bloke pontificating again: legato/slurring/valves

[bloke]

I'll strive to keep this short:

People come see me who want this/that/the-other done, and (with no requests for any attention given to them) their valves are terrible.
Often I see some sort of "legato/cantabile" studies book(s) in their bags' pouches.

If valves do not move faster than the fingers (and reliably) there's little hope of mastering slurring.

The larger the tuba, the more precisely the player must time and control the operations involved in slurring.
The larger the tuba, the larger the valves, and the more difficult to obtain optimum valve speed.

Slurring doesn't necessarily require that valves always move fast, but valves must ALWAYS be (again) completely reliable and completely under control. (A player who is nearly universally respected taught me the "trick"/benefits of - sometimes - moving valves quite slowly during slurs/legato playing...easier with pistons/requires more finger precision with rotor paddles.)

It's (trigger warning ahead!) a WASTE OF TIME to work on slur mastery with unreliable valves and/or too-slow valves (whereby a player's fingers can easily "outrun" the valve's speed).

If a really excellent (with valves) repair-guy (or even a "tech") promises that they've optimized the valves on a tuba (and they are still either/or unreliable or too slow, it may well be time to find a (better-constructed) tuba.

Rarely are worn valves too slow (due to clearances being wide), but only noisy and leaky...

Slightly leaky valves can (actually) render legato/slurring to be easier, YET overall playing more work (for obvious reasons).

Playing around with exotic ($10/oz?) oils does nothing. My experience is that 12¢/oz. (or maybe a few more cents, since we're living through epic inflation) works magnificently well - with magnificent valves.

Lime-coated (white when dry, or light green) valves and casing are defacto "rock-plated" valves. Rock isn't a very good bearing surface, and (again) paying too much for oil doesn't make it much better.

Filth (or even hair) really causes valves to be unreliable, and most people NEVER remove it from where it hides - which is in the KNUCKLES adjacent to the casings...because it's DIFFICULT to remove it from there.

Plain-ol' crappily-built valves...well...

Hey...re. @dp Ask your teacher (unless their tubas' valves suck, and you notice that they themselves struggle with these issues).

bloke "That's about all I have on this, other than football analogies."