1. Do you advocate buzzing? If so, how and why? If not, why?
This is a loaded question! I don’t set or have a daily buzzing routine for myself, or my students. BUT, I/we personally work on playing the mouthpiece in the registers that will be physically the same as how we would play our instrument. For example, everyone is built with a different set of lips, and when you play into the low register/high register, the back pressure that you feel on the instrument is not there on the mouthpiece. We tend to have a different “set-up” to play into the extreme registers on the mouthpiece than when we are in the low/pedal or high/extreme register of the tuba/euphonium. The way you do anything, is the way you do everything!!!…so I’m a huge advocate of consistency in the way that we approach mouthpiece playing.
I will work on getting what I like to call the correct “Air to Buzz ratio” in a students mouthpiece sound. Think 65% airiness, to 35% buzzy-ness. A “hoo-ey” buzz that has pitch clarity to the center of the sound, (and is precisely in tune!) on the mouthpiece rather than a buzzy buzz has always produced better results for me. This allows me to begin to find the slot of the note on the instrument, and to begin to get more resonance out of it.
2. What are some other creative ways you practice away from the instrument?
I spend a lot of time in the car driving across the Everglades between Sarasota and Miami (3 hours each way). On my drives I listen to a ton of music, and am always trying to better my listening skills. For example, I’ll try to study phrasing, how meter functions, tone color/timbre, the fronts of notes, releases of notes, lengths of notes, shapes of notes and how all of these elements impact a phrase…etc, this list goes on and on…basically a game of how many things can I hear, and pick up on, and how would I go about doing this on my tuba.
I’ll also often turn on a metronome while driving and sing the subdivisions of whatever it is I happen to be working on. Trying to perfect one’s time and rhythm is a fun pursuit!
3. Do you do a daily routine? Is it important in your opinion? Is it the same every day? Why, or how does it change?
YES! Absolutely x 1000 I am a huge believer in the daily routine, and think that it’s importance can’t be underestimated to both the young student, and veteran player. It is how we perfect our “craft” away from the “art”.
That first hour or two of my day on the tuba is spent on doing a routine. I want to always be in the best shape that I can be on the tuba, and a routine is a way for me to keep this up on a day-to-day basis. I’ve got about 8 hours worth of warm-up/routine material that I personally like to use, and will cycle through it during each week so that I never become bored, stagnant, or used to doing anything in a certain order. I believe that a routine should cover everything that you would ever be expected, or can imagine being asked to do in the orchestra/solo stage. My daily routine covers basic-breathing exercises, flexibility, fingers, tonguing/articulation, dynamics, and range extension.
I like to start the first 20 minutes of my routine the same way each day, and have a mixture of flexibility, finger work, long tone/dynamic work, and range packed into these first 20 minutes to make sure that I’m ready to go for the day if I were for some reason in a bind, and not able to spend any more time than that. I can almost always find 20 minutes on a busy day.
The material that I cycle through include exercises that I’ve developed throughout the years, Joe Alessi’s routine material, Chris Olka’s routine material, Roger Bobo’s Mastering the Tuba, Mel Culbertson’s Muscle-Ups, and Alan Baer’s Scale material.
4. What is a recording (plural if you want) that you think exemplifies great musicianship? A favorite track from your own recordings and why is also favorable!
There are so many great recordings out there, and too many tracks that I listen to to name just one, but I’m a huge fan of James Ehnes for his flawless technique/broad sound, Hilary Hahn’s musical decisions, Yefim Bronfman’s phrasing structure, and Frank Zappa! Zappa was just so multi-dimensional.
My new solo album, Yellowbird will be released this fall. It’s a unique project in that it features solo tuba accompanied by a jazz piano trio. I recorded a work on there that is purely ethereal in nature - The Peacocks by Jimmy Rowles.
5. What is/are some of the pieces of advice/exercises/etude books that you felt were most crucial to your development?
I have a different path in that I began my journey as a euphonium player, and was heavily invested in that until about 2009. I went to Aspen that summer to work with Warren Deck, and It was then that I 150% shifted direction and got serious about playing the tuba.
The best piece of advice I can give an aspiring player is to work harder than you ever have at developing your ear to analyze sound, phrasing, time, rhythm, and pitch better than you could the day before. It is, and should be an endless pursuit for any serious musician.
The other advice I have to give would be that rather than spending endless hours trying to learn how to play your instrument via repertoire, is to develop the patience to learn how to play one note extremely well on your instrument with a great CLEAR, OPEN, and RESONANT sound. Then take what you did on that note, and fold it over to the next one.
The professional player in my opinion needs to be able to do this well within 5 octaves. That’s 60 notes. Then, learn how to crescendo and decrescendo on each note without changing this clear, open, and resonant sound that you’ve developed.
There are 8 dynamic markings to then master: ppp, pp, p, mp, mf, f, ff, fff. 60x8 = 480…There are now 480 notes I want to be able to perfect, and own at anytime whenever I decide to use them.
There are also 8 articulation markings that I want to be able to play at each of these 8 dynamic settings: Staccato, tenuto w/staccato, tenuto, a regular accent marking, accent with tenuto, accent with staccato, a marcato marking, and marcato with staccato. 480 notes at different dynamic levels x 8 different articulation markings = 3,840… 3,840 different settings are what I want to have in my toolbox, and at my disposal.
While daunting to think of in these terms, I never get bored in my practice, and the end result should in turn be a player that feels totally empowered with their “craft” to make beautiful “art” and musical decisions while playing any excerpt, solo literature, or etudes that one may approach.
I play etudes (Rochut, Bordogni, Snedecor, Kopprasch, Blazhevich, Grigoriev, etc…) and assign them to my students to evaluate and shore up what we can and cannot do well on the instrument, or musically as a musician.
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