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I've been self taught in the tuba and have played about ten years. I bet I have a lot of bad habits and need some guidance.

There are a few things that I am having problems doing and I need some in person guidance. I need someone who really knows their stuff because I'd like to get some guidance to improve in four or five lessons. I would be open to going to the U. Washington Campus if the teacher was there.

I really enjoy the tuba but the groups I'm in have been ramping up the difficulty with the music selection and I'm having a hard time following along. I want to continue with the groups.

Thanks!

When I was in your shoes, I sought out the nearest symphony performer whose playing I admired.

Even if the performer is not a great teacher, you'll still spend the rest of your life trying to implement what you hear in those few lessons.

Not all symphony musicians will teach amateurs, but you'd be surprised at how many will, and how reasonable it is compared to the cost of everything else in life.

Rick "once a month is probably sufficient for a self-motivated adult" Denney

When I taught college music theory, I loved working with adult amateurs/auditing non-traditional students/senior citizens. Consistently the most motivated, drama-free and easiest to deal with, along with providing high quality work.

To name a few:

John DiCesar
Ryan Schultz
Paul Evans
Ed Phillips

Although tuba is not their primary instrument, also consider:

Danny Helseth
Jason Gilliam
Steve Fissel
Eden Garza

Thank you. I've found the contact information (website, etc.) for these and am going to contact ones which would be convenient for me and see what comes up.

The Big Ben wrote: ↑Sun Mar 05, 2023 2:26 am Thank you. I've found the contact information (website, etc.) for these and am going to contact ones which would be convenient for me and see what comes up.

Hey! I'm currently an undergraduate college student studying with Paul Evans and have great things to say about all of these people mentioned above! I've taken years of lessons from Ryan Schultz and Paul Evans and have had a few lessons with John DiCesare. All are fantastic teachers and performers and have turned me into the musician I am today. I have also had the pleasure of working with Danny Helseth and Jason Gilliam over the years, both are wonderful people and incredible musicians. While I have not worked with Ed Phillips, Steve Fissel or Eden Garza, I've heard nothing but good things about them all.

Hope this helps!

Cassidy Stanhope

The Big Ben wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 3:15 pm I've been self taught in the tuba and have played about ten years. I bet I have a lot of bad habits and need some guidance.

There are a few things that I am having problems doing and I need some in person guidance. I need someone who really knows their stuff because I'd like to get some guidance to improve in four or five lessons. I would be open to going to the U. Washington Campus if the teacher was there.

I really enjoy the tuba but the groups I'm in have been ramping up the difficulty with the music selection and I'm having a hard time following along. I want to continue with the groups.

Thanks!

I would suggest to you that some folk are better teaching different levels of skill and that a good brass teacher might well meet your particular needs better than a professional tuba player. If you’re budget limited - many folk are - then a local teacher of high school pupils might give you value (College entry can be tough and someone gets them to that level of excellence). As a further thought the better teachers are those that love to teach more than they love the income that it can be bring, just saying.

Do you really need a formal teacher? They are good things but in the band that I play in we have a regular visitor who plays bass next to me; every rehearsal he turns up at is an opportunity to learn about playing better, a lesson day. He’s primarily a Cornet player and just doubles for a bit of fun, but he sure can play anything and everything put before him and he’s happy to help others along too.

Good luck and success with your endeavour.
All one needs to substantially improve in your situation is an occasional, well informed kick in the butt to set one back on track.
One such appointment will be good for several months of improved woodshedding, after which a checkup and gentle nudge will come in handy to let you keep up the good work.
And I totally agree with Rick Denney: The food for thought you´ll get on these occasions can be chewed over a lifetime.

Thanks for the thoughts and contributions vis a vis teachers in Seattle. I've been on the sidelines since the beginning of July with a torn rotator cuff and recovering from the surgery. I can't lift a horn up to play and I buzz a mouthpiece every once and awhile to remind my lip what it is supposed to do. It's five weeks since the surgery and the doc says eight weeks before I can go without a brace. I'm planning on rejoining the band for the Christmas season. When I start again, I think I'll contact someone to help me.

well -- my reason for advising a tuba teacher is that I learned basically nothing from teachers of other brass, whose cups are so small they don't know what they do in them. The VERY few lessons I took, from two different teachers, both of them SHOWED me what they did to get range. No other brass person did that; they would say things like "play the sound you hear in your head." Really. Go with a tuba teacher who will show / tell you HOW to play the sound you hear in your head. Plus give you a great sound to get into your head in the first place.
Go find Roger Lewis's posts about embouchure on wherever you can find them -- I think they are on this forum somewhere. That is the basics of what you need to know, plus remember you are inflating a battleship, not a kayak.

Players have reported that Doug Elliott can help out via online video session. He's in the camp with Donald Reinhardt and Dave Wilken who believe that the correct embouchure for you might not be the same as for someone else.

I took an online lesson with Doug, because he is (was?) totally convinced that dystonia is caused by using an incorrect embouchure for your face. He found out I was using the exact correct embouchure for my face.

That said, I found the lesson quite interesting because of how the evaluation went; he is quite thorough. If someone is having embouchure troubles, and has been locked into someone else's idea of "the only right way to play " (very common among horn players, who think everyone somehow inherited Farkas' face) -- then I think a lesson with Doug could be enlightening, and if nothing else, tell you that you're on the right track. However, his lesson is not about playing music; it's about how you set and use your embouchure, period.

Mary Ann wrote: ↑Tue Aug 29, 2023 5:21 pm well -- my reason for advising a tuba teacher is that I learned basically nothing from teachers of other brass, whose cups are so small they don't know what they do in them. The VERY few lessons I took, from two different teachers, both of them SHOWED me what they did to get range. No other brass person did that; they would say things like "play the sound you hear in your head." Really. Go with a tuba teacher who will show / tell you HOW to play the sound you hear in your head. Plus give you a great sound to get into your head in the first place.
Go find Roger Lewis's posts about embouchure on wherever you can find them -- I think they are on this forum somewhere. That is the basics of what you need to know, plus remember you are inflating a battleship, not a kayak.

Yep it’s a good idea to select a specialist; or rather it is when you’re already pretty skilled, long experienced and are aiming at a particularly high goal. The standard of playing that the OP seeks to achieve isn’t completely clear, but it ain’t principle Tuba in a well regarded Orchestra.

I suggested a more general brass teacher because it seems like the OP isn’t a music graduate and is self taught, so there may well be a raft of basic skills to get right there before building specialist skills (what ever they are). Teachers vary and I know many players who can play Cornet, Trombone and BBb to a high level (ie. switch between and then play really well). Of course I could be completely wrong, perhaps the OP needs to give us more idea about (skills wise) where his is at the moment and what he hopes to achieve.

I guess I feel the need to refute this. Beginning students are often told to "tighten up" to get higher notes, which is just plain wrong. It is the lower level students who need the best teachers, because they don't have it figured out yet, and may never get it figured out without proper instruction. I have a trumpet playing friend in his 70s who is a fine musician but never, ever figured out how to play the trumpet and uses extreme tension and pressure to play, with limited success even though he has a good ear and is musical. I simply repeat, especially beginners and low level players need adequate instruction and it's worth going to the best you can find to get it. That usually is NOT your local band director, and I mean no insult to band directors -- I've seen many who also do not know the basics of playing a brass instrument.