Converting from BBb to C/New tuba!

[Steve Inman]

Get out your favorite books of scales and etudes, and start at page 1. Play them slowly and deliberately, thinking about the fingerings -- let your brain and your fingers learn to cooperate correctly with the CC tuba. Take your time.

Have fun,

[winston]

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[David Spies]

A good book for converting from BBb to CC, especially if you haven't worked from it, is the Grigoriev studies for tuba. It starts in C staying fairly diatonic and works its way around scales and gradually expands technically. It is particularly good since it works the lower register as well.

Hope this helps.

David Spies

[ken k]

There are no shortcuts!

just do it!

[jmerring]

I have a related 'odd' situation. I play next to a CC player (mine is a 186 Mira). I find that I am almost conciously seeing the CC fingerings on the parts in which I have rest (2nd tuba part). When it is time for me to come back in, I am sometimes a little memory addled! It makes for some internal (if not audible) errors, let me tell you!

[phoenix]

I switched to C over a year ago, and i still have lapses to BBb. It never ends!

[tubathig]

Take the plunge. In six weeks it will be tons better, and In six months you will wonder why the hell you ever played BBb

[Lew]

I do not understand, why you should learn 'new fingerings'.

Why not 'transpose'? Move the written note IN YOUR MIND 1 whole step down. Practicing this with already known music, will bring you where you want to be in a few weeks.

Similar practice for playing the F-tuba from C-parts.
Takes a bit more time to learn.

For the Eb there is a nice trick: read the bass-part as if it were written in treble clef and add 3###. Works within a few weeks.

Imagination and working with your brains: seems preferable to me over the 'mechanical way'.

Hubert

I found that trying to think of an Eb as in treble clef adding 3 sharps was much more difficult than just thinking of playing an Eb tuba. I was always missing the accidentals the first way. At least for me, I found it more effective to just think in terms of the horn I was playing rather than trying to "move the notes in my mind." Learning new fingerings by spending time with the horn was the only thing that worked. Everyone is different, but this is what works for me.

[Bill Troiano]

Just start at the top of any beginning tuba method. You might still have the first book you used when you began playing tuba. Once you get through that, I find that David Uber's, "Early Studies" works very well. There is one etude per page, very melodic with some twists and turns and in various keys. Once you can play that, it's time to return to whatever you were working on with your BBb tuba. Good luck and stick with it.