Posted by Dr. Frederick J. Young on February 10, 2001 at 17:36:43:
In Reply to: changing instruments w/ PPitch posted by Perfect Pitch (ugh) on February 09, 2001 at 10:35:46:
I do it by intervals. If you know what the fundamental note of the instrument is, all you need to do is determine the interval distance between one of the open tones and the note you wish to play and the fingering becomes obvious. Also, remember that 6 of the fingerings are exactly the same on the BBb and Eb tubas. The same applies to the CC and F tubas. E. G., when depressing the 4th valve on an Eb tuba you can use the simple 3 valve fingerings of the BBb tuba, preferred tones included!
One needs practise with a band on any tuba in a key new to you. You may not be able to play the fast passages at first but you can get the slow parts easily!
I play tubas in F, Eb, CC, BBb and EEE natural. In addition, I can transpose into all keys in bass, tenor, alto and treble clef on all of the aforementioned instruments. I am not sure how I am able to do that in all cases. However, there are some neat tricks one can do. Suppose you are playing a trio with two F horns and you are playing the bassoon part. No sweat if you can read tenor clef! However, the horn players say that their lips are shot and they want to read the music as horn in Eb rather than horn in F. Now the tubist must play everything one note lower. Thats no trouble if you have played a lot of French tuba parts for Saxhorn in Si until you come to the tenor clef! Here's what you do.
Mentally replace the tenor clef sign with a bass clef sign and pretent you are playing a part marked horn in F written in bass clef. Learning to play horn in F parts is very useful also on reed instruments. If you are playing the Bb bass saxophone (you'll need a big mouth) and must read a baritone sax part you do the following. Do the horn in F transposition. That means that when you see a C you play an F. The F on the bass sax comes out in concert pitch as an Eb. When the Bari Sax plays a C an Eb come out. Thus you have found the correct pitch. There are many other tricks that a bit of thought about the four clefs and a few simple transpositions reveal.