys of tuba by their junior year in high school. So, did you buy the tubas with money you earned? If not...your poor parents (and I mean that in all ways).

I have a feeling that our James might be applying a fairly tough standard to the definition of "knowing a scale". It isn't enough to know the fingering pattern, which we all practice by drumming our fingers on our steering wheels, etc. They also have to be in tune (with themselves), and even in tone and articulation. I'll bet that ANY high-school kid who can play all 48 scales won't sound like Gene Pokorny when he does, even if he has a World Class Sound. "Perfection" is a big word.

Rick "feeling better, thank you" Denney

I'm not saying that learning all 4 keys of tuba is neccisarily neccisary, but I could see the advantage of it. I probably take a strange approach when I play a different keyed horn, in that I always regard the fundamental pitch as C, and then just place that C on the correct like (for example, BBb tuba's C is a Bb, which is 2nd line). Then, I place the C on the correct line, and just read it as a different clef (back to BBb's, the 2nd line C is mezzo soprano clef).
Likewise, I always read my CC as straight bass clef, my Eb as treble clef, my BBb as mezzo soprano clef, and (if I had one) an F as tenor clef. This also helps if I feel like reading some trombone excerpts and need to play in tenor clef.
I had a teacher (theory/aural perception/sight singing/he just liked to torture us), and he taught us about all of the different clefs and how they are used as transposition tools, something that i pretty much see as easiest.
So, learning all of the keys of horns, I could see how that would be helpful...if you need to play one of the tubas in the other clefs, you already know how to finger it for those, and you only need to learn soprano clef, alto clef, baritone clef, and french violin clef after (...ok, so french violin is bass clef, but w/e).
Well, that's just how I look at playing different keys of horns...could be more complicated than it's worth, but it's how I see it. (and as a result, I'm also the only freshman who can play trombone at least somewhat competently in C treble clef)

[Rick Denney]

So, learning all of the keys of horns, I could see how that would be helpful...if you need to play one of the tubas in the other clefs, you already know how to finger it for those, and you only need to learn soprano clef, alto clef, baritone clef, and french violin clef after (...ok, so french violin is bass clef, but w/e).
Well, that's just how I look at playing different keys of horns...could be more complicated than it's worth, but it's how I see it. (and as a result, I'm also the only freshman who can play trombone at least somewhat competently in C treble clef)

I have this feeling that those who are destined for tuba stardom will use whatever method that makes sense to them to pick up a tuba of a different pitch without much difficulty. The method is probably not as important as the fact that it 1.) worked, and 2.) was intuitive and nearly automatic for the player. Those who struggle with it become, say, engineers.
My issue was the need to learn all four instruments to apparent perfection by age 17. That seems excessive. But to each his own. What matters is not the horn, but what emanates from the horn.

Rick "who has enough trouble with just one clef" Denney

[imperialbari]

Yes, the important fact is what works. My treble and bass clefs came from less than a half year of piano lessons when I was 10. By sheer accident I had to play part written in G, F, E natural, Eb, D, C, and Bb on an Eb instrument. I was too lazy to rewrite them, and as transposing by interval is a mathematical displacement function as well as an ear function, I just transposed. When I later on approached clefs the alto clef was like horn in D or Db depending on the key. Tenor clef was horn in Bb basso.

At an event for extended brass band a conservatory student joined in on his large CC reading from the BBb tuba treble clef part. I was on bassbone and immediately noted his very secure reading. I knew that he played the piano as that is a mandatory instrument for all conservatory students here, so I thought he read treble clef 2 octaves down and then transposed down a whole step, which would have been my method. Years later I met that guy again and asked how he did. The answer was new to me: he checked the key and then used the same fingerings as when playing the F tuba from bass clef.

Klaus

[k001k47]

and I can do it utilizing far fewer notes than *any* of the rest of you.

Wana bet?

I can play scales that only use half a note.

[Tuba Guy]

At an event for extended brass band a conservatory student joined in on his large CC reading from the BBb tuba treble clef part. I was on bassbone and immediately noted his very secure reading. I knew that he played the piano as that is a mandatory instrument for all conservatory students here, so I thought he read treble clef 2 octaves down and then transposed down a whole step, which would have been my method. Years later I met that guy again and asked how he did. The answer was new to me: he checked the key and then used the same fingerings as when playing the F tuba from bass clef.

Klaus

Yeah, reading it like F tuba is pretty much how I do it...Bb treble clef (what trumpets, clarinets, baritone in treble clef, and evil composers for Bb tubas) is really just tenor clef, which is what an F tuba plays in when it's reading bass clef.
This also comes in really handy if you feel like playing a trumpet concerto. For my seating audition at school this year, I worked up the Arutunian trumpet concerto to a fairly good level (which I promptly forgot after my teacher and I started working on some more baseline tuba stuff). I was so used to playing this and reading the tenor clef on my CC that when the band director gave me treble clef to sightread in my audition (he has known me for a really long time so the audition wasn't really giong to matter...he already told me where i was going to be placed), I couldn't read the treble clef because i'd played so much tenor...

[bearphonium]

In high school, our band grade was based on memorized scales. Major and all three minors (no chromatic), 5 flats to 4 sharps. You only had to play three scales, you just didn't know which three. Interestingly, I had never heard of the circle of 5ths until I showed up at my first New Horizons rehearsal two years ago, and saw it in poster form on one of the band room walls.

I mention this, because it kinda fits several lines of thought on this thread (but has nothing to do with fish!) My partner is learning to play the trumpet (and no, my mother does NOT know...I wish she could) and has found the circle of fifths to be very helpful as she learns her scales and begins to understand minor keys. She has played the guitar all her life, and so a lot of the explainations I try and give are related to guitar stuff.

One thing that has had her flummoxed is that while I play a Bb on the euphonium, and she plays a C on the trumpet, they are the same pitch. Recently, she looked at the conductor's score from the ancient book of Christmas Carols our group played from, and realized it was, basically, a piano part. That was her "ah-ha" moment, and she could then understand the mecanics of why Bb, C, F and G instruments all have different names for the same things (although not the rationale).

She does not yet have the skill or understanding to do transposition; I am waiting to see what technique she uses (as she is both mathmatically/engineering oriented, and sees patterns really well). I just have to blunder along; transposing for the most part. If I ever get an F tuba, I think it will be pretty easy, since I spent 5 years playing the french horn, and I suspect that there will be some similarity for me to fall back on.

Ally"who enjoys hearing about how people learn"House

[imperialbari]

5 flats to 4 sharps is 10 out of 12 keys!

Not bad at all for most practical purposes, but if the “how”-component had been added to the understanding, it would have been no problem to play all 12 variants of each mode.

In real music making the pitches of any chromatic scale are not equidistant, as each note is determined by the vertical and horizontal contexts. Still it is possible to hear, whether the notes are roughly in place. I do not belong to those claiming any ability to hear equal temperament as applied to an unaccompanied chromatic scale. Still I find training of the chromatic scale relevant because one has to negotiate all semitone steps from a fingering aspect, which may be harder on woodwinds than on valved brasses. And on trombone the transitions between partials take some long&fast movements.

Klaus

[imperialbari]

BTW: That Conn euph is not a 191 but a 19I as in 19 Indians (be they American or Asian).

Klaus

[bearphonium]

I never knew!

[sloan]

Which one is bloke? The one in the red & blue outfit or the one in the green?

What's the difference between Bloke and a catfish?

One is a scum-sucking bottom feeder...and the other is a fish.

[sloan]

Playing the tuba (or *any* instrument) is a multi-dimensional task. Scales are an important dimension - but they are not the *only* dimension. Improving in any dimension requires time, time, time (and repetition). If you spend all of your time perfecting ONE dimension, by definition you will be deficient in the other dimensions. The most important thing is *balance*.

Living in my low-level amateur niche, what surprises me are the players who don't know the *notes* - much less the scales. Scales are useful as sight-reading hints (reading entire measures instead of reading individual notes) - but you still need to read the notes. But again, scales (in all keys) work here, as well (to play all the scales, you have to have all the notes).

Scales are universally highly regarded because working on scales really does help you work on several dimensions at the same time.
You can work on sound quality; you already know the tune; you can work on rhythms, and articulation, etc., etc. But, they don't tickle *all* of the necessary dimensions.

One of the key aspects of the Arbans method was to play melodies that were familiar to the student. Alas, the melodies in the books are no longer "familiar" to current students (so we make them learn "the classics", instead - note how this subverts the original plan). In my opinion, playing familiar tunes "picked out of the air" is *as* important as playing scales. Like the scales, they can be played in all keys, on all flavors of instrument. Of course, "scales" *are* "familiar tunes. They exercise useful combinations of fingerings, etc. It's just that they are rather boring after awhile, especially played "All-State-Style".

So, it seems to me that "scales" have an important place in the curriculum - but they are *sometimes* overemphasized. If *all* you know are the scales, then you are in trouble (but, perhaps not as much trouble as you are in if you know *no* scales!)

Finally, I note that while top level players know all their scales, it's not at all obvious that they *became* top-level players by working (exclusively) on their scales. It's a chicken-egg problem. If you are teaching someone, sometimes the key is to find the activity that will motivate them to put in the time, time, time (and repetition). For some players, it's the scales (what? you don't know any high-school players who *enjoy* learning scales?) - but for other students it might be something else. Instead of practicing scales, ask your students to play "Joy to the World" in all 12 keys...

One more (so, I lied) - scales often appear to the student as "the test", rather than the preparation *for* the test. If you test students by asking them to play scales *and also* instruct them to spend hours working on scales, then you are contributing to the problem. Instead, try testing them on one of those many things that you *claim* scales are good for...or, tell them to work on other things but test them by asking them to play a scale (that you *have not* instructed them to practice). Teaching to the test is not effective. Testing on *only* what has been taught is equally ineffective! Don't they teach this stuff to Music Ed majors?