Arbans: What to do?

[Tubainsauga]

I have the tuba version of the Arbans book and it looks like a wonderful reasource, but I can't figure out where to start. Do I start from the beggining? Any help would be....well, helpful,

[tubatooter1940]

That's right,page one,upper left hand corner.However,each session drill some of those scales in the back of the book before you end your practice.

[Ryan_Beucke]

I'll agree that everything in the book is good, however it is a HUGE book. If you don't have a private teacher, try to think about what you think is your biggest problem. In the book, there are different sections for each area of brass playing, and you can go from there. For example, I feel like I need to work on articulations, so find excercises on articulation.

[Tom B.]

Tubainsauga:

Wesley Jacobs, one of the co-authors of the Encore Music version of Arbans, has written a very helpful article addressing your question. It's called "Using Arbans" and its on the Encore website at http://www.encoremupub.com/arbprac.htm.

Tom

[mTaUrBkA]

I have never seen an arbans book made for tuba. This is very exciting for me!! I picked up trombone a littlke less than a year ago, and I love it for trombone and sometimes take a look at it with tuba. Haha maybe I have been living in a cave and look liek an idiot not knowing they made it for tuba.....but where can you get one?

[mTaUrBkA]

Thank you very much! I think I will order it tonight!

[Tom]

I've never seen Arban's as a "start on page one and play through the book" kind of book. I've never had it used as 'core' material in my studies, and I'd never just tell a student to start and the beginning and go for it...I just don't feel that Arban's is setup that way, but rather that it is a collection of different exercises that can be used to acheive different goals. I've been sent to Arbans to work on a specific technique or issue in my playing and have used the same approach with the folks I have worked with...I find that it makes Arbans far less daunting and students don't get bored with it as easily.

I beleive that Arbans falls into a well balanced rep that should include melodic material (Bordogni, etc.), technical etudes (Kopprasch, Blaz., etc.), scale studies (Arbans, Pares, etc.), low register studies (Snedcor, etc.), technique (Schlossberg, Clarke, Arbans, etc., etc., etc.), and the list goes on... with Arbans being able to be stuck anywhere in the mix.

I suppose that you could do all of that with just the complete Arbans edition, but I think that it'd get awful dull and wouldn't make for a very well rounded musicain, IMHO.

[elimia]

I would agree with Tom a bit here (I'm speaking though from my experience with Alessi/Bowman book for trombone/euphonium). It gives you a palette of different things to work on in your playing and you can get a smattering by jumping around. Personally, I always jump to the slur stuff, and enjoy the page with all 12 scale slurs. Then I play some double tonging stuff, some syncopation exercises, and some etudes just to work on inflection, phrasing, etc. I think you can get a lot out of the book. If you wanted to really hit all the areas of playing, it sounds like there are a lot of good literature options that are focused on various strengths.

I enjoy Arbans but sometimes move around to some different materials to keep it interesting. But I ALWAYS play the slur stuff for flexibility, every practice.