Posted by Rick Denney on October 27, 2002 at 20:46:25:
In Reply to: Re: Eb fingerings posted by Jay Bertolet on October 27, 2002 at 13:46:56:
Chuck and Jay are right on. I learned F, from BBb, and I'm not one of those who can rely on an abundance of natural gifts, either transpositionally or musically, to make it easy. I'd have never stayed in music had I started on horn.
To me, learning a tuba in a new key is like learning tuba all over again. You follow exactly the same steps: Learning fingerings for a Bb scale by writing fingerings under the notes and then playing them. Then you learn four or five other common scales. Then write fingerings under copies of simple music. Then play (different) simple music without the fingerings. Learn more scales. Work on harder music. Eventually you get to the point where the new key is as comfortable as the old.
But it takes much less time than it did the first time, because you won't have to learn how to buzz notes, you won't have to build a basic embouchure that can do lip slurs and other non-fingering stuff, and you won't have to learn the chromatic patterns.
It took me about a year to get as comfortable on F as I was on BBb, while playing both, though it took much less time to reach reasonable proficiency. When I needed to use the F in a gig before reaching the needed proficiency, I'd swallow my pride and write in fingerings. After a couple of years, I was better on F and doing more gigs with that instrument. Now, I'm better in some keys and in some ranges on F and better in other keys and ranges on BBb.
Don't worry about the occasional brain farts--it happens to the best of them. They will diminish over time.
Rick "who thinks the most gifted need the least thinking about how to do this" Denney