Airiness in the lower register?

[gdthetubaman1291]

Now that school has started back up my practice time has been cut down drastically. There even times where I'll go a few days without even touching the horn or the mouthpiece. Since then I've been noticing something really strange about my sound.

When I get down to about a C below the staff there is a very prominent airy like quality in my sound. I've also noticed it in the mid range, but it's not nearly as noticeable as the sound in the lower register.

I think the problem may just be that I need to rebuild what I lost when I stopped practicing as much. I've never experienced this kind of a problem though, so I'm not exactly sure about how I can do that. So if anyone has any advice about how I could go about fixing this, that would be greatly appreciated!









Also, I do understand that going to a teacher so that they may examine everything that's happening would be a much better solution than asking here. However, this has proven to be somewhat of an impossibility with my location. I've only spoken with a real tuba teacher one time, and that did prove to be an enormous help.

I live in a small town about an hour south of Chicago, and there isn't much music related business going on around here. I would be willing to travel a good distance to meet with someone. So if anyone knows of any teachers, just shoot me a PM. It would mean a great deal to me if you could point me in their direction!



-Garrett

[djwesp]

Snedecor is your friend.

Use the same mouthpiece placement as you do in the entire rest of your register, and play the snedecor! Play it loud, play it soft, play it legato, play it firmly articulated, play it every combination you can think of. Play in the basement and play musical in the basement, it will all come together.

[tubashaman2]

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[NDSPTuba]

This is a shot in the dark, but for me more than one day's worth of facial hair growth on my lips and I feel/hear/notice a different in the sound quality and response of my low range. So I must shave at least my lips every day.

[gdthetubaman1291]

I've never really considered that before... I'll definitely have to try that.

[MileMarkerZero]

If you can get in to see him, I heard there's a pretty good low-register guy somewhere around Chicago...

Seriously...what town are you in?

Within an hour's drive you have Gene Pokorny, Rex Martin, Mark Moore, Andy Rummel, Floyd Cooley, Todd French, and dozens of other professional/semi-professional tuba players. There are tuba majors at easily a half dozen schools also within that same hour's drive.

Get thee to an instructor.

[Mark Horne]

+1 on the facial hair theory for me.

I've had a number of sessions where the low range was weak and airy (and pedals non-existant) for no known reason. One day out of frustration I grabbed the shaver to erase the weekend's worth of stubble and the problem was solved instantly. I've done this on a couple of occasions and the results are always the same.

For me, this phenomenon is most pronounced on tuba - it's less of an issue with the smaller euphonium and french horn mouthpieces (but still an issue).

I know this has been discussed extensively before with a lot of debate on both sides, but for me it's a real factor. Those earlier discussions on this forum is what gave me the idea to try the clean-shaven approach.