Re: Re: Re: Doug Elliot mouthpiece question


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Posted by Rick Denney on November 12, 2001 at 15:56:32:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Doug Elliot mouthpiece question posted by Ryan on November 09, 2001 at 19:08:00:

I'm not sure the problem you mention is all that severe, or even correctable using only a mouthpiece. My teacher is moving me away from futzing around with the slides a lot, and using air speed to control pitch. I'm not warming up with a tuner, to help nail down a sense of pitch in my ears, and surprising myself that all my previous notions of my intonation tendencies vary in ways that have nothing to do with the tuba. Such as: My low Bb is sharp compared to the high Bb, when I'm playing them successively in octave lip slurs. The low Bb is fine when I'm playing lip slurs from there down to lower notes, and the high Bb is find when I'm slurring down to lower notes. But the high Bb is flat when I slur down to it from higher notes, and so on.

T'ain't no shank gonna fix this problem.

So my general advice is that if you are playing a tuba and a mouthpiece that others generally find to be in tune, then don't look to the equipment to solve a problem of being 10 cents flat on a low note.

But having a shank that fit the receiver just right seemed to correct a general tendency for the high range to go sharp on my tuba. And I'm not talking ten cents--I'm talking quarter tones. For me, when a tuba is within ten cents up and down the range, then that's good intonation. I have to be able to move around that range in any case to keep up with my band mates.

Rick "having his ears opened" Denney


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