On Playing Tubas Large and Small

This weekend I will be at the Northwest Horn Symposium and one of my topics is the Wagner tuba, on which I will present and perform. These few weeks I have played tubas large and small.

On the large end, one day a week I have been joining the tuba portion of the low brass methods class. Due to a retirement and the cancellation of a search last year I became the lead teacher for both high and low brass methods! The daily sessions are lead by graduate teaching assistants but I have oversight and have made an effort to be active in the class. In relation to that, I was especially interested to see tuba come up this semester as I wanted to get some more hands on time. So every week I use a huge full size Yamaha B-flat tuba. I think I sound actually fairly good on it; I believe with a few weeks practice I could sound pretty good, especially if I were using a smaller tuba such as an F tuba. The amount of air used is fascinating (they use a lot of air!), along with that big, low sound.

The other type of tuba I have been playing quite a bit more these few weeks is the Wagner tuba (more here). On the Saturday evening recital at the Northwest Symposium I am playing one short work, the Bach Air, on tenor Wagner tuba and then later in the program performing the Graun concerto on descant. It is not actually a really easy double! But I am up for it and have done it before. On the concerto, it is I think a very attractive work. Tuckwell recorded it and I have more background on the Graun here.

One aside I want to explore further this summer; I found that I can articulate a tuba. The tongue stroke I use for low horn transfers over pretty well. When I play trombone or trumpet, however, my default tonguing sounds overly harsh, even blatty. There is something about the slower response of the horn and tuba that requires a more active tongue stroke.

One other aside, from the tuba methods, is last week I brought in this little instrument and asked the class what it was. It is described in the Whitener book we use as a text in depth and the TA had actually mentioned it earlier in the semester but nobody guessed what it was when I showed up with it in class. It is not a mini-tuba; it is an E-flat alto or tenor horn. I have more on these here if you are not familiar with these classic mid-range brass band instruments.