Terribly ashamed to say that I went to college for Music Education, took 4 years of lessons with a brilliant tuba professor and I still have problems with my upper range (middle C and up). I'm fed up with being ashamed with my range and I want to fix it! (Admitting it is the first step, right?)
Does anyone have any suggestions that they use to increase their ranges? Specific exercises? Mouthpieces that you suggest? I'm willing to experiment as much as needed!
Thanks in advance!
(btw, I'm playing on a Mirafone Professional Series 186 BBb 4 valve)
"I am hitting my head against the walls, but the walls are starting to give way..." - Gustav Mahler
Play scales and arpeggios in every key, up to your ceiling and back down. Do it every day. When it becomes familiar enough so that you don't have to think about fingerings, read a magazine while you are doing this part of your routine. Remember to curl your lips in when you go high, and experiment with your jaw position. (For me it helps to pull my lower jaw back in the high register and push it out in the low register, but some tubists don't need to do that.)
If you do this every day as part of your daily routine, and if you also practice a lot of other stuff both high and low you will find that your ceiling gradually rises.
If you spend too much time struggling continuously with high notes like a moth smacking into a light bulb you will just get frustrated and tied up in knots. The trick is to practice getting up there and back down smoothly.
Don't be ashamed. Enjoy the "cash" register and be glad you are not a trumpet player.
Arnold Jacobs used to say "How do you learn to play high? By playing high. How do you learn to play low? By playing low."
A bit simplistic, but so much truth to it.
Listen to the afore-mentioned advice of experimenting with jaw position and drawing the lips in upon themselves. The key is to make the embouchure shorter and thinner when playing high (like a trumpet or horn embouchure) and wider and thicker when playing low.
Above all, remember to practice buzzing in the high tessitura, and, as always, SONG AND WIND. You will need a sightly thinner, faster air stream to get the high register happening.
Do not expect immediate results. Perserverance will enable you to play Petroushka, Bydlo, Benvenuto Cellini, etc. Be PATIENT.
First: cut the crap and learn how to make some good sounds in the mid range. Learn how to take air in and when you send it out past those flabby protuberences called lips which should be an embouchure make bloody sure you are transmitting a song into that big lump of dead brass called a tuba that you have in front of you.
Go get a lesson off somebody who will tell you that if you let your body do what it knows how to do (BREATHE) without interfering with its natural way of functioning and you might get somewhere.
A good lesson: go buy a cheap recorder and learn how to just relax and blow the bloody thing and SING through it. Your whole respiratory system should be part of the instrument which has the simple function of amplifying what you put into it. When you do that you will feel the vibration right through your body.
Why is it that over 40 years after I studied with Jake, Harvey, Bill, Rex and others that there is still this monstrous issue of playing high, low, with core, loud, etc??????
Go run around the block and your body will tell you how to breathe. Listen to some Carusso and learn how to sing.
THEN, pick up tour tuba and make music and the "RANGE"will come after a bit of time and practice and making that elusive thing we call "MUSIC".
Yep, you probably won't believe it - but really, it is that simple - IF you let it be.
Quit making hard work of it all - just do it. CHILL.
I accept the existence of talented players not needing a systematic approach towards certain technical aspects. These maybe own the right to consider such approach crap. Mere mortals should listen to the music making of these talents, but rather not to their advice.
Miraphone 291 CC
Yorkbrunner CC
Eastman 632 CC
Mack Brass 421 CC
YFB-822 F
YFB-821 F
YFB-621 F
PT-10 F Clone
MackMini F
Willson 3050 Bb
Meinl Weston 451S euphonium
And countless trumpets, trombones, guitars, and every other instrument under the sun…
Miraphone 5050 - Warburton BJ/RF mpc YEP-641S(recently sold), DE mpc (102 rim; I-cup; I-9 shank) Symphonic Band of the Palm Beaches: "Always play with a good tone, never louder than lovely, never softer than supported." - author unknown.
I had a similar problem. The best advice was given by Mr. Hovey and Mr. Jacobs via Mr. Mojo. Spend a lot of time playing HIGH and LOW. Rest as much as you play. Try frequent, brief, intense practice sessions as opposed to long ones. You must practice as an athlete would train for an event. Claude Gordon published method books and articles on how to practice brass/trumpet. He had a lot of good ideas. His book "Systematic Approach to Daily Practice for Trumpet" really helped me. On euphonium, when I graduated from college, I could play a Bb (fourth line above the bass clef staff) musically, but not every day or at any time. By the time I worked thru his book (it took over a year), I was able to play over an octave above that. Additonally, my pedal range went through the floor. I believe his "Systematic Approach" is available in bass cleff.
Good luck.
Thanks to all for the very valuable comments. They will prove to be incalculably beneficial to me in the long run! You're quite a wonderful community here and I look forward to being here for a while!
edit: extra props to Dylan, great videos, man!
"I am hitting my head against the walls, but the walls are starting to give way..." - Gustav Mahler
If you've never had much of a high range, don't go out and over work your high register. Cut down on the air stream - this doesn't mean cut down on support (blowing from the diaphragm)- you might be trying to use more than your chops can handle. Your face is composed of muscles, treat them as such; you wouldn't go to the gym and try to bench press 200 pounds on your first visit. Think smaller: the higher you go, the tighter your air stream and buzzing area should get, sort of the way you'd cover the end of a water hose to make the stream move faster.
