Tuba Lesson 1.4 Embouchure

Hi cadets, in this video we're going to be talking about embouchure and the first five notes on the tuba. Now if you are a euphonium player, this video will probably still help you since the fingering sequence is the same as the tuba, but I would highly suggest watching the trombone video to get the proper embouchure for the euphonium. And in that video they also go over the the same exact valve sequence as this, it's just demonstrated on a trombone. So you can watch both videos and probably still get a good grasp. Now before we get started with the mouthpiece and the embouchure, I want to talk a little bit about the type of air support that you're going to need to play the tuba. Now what a lot of people tend to think about the tuba is obviously you need a lot of air, it's a big instrument, but people tend to kind of assume that since you need a lot of air you need to be pushing really hard with your diaphragm or your stomach in order to get that air out. It's actually the opposite, you want to make sure that you have a really relaxed stomach and diaphragm in order to get the most air through the instrument. So what I want you to do is sit upright and take a nice relaxed breath in and just sort of let it out. That's the type of the type of air that you want to have going through your horn. Now I want you to try and tighten your stomach and try to push out the air. See how it's a lot harder to get a sound out or a lot harder to get air out through the instrument? You need to be really relaxed. Next I want to talk about your tongue. That's another thing people don't really think about when they're playing the tuba is that your tongue needs to lay flat because if you have your tongue sticking up it's going to get in the way and you're not going to be able to get enough air through the horn or produce a good sound through the horn. It's going to sound kind of muffled and it's just not going to be a pretty sound. Now I'm going to talk about the mouthpiece and the embouchure. With the tongue that kind of affects the embouchure too but what you want to do is I want you to do is kind of take your mouthpiece and I want you, before you put the mouthpiece on, say the word oh and then slowly form that into ooh. So oh but do it kind of slow so go oh. Do that with me. Oh. Now I want you to take your mouthpiece and do that in your mouthpiece. What that's going to do is sort of form your mouth to how it should be in the mouthpiece for the most part. We'll talk about another step in there in a second. Just take your mouthpiece. Oh. Can you do that with me? Now see how the corners of my mouth were firm but not, it's kind of hard to see since it is such a large mouthpiece but the corners of your mouth should be firm, not letting air out. It should be a nice seal but not too tight of a seal. If you put too much pressure on the mouthpiece it's going to develop a really bad habit with your higher notes because you're going to be putting, if you put too much pressure on your mouthpiece trying to get out some of your higher notes the sound isn't going to come out and it's going to probably actually damage your mouth. So yeah just be really careful about that. Make sure that the corners of your mouth are firm. You're doing the oh ooh and what you want to think about is you want to leave, one you want to leave a space between your teeth, your top and bottom teeth. Make sure your tongue is down and I want you to think about having a tube in your, through your mouth going through the mouthpiece. So now I want you to think oh ooh squeeze the tube through the lips, with the lips. Squeeze the tube with the lips oh ooh. So can you do that with me? Oh ooh squeeze the tube with the lips. You see how my mouth is formed like that? It kind of looks, it's going to look kind of bad. It looks almost like it like a duck face but not. Make sure you're not doing through your mouthpiece because that's going to be bad. But that's going to kind of be what it feels like. Now I want you to, we're going to do now is buzz through the mouthpiece and actually make a sound thinking about all those things. Sam let's give it a try. Now I'll do it and then you can do it with me. Think oh ooh squeeze the tube with the lips. Okay now try that with me. Think oh ooh squeeze the tube with the lips. Now you don't have to say oh ooh every time you want to play your instrument or buzz through your mouthpiece. That's just what you should be thinking when you put your mouthpiece up to your lips. So yeah just remember all those things and next we'll demonstrate some of the notes on the instrument. Now a couple things before we actually start making sounds in the instrument that I want to point out that I kind of forgot to mention in the with the mouthpiece. The number one thing that you should really really try to work on when you're starting off is don't puff out your cheeks. That's something that every you know tuba player in a movie or that you tuba player that you see or think of plays with their cheeks out like that. That actually is not what you should be doing at all. You should be making sure that your air is going through your instrument not out into your mouth because that'll kind of lead to a weaker sound which is you won't be able to get you're not getting faster the the speed of air that you need to get through the instrument in order to produce a good sound when you puff out your cheeks. So just kind of keep that in mind and that goes for all brass instruments not just the tuba. Just kind of remember that while you're playing. Now the first note that we're going to go over is the low b-flat. It's no valves are pushed down and this is all everything that I'm teaching here is going to be the same for the euphonium but as I said you can also watch the trombone video and get the same experience. So okay so remember think oh squeeze the tube with the lips we're going to play the low b-flat okay try that with me now you notice how my cheeks were not puffed out I was I took a deep breath and I blew the air through the horn uh I was the whole time I was thinking the oh in order to put my face to the mouthpiece and make sure that my face was on there right you want to make sure that about half of the mouthpiece is on your top lip and about half is on the bottom of your lip since you're probably a younger player that's kind of the idea that you want to think about as you get older uh your mouthpiece is probably going to shift a little bit that's completely normal completely natural and if you notice that it's starting to kind of feel weird you might want to talk to your private lessons instructor or your band director and see what they think you should do about your where your mouth is because as you grow it's gonna your your embouchure is likely to change uh next note we're going to learn is the c which is the first valve and the third valve at the same time uh you can also play this note with the fourth valve don't worry about that for now um for now I only want you to think about one and three for c okay so now we're going to play c remember oh squeeze the tube with the lips next or we're going to learn the d which is first valve and second valve now as you can see this tuba uses what are called rotary valves um if you the earlier video or the the video about uh posture and setting up your instrument I kind of explained a little bit about the rotary valves do you have piston valves they're the exact same they're just probably going to be up on this part of the up on this part of the tuba the top part of the tuba um as opposed to over here so the one and two for a deep remember deep breath in squeeze the tube with the lips oh uh try that with me one and two okay the next note is e flat that will be using the first valve now when I say first valve second valve third valve uh you're actually you're thinking about your the your fingers your first finger is your index finger your the second valve is used with your middle finger and the third valve is your ring finger so when I say one and two or one or one and three uh those are the fingers I'm talking about so your index finger for one e flat okay try that with me deep breath in oh squeeze the tube with the lips now the last note that I'm going to teach you is f and that is again with no valves uh yeah so it uh same same thing deep breath in oh squeeze the tube with the lip okay try that with me okay now let's go back and try them all in order so you can kind of hear how they sound together so I'll start with b flat which is open c one and three d one and two e flat one and f open or no valves one and three for c one and two for d one for e flat and open for f okay there you have it uh if you have any questions at all please feel free to email us at the email address below or ask your private instructor or your band director I would suggest practicing a few times every week as opposed to once or twice for a long period of time just a few times a week um will kind of help instill everything uh into your brain kind of give you uh it'll it'll make sure that your everything's retained uh better so just make sure you practice throughout the week as opposed to just once or twice for a long period of time um I'd also suggest practicing buzzing into your mouthpiece separately that way you'll kind of get um a good it's a good warm-up and it kind of gives you a a good idea of how your uh it it makes it it's a better workout for your lungs for uh your mouth all that kind of stuff um it's just good practice so make sure you're doing that and yeah happy practicing thanks for watching