Making the switch from BBb to CC

[przxqgl]

i have the same problem: i'm used to playing a B♭ tuba, but, for the past 12 years i've been playing an E♭ tuba, and now i have a C tuba.

to make matters worse, i experienced a brain injury a few years ago. prior to my injury, playing the E♭ wasn't a problem, because i could transpose "on the fly". after my injury, that capability went away and i had to have all of my parts transposed, so that i could play the B♭ fingerings... much to the chagrin of those who were responsible for supplying me with said parts...

i maintain that the information is still in my brain, but i just lost the "connections" that gave me access to it. that has been affirmed by the fact that i have recently picked up a C tuba, and i'm playing concert-pitch parts with only minor mishaps now and then. i'm fairly confident that, given time, i will be able to return to my E♭ tuba, and even my B♭ tuba, without major confusion.

the brain is amazingly adaptable. i agree with the previous posts: start out with music you already know, so that you will know when you "mash the wrong button" and you'll be fine.

[Slamson]

I like Roger's suggestion, but I use a slightly modified version.

If you've had a lot of playing experience on BBflat, you probably have an etude book (Blazevich Kopprasch, Gallay, whatever) that you've played through and know every etude. Using your CC, start on page one, no matter how mundane it might be (a la Blazevich) and play everything slow enough so that you can make sure you're going to play the correct note (w. the correct fingering, of course). Only play it once - then move on to the next one. Same routine. Do this until you get to the last etude in the book. Turn the book back and start at page one again, repeat the method. Repeat the method. Repeat the method. Repeat the method. Repeat the method. Repeat the method.

Each time you go back there will be less of a tendency to play open F's and B-flats, etc. and each time you will be so bored that you will force yourself to pick up the tempo. Avoid going back to BBflat unless necessary. Sooner or later those automatic fingerings will be CC fingerings.

A month? Well, you should be pretty good by then, but you may still have some "BBflat-flashbacks.

[sloan]

Put the BBb away and just start at page one of the Arban's book. Just keep at it and you will do fine. Takes about 30 days or so to become fluent.

Roger

+1

think: how did you learn BBb fingerings?

don't transpose. don't use shortcuts. don't think.

Find the most basic method book on your shelves and play through it.

[MartyNeilan]

By far, the EASIEST thing about playing the tuba is the fingerings. If tuba was only about pushing 3,4, or 5 buttons, everyone would be a virtuoso in two years.

Don't worry too much about it; just take your time to work through them at the beginning, and they will become second nature in no time.

[GC]

Learning the fingerings is easy. The hard part is developing a different set of conditioned reflexes that allow you to play the correct fingerings fluently and without conscious thought. The hard part for me was (and still is) not flip-flopping back and forth between sets of reflexes. I still have BBb moments while playing Eb and occasional Eb moments when playing BBb. The most irritating part of playing CC for me was when I'd glitch back and forth between treble clef fingerings (mostly in brass band) and bass clef CC fingerings. Being severely distractible didn't help either.

The more you immerse yourself right off the bat and the more you practice to built your CC conditioned reflexes, the better off you are.

[LJLovegren]

Before valves on brass and chromatic keywork on woodwinds, wind players used sets of instruments with one for each key they might need. This still happens with instruments such as pennywhistles and Irish flutes.

Players read music using "movable Do" solfège so that "Do" on an instrument in the key of the music is always fingered the same.

It seems to me that this is the best way to switch easily among horns in F, E-flat, C and B-flat.

I wonder why treble clef music is usually transposed for the key of the instrument while bass clef music is still written at concert pitch. It takes just a few keystrokes in a music publishing program to have all bass clef music transposed as if for a C instrument.

My primary instrument is recorder and the music is not transposed. Some players easily switch back and forth on C and F instruments in treble and bass clefs while others are unable to learn it.

[J.c. Sherman]

1/ Pull out some music that you know SO well, that you can sing (hum/hear-it-in-your-head/whatever) all of it correctly.
2/ Start playing it with your new C instrument. Start on the correct pitch and just start playing. You'll sort-of be playing by ear and sort-of be reading.
3/ Do as much of this sort of thing as you can, as this will positively reinforce looking at those pitches on the page, playing C fingerings, and hearing the right sounds.
4/ You can play things which are easy (bass lines or bass clef melodies to simple Christmas carols, etc.) or just a bit complex, as long as your ear immediately recognizes when you are wandering "off track". Even looking at written out scales and playing the correct-sound C-fingering scales can be part of this. The more that you ALREADY are able to "play by ear", the easier this will be for you.
5/ After doing this for several days, venture out into music that you do NOT know...nothing too difficult at first, or with too many sharps or flats. It will become easier and easier, and you will NOT "forget" the BBb fingerings.

This method works.

+1,000,000. I have over 25 fingering systems in my head... each one learned as above, from serpent to G-bass trombone.

[Rick Denney]

I wonder why treble clef music is usually transposed for the key of the instrument while bass clef music is still written at concert pitch.

This seems plausible: High brass instruments were possible before valves because of the diversity of available harmonics high in the series. But one was required to use an instrument with a suitable harmonic series for the music being played, and therefore it made sense to write the music around the series rather than for manipulating the instrument around the music.

Effective bass instruments were not really possible until the invention of valves, and thus they were chromatic from the start. Trombones were there long before tubas, of course, but they were chromatic from the beginning. It was not necessary to write the music around the available notes, or to change instruments for each key. So, the music was written as sounded with the responsibility for knowing the fingerings placed on the performer.

But the tradition of transposing had already been established for brass instruments in the treble clef.

The use of transposed music for bass instruments in later decades was to facilitate the ability to switch instruments without learning new fingerings, but that was a later innovation based on all the instruments in the ensemble having similar valve arrangements. That's what led, for example, to the British-style brass band.

Rick "noting that people have different learning pathways, but generally the best approach is the one that results in the shortest possible path between black spot on page and sound emerging from instrument" Denney

[Donn]

I don't know, woodwinds have been chromatic all along, but only picked up this transposing-part notion when the clarinets and saxophones came along.

My theory is that bass instruments are a family, not in the same sense that the saxophones are a family, but maybe the inverse: one person can play many saxophone parts / many bass instruments can play one bass part. When I first started playing tuba parts, I played them on contrabass clarinet, and of course you've got your F/Eb/CC/BBb tubas, bass trombones, maybe a string bass, piano, who knows. While I think many band directors would be a little leery of handing a trumpet part to a clarinet, in my experience they seem to have no such qualms about giving the bari sax a tuba part. So in my view transposed-parts convention for saxophones puts the bari sax player at some disadvantage (so it's lucky that it happens to be Eb, which coincides with concert pitch bass clef.)

[sloan]

Is your CC lacquer, or silver?

[PaulTkachenko]

I regularly play all 4 tuba keys and here's how I do/did it.

Started off on E flat and then B flat shortly afterwards (both bass clef).

Treble clef brass band style gave me the names of the notes on C tuba (in my head) - I transpose when reading (well ... Half transpose) - either up a third and think in treble clef or down a tone and think Bb.

I also learned E flat concert pitch in treble clef.

F tuba I half transpose again in bass clef.

F tuba reading a treble clef Bb part - think like a euphonium seems to work ( found this out the other day by mistake ...)

Next step is F tuba in treble clef concert pitch.

This is how I did/do it ...

I guess it depends how much you are chopping and changing.

I don't seem to think twice about the little idiosyncrasies between instruments (compensating and non for example).

[ken k]

don't think of a fingering, think of the note name you are playing and try to hear the note in your head before you play it.
boring old scales and arpeggios....you probably have the valve patterns for the scales already under your fingers, you just have to change the names of the notes.

ken k