Posted by Rick Denney on October 18, 2001 at 11:52:26:
In Reply to: "laying back" -versus- "relaxation" posted by Dale on October 17, 2001 at 20:03:26:
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, which is perhaps the one strategy destined to make the problem worse.
It seems to me several things are going on here. Some folks play too loud. They need to lay back. Some folks get a bad sound because they are too tense. They need to relax.
But the aspects that have been getting my attention lately are different from these age-old tuba truths.
One comes to me from something Mike Sanders told me many years ago. He had bought his Yorkbrunner about a year before, and he told me that he had had to realize that the big horn required him to relax and let the horn do the work. He had previously played an Alex, which he said was wonderfully versatile but the player had to make it all happen. This is what I've been discovering just lately over a year after buying the York Master. When I push in the same way I pushed my Miraphone, the sound loses that enveloping quality. When I relax and let the horn do the work, the sound if anything gets bigger, and sometimes gets too big. Efficiency improves. What I haven't done is try to take that back to the Miraphone to see if my playing on that instrument would improve as a result. I suspect that it would.
The relaxation thing has two aspects for me. I seem to have trouble in the middle register, for the notes on the staff. Lower and higher stuff are easier to play. The transition from Bb on the staff to C on the staff seems the hardest, right behind the transition from the F at the bottom of the staff to the G right above it. I was struck by Chuck Jackson's heart-breaking description of the effects of his focal dystonia, with many of the symptoms matching my own stuggles. But I don't think I have that excuse. For me, I think it's that I use very little pressure in the low range and too much in the high range, making both work, but that the middle becomes a no-man's land where any pressure at all is fatal but where I'm not using my embouchure firmly enough to avoid needing the pressure. The elimination of the need for this pressure in any register has become an objective for me, and it requires relaxation, but it also requires enough embouchure firmness to permit that relaxation.
If you good players find that last paragraph laughable, do me a favor and correct me before I go off on a tangent with my playing.
The second relaxation aspect as to do with performance pressure. This is entirely psychological, and I think it comes from have a higher opinion of my own playing and trying to live up to that opinion. A more charitable but less honest description might be that my standards have improved. One thing I know: A sure cure for performance pressure is to program the body to favorable behavior patterns so that the stressed-out brain can be disconnected from the physical process entirely. This, to me, is the essence of Song and Wind. But it is therefore connected to the relaxation of the previous paragraph: Pressure against the mouthpiece induces general tension, which leads to the feeling of losing control, which leads to more tension, and so on.
Another thing I know: Laying back and relaxing are the interests of players reaching new levels. Even Pat Sheridan discussed that relaxation was the primary discussion topic in his lessons with the greats. It's ironic that as we progress, we more and more learn the importance of backing off. In response to a question from a first-year bike racer, Greg Lemond (three-time winner of the Tour de France) said, "It never hurts any less, you just go faster." The objectives and personal standards of good musicians seem to recede just slightly faster than our progress towards them.
Rick "working on his fear of letting it flow" Denney