Warm-Up Techniques To Bring Your (Tuba) Playing To The Next Level

"Simply put, a tuba player is only as good as his warm up."

"Why warm-up?", you might ask.

For many high school students the typical warm up consists of buzzing the mouth piece for a minute or two, followed by a few scales. Although this is better than nothing, its benefits are minimal. Oh, we all know warming up is a necessity for any brass player, needed to level out intonation and allow the player to perform at their best. However; more can be gained by following these simple, but often overlooked techniques.

1. Stretching

Stretching is one technique that is too important to overlook. As tuba players, we know better than anyone that air=sound. What's the best way to get more (or better) sound? The answer is more air. And the only way to do this is through proper breathing.

Whole books could be written on breathing techniques, but I won't go into that here. I will say that stretching the upper body, paying special attention to the shoulders, is a good way to gain some extra lung capacity without too much work.

2. Long Tones

You've heard it before and you'll hear it again. Before you do any playing, do long tones first. They are the most important step in this process. They keep you from playing before the tones are ingrained in your head and help both tone and endurance. Most importantly, do not play anything in the extremes of your register. This will ruin the whole process.

Keep things in the middle of your range and you will sound better later.

3. Long Tone Lip Slurs

This is a common technique, preached to students throughout the world by their band directors. Unfortunately students will often ignore their advice. "Why practice whole notes anyway?? I can already do that just fine!"

They don't realize that they are preparing their lips gradually. The long tones condition the lips and the ears to perform at their best. The lip slurs are also important. They train the ear to hear the pitches before they are played. This will actually increase enable one's sight reading ability, as hitting pitches will become more natural!

Long Tone Lip Slurs

Play Through this once or twice at the beginning of practice.

4. More Lip Slurs!

After warming the lips up a little with the long tones, you are now ready for some flexibility exercises. Becoming proficient with these is essential to building a firm foundation. Once they are mastered, your embouchure will be ready for anything.

Start out low, as always.

These should be the finishing touch on your warm-up. After this, you're are ready as you are going to get.

When you can play this without difficulty, you are now warm and can move on to your "real" practice.

If you add these 3 simple techniques to your daily routine, I promise you will become a better player and there is no better feeling than knowing you've reached a little higher than before.

Until next time,

-- Mike Quain