Back Problems

[TheTravellingTubist]

One of the tuba students that I teach privately has been experiencing pain in his back lately.
He plays on a 202 Bb St. Petersburg and has relatively good posture. The issue is that he has a pretty small torso and has to stretch to reach the mouthpiece.
Any suggestions?

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

Get a DEG stand or the like. He can lower the mouthpiece to the level he desires.

[aqualung]

An inverted (empty) plastic 5gal bucket makes a great tuba stand. For concerts, cover it up with a dark cloth.

[MikeW]

I have seen one solution to this problem: You need a piece of wood long enough to lay on the chair seat where you can sit on it, to weigh it down, and also to stick forward over the front of the chair far enough to rest the tuba on it.
It should also be wide enough at the back to sit on comfortably; The front end can be narrowed in like the front end of an ironing board, so your legs don't have to straddle too far, and the back end can be padded for comfort.

[bort]

All of those home-made solutions will work to some extent, but they seem kind of complicated to me. Just spend a few bucks on a good tuba stand (like the BBC stand) and let the horn come to the player. Leaning, stretching, etc. are all counterproductive to playing the tuba -- just look at any professional player, there is never any straining to reach the instrument.

[michael_glenn]

I use the Wessex tuba stand. It's cheap, but works better than any other stand I've used.

[ghmerrill]

I recently posted (to Dave Werden's forum) pictures, materials list, and construction directions for the "sit-on tuba stand" I made myself a few years ago. It's cheap and easy to build, and offers some advantages over commercial floor-based stands.

Here: http://www.dwerden.com/forum/showthread ... post127043

Not yet patented . Try it; you'll like it.