Re: QUESTION - Got my Tuba yesterday


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Posted by Rick Denney on January 27, 2003 at 15:34:09:

In Reply to: QUESTION - Got my Tuba yesterday posted by Rob Edmiston on January 24, 2003 at 12:44:59:

To summarize the other comments in a more general way, you learn to play a CC (or, as in my case, an F) by following exactly the same process you followed when you learned the BBb. You start with learning a basic scale and go from there to simple melodies in that key, and so on. I would use a BBb method book, because if you start by learning the C scale, it will be too tempting to just be thinking "BBb scale" while you are pushing the buttons.

Don't be afraid to write in fingerings. Do that on a copy, however, and throw it away as soon as you can manage the fingerings, so that you don't come to depend on the markings. (I'm still amused by the fingerings I wrote into part of the Hindemith Sonata because I could not understand the scale--BBb fingerings on a work that I now usually play--sinfully--on an F tuba).

Of course, you already know tone production, so things will go much more quickly than they did when you were first learning the tuba. But the learning process is the same.

I spent the first few weeks of F tuba ownership trying to relate it to BBb fingerings, working from the partials, based on the meaning of the valves. I tied my brain in knots, and finally just started playing scales and writing in some fingerings.

Rick "who picked up F tuba at age 31" Denney


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