fourbass wrote:According to Arnold Jacobs:
Easy air flow
Natural Body Function - Breathing/Blowing
Flow lots of air
Use thesed concepts, try to play only 2-5% louder each. Trying to do more may result in diminishing returns.
A great example of very loud tuba is the San Francisco Symphony recording of Matis der Maler by Hindemith.
Good Luck
A critical aspect that Mr. Jacobs stressed was that you must have a very musical concept when playing extremely loud. Here is a quote from Mr. Jacobs on the subject.
"It’s the same concept of the ball riding on top of a water fountain. When playing loud, you simply use a bigger fountain. In fact, when I get very loud I don’t get very physical, but I get very musical. If you get physical without getting musical, you might push against resistance. As a result, you increase the resistance and then you have to increase the push and pretty soon, they’ll cancel each other out."
---Arnold Jacobs #jakeped
What he told me in my lessons had two parts. First, when playing loudly, blow the air fast, but do not blow the air hard (against the lips). Think of a string player moving the bow very fast across the strings, but not pressing them hard against the strings in a grinding fashion. The lips have a tremendous ability to resist the air, and can actually cut the air flow off completely. So you want to use a very large volume of air which is under very low pressure. A thick column of air moving very fast which is under very little pressure (i.e., very little resistance from the lips).
But the critical part is your concept of sound. You must hear a beautiful sound in your head as you play that happens to be very loud so that you are sending the correct signal to the lips. We never play by simply blowing the air. If we want to sing with the lips, we must also be singing in the head while playing.
Mr. Jacobe always taught that we must develop our finest quality of tone in what he called the "norms." That is, in the middle register at a middle dynamic (mf-f). Then, we transfer that quality to the extremes in terms of dynamics (loud or soft) and range (high and low).
Here is another quote on developing a beautiful sound.
"When you look for a beautiful tone based on lyricism, you are automatically cutting down on the overwork. Overwork won’t be lyrical because it will sound forced and strained. The lovely love song is where you’ll find the ability of producing sound for the least effort."
---Arnold Jacobs #jakeped
And two more.
"Your entire dynamic range has to be under control. You establish the norm somewhere in the middle dynamic and then you move it back to the pianissimo. You have to establish the quality first. At any dynamic, your tone has to be a wonderful product." ---#ArnoldJacobs #jakeped
"The warm up is where you find the finest qualities of tone. That’s the most efficient tone production. That’s when you find the efficiency you are looking for. It shouldn’t be done by looking for ease of playing, but instead you should be looking for the quality of tone. The fact that you are looking for the beautiful tone is what counts."
---Arnold Jacobs #jakeped
Finally, Fritz Kaenzig has a great story about this issue in this video interview. He was playing Wagner Ring Excerpts in Grant Park, and felt he was having trouble keeping up with the contrabass trombone player. In a lesson, he told Mr. Jacobs that he was having a hard time competing with the contrabass trombone, and Mr. Jacobs said "Never compete, always compliment." They then worked on some of the things discussed above, and after the concert, Fritz's students were really excited to tell him that the tuba was coming through like crazy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-9quZqRp40" target="_blank
. So since the band tends to play loud they need a strong tuba section to support them, problem is that there's not a section- it's just me, and I do not play at the volume they need with good tone yet. In my school's concert band there were 3 tubas and we all pitched in so none of us really had to strain like I'm currently having to. Since I am used to playing around a mf or f for my school's band, I can do it with great tone. How should I go about playing fortissimo to support the band? Is there anything I should do embouchure-wise that will help with the tone issue? How can I play with a loud volume without sounding blatty or explosive? Should I focus on blending in with the band or should I lean more towards sticking out a bit? 
