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I haven’t been playing much recently. I had a stretch where I was getting my face back together, but then a cacophony of nonsense came along and robbed time and motivation.

I was without any horn from 2006 until 2019. I hung it up in 2005 due to chop problems.

Settling back into playing now, I’m taking a more physiological approach. In other words, I’m translating how I’d train large muscles down to small muscles.

Observations:

Do not attempt to play like one did at some prior apex point in time. While my lower register used to be fantastic (keeping pace with some well know performers who could carpet bomb with their low register), I have to accept that it needs time to rebuild.

Legato playing is key. I’m not going to bother with song and wind rhetoric, rather that articulation becomes a crutch to get the chops in order. Lots of slurred or legato scales and intervals.

Play as soft as one can to fill the horn and no louder in the early stages. Good sound is better than no sound. Playing too loudly is like lifting too heavy without a proper warmup and/or training.

Start with shorter playing times and work in time intervals of rest. Look at how a couch to 5k program eases people back into running. IMO, the chops will respond the same way.

Let your face guide you, not a method/technique book.

I’ll add more to this as time progresses.

Very useful suggestions! Thank you for sharing!

Few more observations as I wander through a long recovery to playing competence:

Regarding the soft playing idea above, it actually works a little better to fiddle around on the big tuba for me. It resonates with less effort (kinda what it’s supposed to do).

Lip flexibility has always been an important skill. You can hear lots of pro players sliding through intervals at a blinding pace. I once had pretty slippery chops like that as well. However, it’s more important when building things up to slur fast as opposed to fast slurs. In other words, try to move between intervals as fast as possible. Do this with slow paced easy slurs, but pay attention to gaining that pitch lock as fast as possible. This way, when you start increasing tempo, your face has the muscle memory built and fast slurs sound clean. I’ve heard lots of players, including my younger self, playing flexibility exercises without precision. Gotta build that precision and accuracy first.

Keep initial goals small. It’s okay to spend an entire session just noodling around on a single etude to refine concepts. Skills transfer.

When taking those frequent breaks to let the chops rest, work on sight singing. The internal ear needs work too.

Fast fingers are even more important with slow music.

Interesting parallels. I was not off nearly as long as you were, just five years for me. Then I got the 183 which did require more effort, not less, to play, than what I had before (and now have again.) I don't remember ever being good at up-slurs on tuba; the requirement for more forceful air on the 183 has fixed that problem, and now I can slur UP quite reasonably well, especially on the NStar after the basic battle with the 183 (that 183 really was a gift in a lot of ways.)

I don't know what chop problems caused you to leave, but if it was dystonia (most have no idea that is what is going on, and are simply encouraged to "practice more," or even "pay more attention to your technique," which makes it worse) then the re-starting after a long break can give you the means to re-do your approach and use a different brain path. If you start having "chop problems" again, then I would guess you have what I call the "dystonic approach to learning" and let you know there is another way, that may seem quite a bit less direct but works.

I might substitute "precise" for "fast" with "slow music" (re: valves).

A player (respected by just about everyone) taught me to forget about the Fred Fennell "bang the valves down" stuff printed inside those old paper music folders.

Slow valves - properly timed, not exaggerated, and properly supported by constant/controlled lip vibration - can add to a more vocal effect when playing legato passages.

Singers don't constantly slide slowly (ie. they do not "gliss") from one pitch to the next, but nearly every legato pitch change they do is an extremely fast (almost undetectable, YET just audible) "slide". Slamming down valves eliminates the opportunity to imitate this with brass instruments.

Mahler 1 became easier and more personally gratifying after receiving this tip and being shown this "trick". It has become a completely stress-free passage and - when I've played it - I've consistently received compliments from those who I consider to be considerably more accomplished than me.
Again, without a good buzz (which sustains strongly through the momentary "half-valve" events), this obviously won't work out very well.

LOL...Back when I was auditioning, this is the type of thing that I wouldn't have posted, because I paid good money to be shown this.

Im not sure what you have going on. But keep going. Dont lose track of the joy you (hopefully) felt playing this instrument. Thats what its all about.

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I did not understand slurring until I asked my horn teacher to just show me a slur on the mouthpiece, and I heard the continuing buzz from the lower to the (much) higher pitch. That was a big AHA. One has to TIME the valve change to the end of the slur, whether up or down, so the buzz arrives at the pitch the same time the tubing length does. I would think this would be in basic instruction, but so much is left out in "instruction" that I don't even understand how most learn to play. (I still can go off on the lack of competent horn instruction ...) Recently there was a small video, I think on the horn list on FB, where a young student was playing; she started off with a quite horrible tone, the teacher interrupted with "firm corners, soft in the middle" and the tone abruptly became quite nice. Such simple things almost never said.

Thank @matt g for posting this... I'll admit I didn't read much more than the first 3 sentences, but that's all I really needed to read.

I had been pretty serious about playing in college and for about 6 or 7 years thereafter (non-professionally... but still wanted to see how good I could get). But when I got married, there was the first wave of "your time is not your own." I was still active though not as much as I would have liked. I started my PhD program and had kids at the same time, and that's been my last 8 years of insanity... at times I've tried to make progress to play more regularly, but that's been pretty start-stop. Plus, for financial reasons, I've sold off everything except for my beloved cool and not always appropriate Martin Eb.

When I'm down on myself, I think "oh, how far I've fallen!"

But then I quickly realize, NO, it's just a matter of priorities and deciding what's most important in my life, and that's okay. Tuba is important and part of me... but it's not the most important thing -- not even top 5. I'd play every day if I could, but that's just not realistic. I have a difficult time seeing tuba playing as NOT being self-gratuitous, especially when the same amount of time could (should?) be spent with my wife, kids, fixing the house, working, etc... Everything needs balance, including balance.

I read something the other day about some brass band member in England(?) who set the world record for longest membership (80-some years)? I forget all the details, but it was pretty impressive. But it also really made me pause and think about what was de-prioritized in his life during that time, and what sort of support and accommodation must have been made (constantly) available to him along the way to make this possible.

Last random thought -- when I was younger and playing in multiple community/adult bands, I used to wonder why everyone was either in their 20s or in their 50s and older. Why nobody in their 30s and 40s? Guess I've found my answer to that!

Bort...

"Last random thought -- when I was younger and playing in multiple community/adult bands, I used to wonder why everyone was either in their 20s or in their 50s and older. Why nobody in their 30s and 40s? Guess I've found my answer to that! [emoji23]"

---Nailed it!---

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Some poking around today…

The horns I own are pretty far apart in terms of size. However, they have a similar sound.

Biggest difference when playing them is that the smaller one has an immediate front to the sound with minimal effort. The big horn takes a bit more facial precision to get this front.

As to why people might like big tubas, it’s more and more clear to me. To get an “ethereal” sound from the smaller horn, it takes a good bit of breath control. Moving to the big horn, it’s basically “mp” air with a light tongue. Having said that, it’s definitely louder, as to be expected.

Also…

I’ve been wholly inconsistent with face time on these horns. As a result, I’m still having to give myself lots of downtime for the lips to get less angry from slapping around inside a metal cup. I should probably pick up something cheap and start buzzing along with stuff on the radio again just to build up the tolerance to flesh abuse.

Just curious, @matt g, does your 2165 have the stock leadpipe or a 45SLP (or other similar smaller) one?

arpthark wrote: ↑Sun Aug 20, 2023 2:20 pm Just curious, @matt g, does your 2165 have the stock leadpipe or a 45SLP (or other similar smaller) one?

I’m pretty sure it’s the original leadpipe.

I've spent way more time on the 6/4 B-flat that acquired...but it's mostly for the purpose of learning to play it, as as well as being about to sound good right off the bat (remembering what it "needs", without having to re-figure it out each time - not being a huge "warm-up jock"). When I feel like I've learned this tuba, I'll go back to playing the others, more.

I tend to neglect the cimbasso the most - even though it's really quite an excellent instrument. I enjoyed a period (a few years ago) when I was slated to play several challenging trombone/bass trombone (cimbasso) duets with a friend on a recital. During that time (obviously) I was concentrating quite a bit on the cimbasso...That was a fun couple of months.