Double Tongue tips

[MaryAnn]

The usual advice is to start slowly with the requisite syllables. Since I learned brass as a middle aged adult, I sort of made up my own methods. What I recommend is to find a note that is not a strain to play and just do a double: TUKU as fast as you can, stop, and repeat ad nauseam (just the one double, TUKU) until it is boring. Then do four: TUKUTUKU. Ad nauseam. Then six....but FAST. When you can go FAST on a single note without falling apart, you have the basic technique down and can take it from there, coordinating with changing notes. Works for me, has worked for some others I have told about it.

[Art Hovey]

There's an old pop tune called "Digga-Digga-Do, Digga-Do-Do".
Those consonants ("dooga-dooga-dooga..) work better for me than "Ta-Ka".
I practiced double-tonguing scales for a long time because synchronizing the tongue and fingers was not easy for me.

All that work paid off when I discovered that I could adjust the hardness of the attacks from strong down to almost nothing. A very light (legato) double tongue makes fast slurred passages a lot easier for me.

[FarahShazam]

Unless you're a military musician playing a dog fight in a march...which is still only a few double tongued notes… You're probably playing a tuba solo, if you're double tonguing... Which probably means that you're playing your tuba for free, or paying to play it (degree recital, etc.)

Most paid tuba gigs involve playing donuts underneath other people who are playing fast notes...

... Not to say that double tonguing, lip trills, etc. aren't handy skills to have in the toolbox.

Nope. I can tell you, our tuba players have lots and lots of tuba parts that require double tonguing outside of marches. Just like horn parts or trumpet part or trombone parts. I want to say trumpet has the most technical parts but I'm mostly thinking of our summer show on the avenue.

That stuff is technical, yo. So, please, do learn your multiple tonguing. The new music coming out is not goose eggs.

[tubeast]

I use double-tongue all over the place, even at rather slow speeds.
Especially while emulating electric bass guitar on the typical "60´s-to-80´s-artist´s-greatest-hits-medley" for community band (You know the type: Tom Jones, Neil Diamond, ABBA, Udo Jürgens...)

In my opinion, it faciliates playing percussive sound and supporting grooves at varying positions in relation to "the pocket".