How round is your BBb?

[tubagod94]

Hello!

Once again I come to the forums hoping for some good information! He is one of my multiple million dollar questions. I have been told in the forums and in person that that the size of the tuba doesn't matter. What matters is how you "fill up" the tuba with sound. That being said how do you know if one is too small or too big? I play a 4/4 St. Petersburg (not a bad horn for the price) and it's just hard to tell when the horn is full. I push what I consider a large amount of air.(Always from the bottom of the diaphragm up to the top of the lungs tell it hurts.) I guess I need some guidance if you guys / gals can offer any.

Best regards

Nick Phillips

[swillafew]

It is very instructional to have a person whose playing you admire blow on your horn. It's easy to project your own abilities onto the instrument, and then be surprised when the desired sound will come booming out from someone who knows how to make it.

If you are comfortable playing your instrument, I would expect you have selected one of the appropriate size. You can compare it to a trumpet and see for yourself how much air is required to get the thing vibrating.

[jamsav]

thats really a question that would requiring hearing you , that beind said , ask your teacher , or lacking one , record yourself . You like the way it sounds then your good to go !

[Michael Bush]

I have found Arnold Jacobs's (recorded) teaching very helpful: You don't have to fill it with air. You have to fill it with vibration. Air fuels the vibration, but is not itself the point.

[tubagod94]

Does the size of the tuba effect the sound of the horn? Would a 5/4 make a different sound from 4/4 or 3/4?

[Karl H.]

If you live around Houston, do yourself a favor and go listen to this guy:

http://music.rice.edu/facultybios/kirk.shtml" target="_blank

then maybe ask him for some advice or, better still, take a lesson.

Karl "sometimes the answer's right out your front door" H.

[tubagod94]

I go to school with is daughter! I have had a couple of masterclasses with him. He is a great teacher and musician.

[iiipopes]

Efficiency of the embouchure is the key to "filling up" a horn. Think about a horn like the ocean. The throat of the mouthpiece is the river flowing into the river, and the backbore of the mouthpiece is the delta. Once the throat and backbore empty into the receiver and leadpipe, velocity of the air flow from the lungs over the embouchure drops to effectively zero.

When the air is expelled over the embouchure causing "buzz," this is a classic application of Bernoulli's principle: the velocity of the air over the embouchure drops pressure, so the embouchure comes together. At a point, the embouchure is so close together it sets up resistance to the airflow. This resistance decreases velocity, pressure increases, and the embouchure separates. Then the process is repeated. Repeating the process is called pitch. Firming or loosing the muscles of the embouchure change the interaction as to how quickly the cycle repeats, and is what we call change in pitch.

Now, when the velocity of the air hits the mouthpiece, it provides some feedback through the bowl geometry which also modifies the tone and helps the player with breath control. But once it clears the throat, the pulses change from an application of Bernoulli's principle to static wave theory, with the nodes and antinodes, which we call resonances and pitch, and why we use different valves for different notes.

Stuffiness is something in the horn that prevents an antinode from resonating properly, whether on a particular note, a range of notes, or the entire horn.

To get "round" is to get the buzz, the feedback, the resonances and the nodes/antinodes defining pitch to work together to reinforce the fundamental pitch properly, through the proper range of harmonics that produce tuba tone.

[Gilligan]

Finding a good mouthpiece that matches your embouchure, is comfortable to you and produces the sound you want to hear is super important. This why you see so many of us talking about mouthpiece safari’s.

[gwwilk]

Efficiency of the embouchure is the key to "filling up" a horn. Think about a horn like the ocean. The throat of the mouthpiece is the river flowing into the river, and the backbore of the mouthpiece is the delta. Once the throat and backbore empty into the receiver and leadpipe, velocity of the air flow from the lungs over the embouchure drops to effectively zero.

When the air is expelled over the embouchure causing "buzz," this is a classic application of Bernoulli's principle: the velocity of the air over the embouchure drops pressure, so the embouchure comes together. At a point, the embouchure is so close together it sets up resistance to the airflow. This resistance decreases velocity, pressure increases, and the embouchure separates. Then the process is repeated. Repeating the process is called pitch. Firming or loosing the muscles of the embouchure change the interaction as to how quickly the cycle repeats, and is what we call change in pitch.

Now, when the velocity of the air hits the mouthpiece, it provides some feedback through the bowl geometry which also modifies the tone and helps the player with breath control. But once it clears the throat, the pulses change from an application of Bernoulli's principle to static wave theory, with the nodes and antinodes, which we call resonances and pitch, and why we use different valves for different notes.

Stuffiness is something in the horn that prevents an antinode from resonating properly, whether on a particular note, a range of notes, or the entire horn.

To get "round" is to get the buzz, the feedback, the resonances and the nodes/antinodes defining pitch to work together to reinforce the fundamental pitch properly, through the proper range of harmonics that produce tuba tone.

Thanks for the elucidation!

The implication of this discussion for us amateurs is that MOUTHPIECES MATTER when players audition tubas. The mouthpiece that interacts wonderfully for a player with THEIR CURRENT tuba might not (or might) interact very well with the tuba they just picked up to try. Hence the extreme variation in reactions of different tuba testers to most tuba models. Bringing multiple mouthpieces to a tuba test play might be necessary in order to properly evaluate a tuba's suitability for any given player's characteristics. One size mouthpiece does NOT fit all players and/or tubas, which is why we have so much fun talking about mouthpieces, tubas, and players--all variables in the tuba test equation.

Moreover, over time we adjust, consciously or subconsciously, to the equipment we use. We amateurs bring those adjustments to the tuba testing experience EVEN THOUGH we're playing a different instrument on which our adjustments may be counterproductive. Hence the instrument isn't what we are looking for because it's not what we're accustomed to playing. Or it is what we're looking for because it better fits our playing characteristics than our present tuba. For a pro it just boils down to how much effort is required to achieve their desired sound on any particular tuba because they can adjust on the fly, with effort, to the instrument's playing characteristics. Sadly, that's not me.

[JCalkin]

I generally don't like to give playing advice without hearing the person playing, but in your above post you said something very telling (assuming you were being literal):

I push what I consider a large amount of air.(Always from the bottom of the diaphragm up to the top of the lungs tell it hurts.)

From my experience, it sounds as though you are trying too hard to get and move air, likely leading to tension, which manifests itself in the tuba sound as being "thin/pinched/not round/etc"

I say RELAX when you play and let the air do the job more naturally, and things will likely improve. Breathing when playing the tuba should never cause pain.

[iiipopes]

(sorry -- glitch in my WiFi -- double post)

[iiipopes]

The implication of this discussion for us amateurs is that MOUTHPIECES MATTER when players audition tubas. The mouthpiece that interacts wonderfully for a player with THEIR CURRENT tuba might not (or might) interact very well with the tuba they just picked up to try. Hence the extreme variation in reactions of different tuba testers to most tuba models. Bringing multiple mouthpieces to a tuba test play might be necessary in order to properly evaluate a tuba's suitability for any given player's characteristics. One size mouthpiece does NOT fit all players and/or tubas, which is why we have so much fun talking about mouthpieces, tubas, and players--all variables in the tuba test equation.

Moreover, over time we adjust, consciously or subconsciously, to the equipment we use. We amateurs bring those adjustments to the tuba testing experience EVEN THOUGH we're playing a different instrument on which our adjustments may be counterproductive. Hence the instrument isn't what we are looking for because it's not what we're accustomed to playing. Or it is what we're looking for because it better fits our playing characteristics than our present tuba. For a pro it just boils down to how much effort is required to achieve their desired sound on any particular tuba because they can adjust on the fly, with effort, to the instrument's playing characteristics. Sadly, that's not me.

Indeed. For me, my embouchure works best with a 1.28 ID mouthpiece cup diameter, with a moderate "bite" and not too wide rim. Examples of my experiences:
1) The Besson I used to have worked best with a Wick 1, one of the best parings ever. However, I can't center a Wick 2 to save me. The 1L (same mouthpiece - "standard" shank") was too woofy in the low register with my 186.
2) A Bach 18 has great upper register performance on my 186, both tone and intonation, but is grainy and harsh below bottom staff F.
3) My blue Kelly 18 sounds whangy & harsh on everything else I've played it on, but was perfect for a Conn 2J I borrowed once.
4) A PT82 sounded great through a GR51 and a Conn 38K, and stuffy on everything else.
5) A PT34 was like a jazz lead trumpet player's mouthpiece through my 186, the best for solo work, and was inconsistent in both intonation and response for everything else.
6) I demonstrated on a private teacher's Reynolds how a 24AW sounded like thin crap, but a Schilke HII completely filled the music store where he teaches.
7) My Kanstul custom sounds great on my 186 recording bell, made the Besson sound like "Our American Cousin" (in a good way), and has great projection and carry.
8 ) My Curry 128D to my detachable bell 186 with the retrofit St Pete upright bell is about as perfect a match of player to mouthpiece to tuba as it gets. I can't let it go even to get it replated, which it needs badly; I have worn out the plating; my Kanstul custom 18-style mouthpiece is exactly what I need for the recording bell. Swap the parings, and neither sounds good with the other; rather each makes the other quite stuffy.
9) And finally, my burgundy Kelly 18 has just the right curve at the bottom of its bowl and transition, that in a pinch, I can get by with it wherever I need to on any horn, although it will have a note here and there where the response is not even, different on each tuba, and is why it is my go-to mouthpiece for outdoor gigs, especially those few I have in inclement weather.

The point being is that none of these examples happened overnight. Morover, these are only the highlights, as I try as many mouthpieces as I can whenever I can borrow another mouthpiece just to see what it's all about. One time I got to spend two hours trying everything PT makes at a "trunk showing." It really opened my ears as to how to correllate between feel and tone, as we hear more through the mastoid bone, and we need someone out at least a few feet from the tuba to relay what we really sound like "out front." My Curry was recommended by Matt Walters. I tried, either by borrowing or purchasing used and reselling what I didn't keep, many, many mouthpeices to arrive at my preferred 1.28 cup diameter. There are probably at least two dozen others I have tried at some point, but either returned if borrowed or sold. If I played orchestra instead of band on my 186, a LOUD LM-7 would be on the short list for its quick, even response and razor-sharp intonation; the down side was to get proper resonance for good tone I was riding slides on just about every note as the "slots" were so tight. I went through at least a half dozen Bach 18's of different years before I settled on the one I kept. Right now, I have a new style Taku that I'm waiting for the right horn -- perhaps a good Eb 5-valve one of these days.

Every embouchure/mouthpiece/horn combination is different. Start with one of the standard combinations, keep accurate notes on feel/tone/successes/failures with a good teacher or other advisor so you will have a direction to go if and when another mouthpiece is desired or indicated.

By the way: another way to describe the interaction and figuring out matching the embouchure to the mouthpiece to the horn is called "mechanical impedance matching."