Posted by Christian Carichner on May 22, 2003 at 12:25:24:
In Reply to: Ok, I've got an F, what do I do now?? posted by JW on May 22, 2003 at 09:54:34:
All this sounds like good advice and excellent methods of learning F. What i'll do now is tell you whats happening with me right now cause i just bought an f about a month and a half ago and am in the process of learning how to play it. Take it for what its worth.
I bought this F and ended up falling in love with it. I played it all the time. Pretty soon i went up to orchestra rehearsal (i had a few days off from rehearsal cause they were running some saint saens i didn't play in. When i went to that rehearsal i sounded awful on my CC. I wasn't really comfortable with F yet, so i was sorta stuck. The best thing you can do is don't pack the CC away--sounds like you're not planning on this--it's probably a good idea and wish i'd thought of it earlier. Often you can hear people playing an F tuba and they sound ok, but there's not a lot of fullness to the sound. In my opinion you should keep that same support of the CC sound and carry it over to your F. It'll make you a lot better of an F player i think. As far as switching mouthpieces, i'm sorta against that, but what do i know i'm only a junior in college. It's sorta my thought you wouldn't want to switch to something too much different cause that makes your face change and the way you play change a little bit and it's accentuated when you switch back to an F horn after playing CC for a while and vice versa. But again, take it with a grain of salt, i don't know if i'm right at all, its just my young opinion (with influence from my professor of course). I actually developed quite a problem in regards to alternate fingerings. I learned all the alternates right away to combat pitch issues and now am having trouble converting over scales. Yes in theory they should be the same but in my head i get it all screwed up when you throw in the alternate fingerings. Might be something to consider.
finally--i think the thing that worked best was take out the rochut/bordogni book and go through those etudes. You'll really develop an appreciation for the ease of turning a phrase on the F horn. Dont' get too attached like i did. go back and play the same thing on your CC. Try to make the CC sound like the F. that'll make the CC a lot lighter and cleaner. Then play valkries, fountains, prokofiev--on your F. Not only will that put some proverbial hair on your F tuba kahunas, but will help you to develop that low register on the F and make it sound nice and big.
for what its worth-
just a junior's opinion. any input from other posters?
Christian