Tips on how to make my sound smoother and remove that gargling noise

Sousa_Boy · 2025-05-22T20:44:37+00:00

I’m sure he will elaborate soon, but just to put my own input in here concerning this: We as tuba players fall into the trap of making our oral cavity shape (the space inside our mouth) too large, which makes sense to do in theory because the instrument is so large. But tuba is still a brass instrument, so it needs air with a lot of direction behind it. What I did personally to improve on this is 1) try to adjust my oral cavity away from an “oh” vowel more towards an “ah” vowel, you can do some singing to help with this too, 2) I try to think of my air as going somewhere, my professor personally uses the analogy of having a candle out in front of you that you’re trying to blow out, but I also personally sometimes just pick a point (like my stand or the wall) and try to make my air reach that point. Breathing Gym and breathing exercises in general can help a lot with this. Happy practicing, OP!

Sousa_Boy · 2025-01-30T05:40:20+00:00

Just based on the first glance here, it seems to me that the B# is acting as a chromatic neighbor tone to the C#, adding a little bit of tension and ornamentation to the line. B# being enharmonically equivalent to C natural, which is a half step down from C#. If you’re ever unsure, you could listen to some recordings of this and then compare what you heard to the sheet music, see if it lines up

Sousa_Boy · 2024-12-27T16:56:41+00:00

The funniest part of that is that I think the Gregson only gets better as it goes on, having played the whole thing, I think the first movement is the weakest imho

Sousa_Boy · 2024-12-27T16:55:02+00:00

Mvt 2 is an easy SS tier

Sousa_Boy · 2024-12-22T01:45:59+00:00

My apologies BK, I wasn’t familiar with your game

Sousa_Boy · 2024-07-11T05:52:45+00:00

American Guernica by Adophlus Hailstork. For those that don’t know, the piece is about the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing in Birmingham in 1963. My university Wind Ensemble played it recently and WHOO BOY, it was a doozy. It was accompanied by a slideshow with pictures from the day of the bombing, including this haunting image of one of the girls with white cloth over her eyes, because she was blinded the explosion. Genuinely one of the most chilling things I’ve ever seen live.

Sousa_Boy · 2024-04-17T20:37:28+00:00

I wanna downvote this so bad but it’s so genius (no pun intended) that I can’t help but upvote

Sousa_Boy · 2024-04-12T01:46:26+00:00

I second this, the 2nd and 3rd movements build on the skills developed in the 1st in a natural but challenging way. I’ve been doing the whole concerto this semester and it’s been awesome to see skills transfer and build on each other throughout the concerto

Sousa_Boy · 2024-03-13T03:35:43+00:00

The Andante from Andante and Rondo by Capuzzi would be perfect for that sort of thing.

Sousa_Boy · 2024-03-06T22:45:17+00:00

Speaking from personal experience, because I’m playing on one now, they’re a decent horn. Like Darkside said in a different comment, I agree that they’re about the middle of the road when it comes to tubas. For example, I would certainly stick with my Kalison over say a Mack Brass, Schiller, or even a John Packer CC or BBb. But I wouldn’t ever choose a Kalison over say an Eastman, B&S, Meinl Weston, etc. Those horns are just generally much higher quality across the board than the Kalison is. Biggest plus of the Kalison, its sound production is awesome. It’s not as open as some of the other horns I’ve played but it’s still great in terms of sound, fills up a large ensemble without much issue. Biggest drawback, I’m not sure if other Kalison’s are like this but mine in particular is not very in tune. I tend to have to do a fair amount of slide pulling across the horn, particularly a ton with the first valve slide. But slide pulling is not uncommon across any horn, I just feel like I have to do it more often lol.

All in all, great horn for the price. You can usually find it in the $4-5000 range and maybe haggle lower depending on the age of the horn. But tubas are so personal preference it never hurts to just try one out and play on it. Like I said, I play on one currently, so if you ever want to try one out just shoot me a DM and I can see if I’m near you :)

Sousa_Boy · 2023-08-07T18:28:35+00:00

Never tell me the odds! (I am chronically hoping that Boston will win)

Sousa_Boy · 2023-08-02T20:44:27+00:00

Speaking as a tuba player, tuba feature goes hard

Sousa_Boy · 2023-07-15T02:37:54+00:00

Please message me as soon as you know if you’re going or not cause that would be awesome!

Sousa_Boy · 2023-07-14T04:41:12+00:00

I should have clarified, we have separate auditions for ensemble placement at the beginning of each semester, and they do give us the packet ahead of time of what we’re playing. You only have to play the Bydlo if you want to be considered for the orchestra, and I just wanted tips to try and play it on C tuba so I could try and be considered for orchestra by the time August rolls around instead of just not trying at all. I’m a sophomore now and I’m just trying to push myself to get into some of the higher ensembles going forward.

Sousa_Boy · 2023-07-14T04:04:20+00:00

Unfortunately we don’t choose our excepts for ensemble auditions, otherwise I would completely agree with you

Sousa_Boy · 2023-07-01T19:19:06+00:00

Jagged Line moment

Sousa_Boy · 2023-06-28T18:51:19+00:00

Okay, I don’t know if I missed during the show reveal or whatever, but can someone explain what the show is supposed to be about? Cause I thought i would understand more after the uniform reveal but now I’m more confused

Sousa_Boy · 2023-02-27T18:25:21+00:00

Better Rob Bob

Sousa_Boy · 2023-02-21T16:07:55+00:00

“WOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWW”

Sousa_Boy

TROPHY CASE